British Undergraduate Education from a Personal View

Chen Zonghao (Major in Electronic Information Science and Technology)

As an undergraduate, I am honored to attend a summer program of London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in my freshman year. Later, I spent one year at Worcester College of the University of Oxford as an exchange student. I would like to talk about my feelings about undergraduate education in the UK based on my personal experience.

British education is free and undisciplined. My tutor told me at the first tutorial, “You are all supposed to work hard, but who cares?” When I heard that, I kind of doubted whether I entered a fake institution of higher education. But indeed, the experience in the following months exactly demonstrated what the sentence describes. Most courses were less stressful and exams were easy, so that much time was left for students to spend at their demand. Then, here comes the problem: Can such a loose education model produce real excellent students?

First of all, I would like to thank my first semester at Oxford. The relaxing environment gave me time to prepare a future plan — applying for a Ph.D. program and engaging myself in academia. In the library of Worcester College, I held a hardcoverPattern Recognition and Machine Learning by Bishop in my hands. Raindrops showed their painting skills on the glass window in front of me. I performed mathematical calculations on scratch paper and tried to understand the meaning of each parameter. I really enjoyed it. After three weeks, I found I had finished the book of hundreds of pages unconsciously. The moment I closed the book, I could not believe that I had spent nearly half a semester reading a book completely unrelated to the courses of that semester.

As a major of science and engineering, my professional learning was more based on handouts and various online materials, so I rarely needed to carefully read a book.Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning andMeasure Theory were the only two "light readings" I read through from beginning to end at the Oxford's libraries. If I had been an arts major, I would have read more "light readings" and benefited more.

In all, free and undisciplined learning atmosphere gave students a lot of time to do something out of their interest, and easy courses lead to more interested exploration. Every student around me was interesting, and every student's leisure life was very colorful. Every chat was a chance to learn from others, involving the principles of gliders, how to appreciate a play, the basic tactics of chess. It was often the case that several acquaintances met and chatted for a long time in the college canteen. We were unwilling to end our talk until canteen staff came to drive us away.

However, the drawbacks of free and undisciplined learning atmosphere are also obvious. To be fair, the academic foundation of the undergraduates of the Department of Computer Science in the University of Oxford is not solid overall. Many students' exam results are terrible (of course, there are outstanding people). Most students choose to work after graduation, and the proportion of attending postgraduate programs is very low. Let’s go back to my original question. Can such an education system produce excellent students? Based on all my experience in the UK, I try to give my answer.

I think the answer is on the Oxford students. We cannot observe an education system and its education objects separately. The system is tailored for the students. So we must take into account the background of the students when we evaluate an education system. Most of the Oxford undergraduates come from rich families. Although the tuition fees of the University of Oxford are not high, the school education and extracurricular activities before admission into the university pose a huge test to family income. In a stable country like Britain, it is difficult to see successful men from poor families. This is a real social problem. Of course, there is a certain proportion of Oxford students that are not rich. But most want for nothing. The true story is: The pay earned by a computer graduate may not be higher than the interest on family deposit, so “why bother”? All my Oxford classmates said, "Everyone is going to have a bright future." It actually included a self-evident premise.

Oxford undergraduates are excellent, but their excellence is not in academic performance, to be more accurate, not in the professional ability. I met a PPE student from Balliol in the chess club. I really admire his leadership — he organized club activities very well. After deep communication with him, I found he had a deep understanding of computer and mathematics. And my bookMeasure Theory was just from him. It was a special enjoyment to communicate with him.

In terms of undergraduate education alone, I think the goal of Oxford education system is to "cultivate 95% of interesting people with certain professional knowledge and 5% of absolute professionals". Those 5% of absolute professionals will attend doctoral programs in the future, and support the academic reputation of Oxford in the doctoral stage. For those 95%, however, “interesting” is more important than “professional”. At first glance, this seems some kind of elitism — 5% and 95%. But the question is: Who are the elite in a real sense? When a student from a poor family tried his or her best to get a fully A report card and an admission into a Ph.D. program of Oxford, the 95% of Oxford students would just reply, “But who cares.”

Here are diaries I kept in the UK. I feel them interesting, so I would like to share them with you.

1. Inclusive and exclusive British people

British people are inclusive, especially London people, who welcome people from all over the world. Whether it was my classmates at LSE or clerks of convenience stores, they consciously or unconsciously talked with me, an Asian face with yellow skin and black eyes. British people are also exclusive because although they welcome people from all over the world, they treat them as outsiders rather than “one of them”. This is especially evident in royal venues. Once I bought a ticket at Royal Opera House. The conductor was a typical Anglo-Saxon, with a high nose, deep blue eyes and cool golden hair. Although he was wearing a little smile all the time, his superiority reminded me that “this is a place for English royals, not for Asians”. Finally, he gave me five coins of one pound. The problem is that his colleague had five-pound notes. Perhaps, this is the superior temperament exclusive to royals.

