Sophia Quality... Questionable?

[innen_oda]

By no means I meant the quality was bad, easy doesn't equal poor quality. It is definitely different and students have to retain a lot more for the finals, it is indeed more focused on knowledge than workplace skills. In some lyceums in Europe they stress a lot on foreign languages and philosophy and yes that makes it easier to tackle courses like Ancient Greek Philosophers and Ethics. Summer is not fun in some schools on the other side of the pond when your summer read is Plato's Symposium. And I am not biased towards US education, the only obstacle for me throughout these years has been the cost, and I am an American now and seriously dislike it when I hear the people back in Europe saying US education is not worth it.

I wasn't suggesting that you did say US education was poor quality - it was more just a reference to the title and original post of this entire thread, and how I suspect there'd be a bit more defensiveness if the subject was the USA and not Sophia.

Foreign language instruction does make more sense here - I can travel north barely one hour and be surrounded a language completely unrelated to my own, west one hour and be surrounded by another unrelated language to either of the two aforementioned ones, southeast three hours and be surrounded by yet another completely unrelated language, east or south three hours and not even be using the Latin alphabet - and English hasn't been included in any of those. In the US, I could travel 20 hours in any direction and still be surrounded by the same language. Understanding the history of Western civilisation and language makes much more sense in the birthplace of it. No point in teaching Latin in the US - you'd be better served by teaching marketing jargon, public speaking and business entrepreneurship.

Again, it's really about what you want out of tertiary education. If you want to be job-ready with plenty of networking, a high GPA, and be an all-rounder, US unis are perfect. If you want a more theoretical challenge in being taught how to think rather than what to think, with a very specific genre focus, alongside a so-so GPA and a shedload of studying, much of Europe and Oceania will serve.

The whole point of Gen Eds, which is what Sophia mostly offers, is to give the fundamentals of a range of subjects. Sophia courses aren't trying to provide an insurmountable challenge - they're an opportunity to ensure a good foundation for further focussed study. I'm not sure why OP would want to make 'Intro to' subjects harder, unless OP doesn't quite understand what the purpose of Gen Eds is.