So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

Only three years for university? How interesting. Four years or the equivalent stretched out over more time if attending part-time has been the standard in the US for a long time.

However, change is a-comin' to US post-secondary education. As tuition climbs ever higher and graduates leave with more and more student loan debt (me included: paid off the last of my college loans in my 30s, but I'll be paying off the loans for my master's thesis project until I'm 71), questions about both the costs and the value of what they're getting for that money have reached the level of public discussion in popular media. I think uni in the US will look quite different within the next decade.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

The thing that really shocked me about the UK university system was that a Ph.D. is also only three years; in Sweden it is a four year full time degree, and the university can ask you (if they pay you for that separately) to undertake up to 20% 'departmental duties'. These can include things like being lab demonstrator (in science/engineering) and holding tutorials/seminars. If you undertake these extra duties, that means added on extra time for you to finish your Ph.D. so that most Swedish Ph.D.s take closer to five years, than four. With an experimental based research subject, most of your worthwhile results usually come in the last year, to year-and-a-half, because it takes time to learn the techniques, get the samples and make some mistakes along the way. This is an education after all, and mistakes are one of the best learning tools, so I think factoring in time for those is essential. With a three year Ph.D. there isn't really time for trying things that didn't work out, so I think students in the UK system either really miss out, or end up incredibly stress at the end of their Ph.D.s.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I think it might work better in some subjects than others -- with the molecular pathology I read in my final year, we were expected to be completely conversant with current published research -- including stuff published after we'd been lectured on the topic -- so it's not clear how much more advanced it was possible to get without undertaking a more-prolonged or self-directed research project.

But in long-established subjects such as mathematics, a fourth year diploma was required as a prerequisite to starting a PhD, at least in my university, and I don't think even after the diploma students were up to speed on current research even across the topics they'd specialised in.