2. The British government

The Houses of Parliament looked magnificent but few members were present every day. That afternoon, I saw only ten or so sitting there. It was cheerless. On a weekend, I visited Cardiff, capital of Wales, whose administrative level was equivalent to Zhengzhou or Shijiazhuang of China. To my surprise, the government building of Cardiff comprises less than five stories, with mottled walls, a locked gate, and a dozen cars parked at the gate. There wasn't a soul in sight. Only a few pigeons barely added life to the place. There is a Chinese idiom that depicts desolate houses. It literally goes, "Sparrows can be caught by a net at the door". I change it into “Pigeons can be caught by a net at the door” to fit the government building of Cardiff.

A lonesome building is not the only evidence for the weak sense of presence of the government. In Britain and Ireland, you can see no political words on the streets. Moreover, the government often appears in front of the public with a negative image. For example, there is a camera shop called "David Camera". During an anti-Trump march, I heard the roar of helicopter propellers in the air and saw policemen eating sandwiches in a car. It was just at that moment that I felt the existence of the government.

So when China's rural poverty alleviation is in full swing, perhaps the British parliament is still debating on the details of policy. When China's high-speed railways spread across the country, British members of parliament are worried about where to raise money. When China's “Belt and Road’ went global, the UK was exiting the European Union.

LSE teachers call it "a crisis of democracy", but I think it is not a problem of Western democracy, but an inevitable outcome of democracy. My closing presentation in the third week was right about how to make up for British democracy. But in the preparation process, I gradually found that it was actually a problem that can never be solved — a deadlock. In the post-truth era, the drive of freedom of speech and capital and the proliferation of social media will inevitably lead to increasing drowning of truth in the ocean of information. This is a trend of the times. Even if we set up more speech supervisors, we cannot return to the age of pigeon messengers and beacon fire when speech was as precious as gold. For instance, no matter how many classics and poems we learn, we can only say, “Look, so many birds in the horizon. I’m so happy!" in our microblogs. Who can think of the lines "Lonely birds are flying in sunset, and the autumn water is dyed golden" in the poemTengwang Ge Xu (Preface to the Prince Teng's Pavilion)?

3. British cuisine

In fact, I think British food is delicious, but all my classmates think it tastes bad, so I was embarrassed to contradict them. We are born with a Chinese stomach, which naturally rejects British food. It can only demonstrate that we are not used to British food, but cannot justify how bad English food tastes.

Anyway, I have to acknowledge that British cuisine does differ greatly from Chinese cuisine. British cuisine extremely favors the richness of thick oil and red sauce (non-dinner meals may only include a sandwich and a cup of coffee, so they are not talked about here). Thick ketchup or barbecue sauce is used to wrap ingredients to offer tongues a very rich experience. Chinese cuisine, however, tends to use a right ratio of salt and sugar to stimulate the best taste of the ingredients. That is why British fries are dominated by the taste of ketchup, while Chinese hot and sour shredded potatoes retain the original taste of potatoes.

Bars are the centers of British street food culture, similar to Chinese food stalls. If you go into a room with the lights on at night, you always find it a bar. You can just order a small dish of onion rings and top them with ketchup. Taking a sip of Guinness, you will first taste the bitterness of barley malt. As the liquid enters your stomach, the bitterness fades away and is replaced by thick barley fragrance, which is released into the surrounding air through breathing. If two people drink and chat face to face, you can even smell the barley fragrance from the other’s mouth. The fragrance virtually keeps your dialogue going on. I was slightly drunk after half pint of beer entered my stomach. My face looked red under the high-power incandescent lamp in the middle of bar. Although I knew I would completely get drunk if I continued, the hand was out of the control of the brain. The brownish-black liquid seemed to have magic as it tempted the hand to constantly send the liquid into the mouth. Finally, a whole pint was finished. I put the remaining three or two onion rings into my mouth and clapped my hands. After I stood up, I felt the sky and earth were spinning round. Walking out of the bar and returning to the street, I exerted my strength to blink my eyes to identify the way back home. The night breeze of London was very gentle, with a bit smell of the River Thames. My friend and I supported each other and stumbled back to the dorm. Upon arrival, we fell heavily on the beds and fell into asleep with the shoes on.

Of course, the UK is more known for its afternoon tea food culture than bar culture. There are not too many dishes, but every one is extremely delicate. A small piece of sandwich, triangular and placed on a golden-edged porcelain dish, and a small cup of black tea make an extremely pleasant match! In fact, British young people usually have no leisurely mood to have afternoon tea. Almost all customers are elderly gentlemen and ladies. Those gentlemen made neat the few hairs on their forehead and the ladies were wearing heavy makeup and formally dressed. They were enjoying the beauty of London at four o’clock in the afternoon. Shanghai people would call them “old clerks”. Among those “old clerks”, I, a young man dressed in a sport shirt, sport pants and sneakers, looked very awkward. So I hastily ate up my sandwich and left.