I really don't like the narrative around this incident.
In particular, this:
a girl who studied economics in the U.S., with no prior medical background and minimal entrance exams, obtained an MD from China’s top medical school in just four years
.. seems completely normal to me. Lots of places have 4-year medical degrees if you start with a bachelor's. The intellectual ancestor of this forum is Scott Alexander, who did exactly that - undergraduate degree in philosophy followed by a 4-year graduate-entry medical degree.
The difference is only one less year vs a standard 5-year medical degree, and the 4-year program doesn't include compulsory courses like English, politics etc, so they're probably spending about the same amount of time on the actual medical training.
The comparison to a regular medical course as 5+3 years also seems misleading because graduates of 4-year degrees also need to do the same 3 years of residency training. It's not 4+4 vs 5+3, it's 4+4+3 vs 5+3
I'm not saying the story doesn't raise real concerns. But the thesis plagiarism and skipping two thirds of her residency are the real issues here, not graduate-entry medical degrees.
[Edit: And of course also the part where a surgeon left an anesthetized patient on the operating table for the best part of an hour while he chased after his lover. Focusing on Dong's academic credentials feels like fixing blame on the mistress rather than the actual guilty party.]
Kevin_P
2mo ago
We run into kids in the same uniform as the top school in China again at the market, furthering doubt that this isn't some universal high school uniform.
Not a universal uniform, but in recent years the government has been encouraging top schools to set up branches elsewhere. Some have set up quite a lot and they generally aren't on the same academic level as the original campus. So even if the uniforms say RenDaFuZhong or whatever, it might not be the "real" RDFZ.
Kevin_P
2mo ago
Getting a phone with a hardware shutter button is absolutely essential
The Volume Down button works for this on pretty much all recent phones.
Kevin_P
3mo ago
That distinction doesn't really exist anymore. Look on the Steam store page, Gathering Storm is under the DLC section.
Kevin_P
3mo ago
Kevin_P
3mo ago
It's included in the original grant amount. So you'd ask them for 155k, and the team at Prestigious University would ask for 170k for the same work, then the funder would theoretically take that into account when deciding where to spend their money. You also have to tell them how much is direct costs and how much is overheads, not just "we need 155k".
Kevin_P
4mo ago
British English already has a word for this: quango (from quasi-non-governmental organisation)
Kevin_P
4mo ago
Language courses are overwhelmingly female, even compared with the overall college population. And they usually include a year abroad which is a big driver of moving abroad more permanently.
Kevin_P
6mo ago
You're both overstating and understating the situation.
On one hand, it goes way beyond just literature and philosophy. Open up the STEM box and you'll find that it's only really the T and E parts that lead directly to careers. There might be more demand for PhD graduates in the sciences but the majority of students stop with a bachelors and there aren't really any more jobs that specifically need a degree in e.g. biology than those that need you to have studied history. High school teacher is basically the full list.
But on the other hand, you're missing the generic value of a degree. Pretty much all white collar jobs these days need you to have a degree and most aren't particularly picky about what you studied. Yes, maybe a lot of that is just signaling, but the signal is a real thing (earning a degree proves that you have some combination of intelligence and conscientiousness, which is also valuable to an employer) - so playing the game is rational for both students and companies.
I remember a well-known poster here (Tracing Woodgrains? Not 100% sure) having the same plan, then they took longer than a traditional degree to graduate because a large part of the university experience is social pressure and the WGU experience doesn't provide that part.
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