Nataliya Horban writes: My choice of universities turned out to be mostly a waste of my precious times.
I have always found it hard to understand people who talk about their college years as the best time of their lives. My own university experience in Ukraine was a constant clash between reality and my ideas about what a proper education ought to be. I came to university for real knowledge, but my expectations were not met and that was hard for me to accept.
Maybe I wouldn’t have thought twice about the nature of Ukrainian higher education and would have gone through it fairly satisfied if hadn’t I spent a year in the United States on an exchange program. Having experienced a different approach to studying revealed to me the bumpy road of the Ukrainian-style pursuit of knowledge.
Before studying in a U.S. high school, I was a pretty typical Ukrainian school kid. If I was the first one to solve a problem during a math test, I would pass the solution on to my classmates; if there was a question I didn’t remember the answer to during an exam, I would cheat by peaking into a textbook or ask my fellow classmate to help out.
I wasn’t bothered by these ethical lapses while growing up in Ukraine. In fact, I saw no reason to do it differently.
Students of Kyiv Mohyla Academy at a lecture on Nov. 25, 2009. (UNIAN)
That made the shock of my year at an American high school all the more jolting.
During a calculus test in my U.S. high school, our teacher stepped out and the students kept working as if nothing happened – no one cheated! Everyone remained quiet, not taking the opportunity to solve the problems collectively.
I enjoyed this honest way of studying. I loved being responsible for my own successes and failures. It was liberating not to be distracted by others to speed up with a solution, so that I could pass it on for others to copy down.
I came back to Ukraine believing that I would not be able to study at a place where, despite knowing the subject well, I would need to pay bribes to get good grades, as is often the case at Ukrainian universities.
I was terrified by the thought of typical Ukrainian professors – unapproachable, “all-powerful, all-knowing and all-wise.” Many of them have the attitude that I, a stupid hopeless student, should be grateful that they, with all their glory and supreme intelligence, are trying to put some sense into that useless head of mine.
So I didn’t choose my university based on what career I would like to pursue. The decision was made out of desperation, to avoid the “Ukrainian way” of education as much as possible. Rumor had it that the International Christian University, a private institution, gravitated towards an honest way. English was the language of instruction and a number of foreign professors worked there, so I entered it and chose international economics as my major.
It was indeed a bribe-free zone but far from a problem-free one.
My disappointment with Ukrainian education reflects both national problems and those specific to my university.
I conclude that Ukrainian students tend to see higher education as a burden, a formality that one can’t avoid and just needs to get over with. All Ukrainian students are interested in is korochka, or their diploma. Such an attitude is the underlying reason why skipping classes, cheating on exams and bribing are norms.
As a result, a diploma from a prestigious university no longer signals anything to potential employers. They are interested only in your work experience and skills, as they realize the diploma may or may not be a genuine reflection of your knowledge. Who knows how many times you actually showed up to classes?
I didn’t come out of university prepared to work as an economist. Strange as it may sound, I had great professors of literature, the Bible and sociology, but classes in economics were poorly taught. Soviet-trained professors struggled with delivering lectures in English as well as finding a balance between the old Soviet style of education and the Western standards my university required them to follow. The result of such an education is not hard to guess.
My happiest time started when I got out of the university. I am no longer obliged to waste my time on low-quality class hours. I didn’t give up on studying, though, since nowadays lectures from the world’s top universities can be found online in a video and audio form and accessed for free. In contrast to my experience, those lectures stand out, those professors stand out. No wonder Ukrainian universities are nowhere in the global rankings of top universities.
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Horban can be reached at
