[Uli]

On another note, I have experienced that studying in Thailand can have very extreme outcomes on a person - it either makes or breaks you. I have seen both cases and I am sure you know what I am referring to. You probably will have seen and also have life examples on your campus fitting into these two categories, Uli. I do hope, however, more of the former than the latter!

Exceptions confirm the rule.

It is these two categories that made me digging deep into the pedagogics part of my job. My background is management and corporate trouble shooting, both within small/medium/large enterprises and as a consultant, in the fields of business informatics and corporate strategy.

When you start teaching at a university as a practitioner, you don't want to be held responsible for such extreme outcomes. You can't be sure that it's not you who caused them until you understand where such extremes probably come from. Over the years, I learned a lot in these fields, but due to the self-censorship typical for Thailand when any topic might end up in criticizing Thai society, I never published anything about it (at least, until I started this forum last year if you consider that "publish").

Those I have in mind ("it either makes [...] you") seem to develop based on their critical thinking skills. These skills were suddenly applied to a very complex system and caused there a deep understanding that different ways are always possible. These students may not have learned a lot in terms of theories and facts, but learning these later is just a few mouse clicks and an intrinsic interest away.

When they finished their studies, they could take any job in any field related or not, and they will perform well. They now first analyze, try to understand how everything works together, evaluate the elements and their side effects, and then choose an approach that fits best for the given situation. A better preparation for a successful career is not possible, I think, and developing these skills to that level of perfection is hardly possible within your own cultural setting.

The students I write about are not only foreigners, by the way, but the Thais among them all went to school abroad for at least one year. Even when this period seems short, it coined them similarly to the three years until graduation in Thailand.

The opposite group ("or breaks you"), at least the cases coming up to my mind now, doesn't feel broken at all. I usually describe only German students as an example since I know their background best, but western students of other origin say the same about some of their fellow nationals.

It is this sort of people who always ask "why?"... "why do you do it this way?"... "why don't you do it that way?"... with the enormous arrogance and ignorance of people who believe they found the sorcerer's stone. They don't accept that different cultures might do things differently, and they can't see any sense in such approach.

These students usually come as semester abroad students to us, and after the semester they are happy to return home. They feel well with this. We feel well with this too, since they hopefully learned they should stay in Germany and should never leave the country again.

To make it complete, there's a middle group as well. They spend every free minute in Khaosan Road, feel absolutely international there, and are sure they learned a lot about Thai culture and Asia while getting drunk with backpackers from all over the world. They are the happiest of all foreign students in Thailand, I guess...

[emsfeld]

Exceptions confirm the rule.

It is these two categories that made me digging deep into the pedagogics part of my job. My background is management and corporate trouble shooting, both within small/medium/large enterprises and as a consultant, in the fields of business informatics and corporate strategy.

When you start teaching at a university as a practitioner, you don't want to be held responsible for such extreme outcomes. You can't be sure that it's not you who caused them until you understand where such extremes probably come from. Over the years, I learned a lot in these fields, but due to the self-censorship typical for Thailand when any topic might end up in criticizing Thai society, I never published anything about it (at least, until I started this forum last year if you consider that "publish").

Those I have in mind ("it either makes [...] you") seem to develop based on their critical thinking skills. These skills were suddenly applied to a very complex system and caused there a deep understanding that different ways are always possible. These students may not have learned a lot in terms of theories and facts, but learning these later is just a few mouse clicks and an intrinsic interest away.

When they finished their studies, they could take any job in any field related or not, and they will perform well. They now first analyze, try to understand how everything works together, evaluate the elements and their side effects, and then choose an approach that fits best for the given situation. A better preparation for a successful career is not possible, I think, and developing these skills to that level of perfection is hardly possible within your own cultural setting.

The students I write about are not only foreigners, by the way, but the Thais among them all went to school abroad for at least one year. Even when this period seems short, it coined them similarly to the three years until graduation in Thailand.

The opposite group ("or breaks you"), at least the cases coming up to my mind now, doesn't feel broken at all. I usually describe only German students as an example since I know their background best, but western students of other origin say the same about some of their fellow nationals.

It is this sort of people who always ask "why?"... "why do you do it this way?"... "why don't you do it that way?"... with the enormous arrogance and ignorance of people who believe they found the sorcerer's stone. They don't accept that different cultures might do things differently, and they can't see any sense in such approach.

These students usually come as semester abroad students to us, and after the semester they are happy to return home. They feel well with this. We feel well with this too, since they hopefully learned they should stay in Germany and should never leave the country again.

To make it complete, there's a middle group as well. They spend every free minute in Khaosan Road, feel absolutely international there, and are sure they learned a lot about Thai culture and Asia while getting drunk with backpackers from all over the world. They are the happiest of all foreign students in Thailand, I guess...

After reading my last comment, I hope it didn't come across as arrogant. With the "breaks you" category I was referring also to the group of (fulltime) students who get totally sucked into Bangkok's [regular] nightlife. Nothing wrong with that on face value - however, when you go partying 7 days in a week, cure a hangover with another hangover, show up at your exams with an enormous hangover, fail the exams and then start blaming the lecturer for not letting you pass, then you really have a problem. I am/ was certainly no angel, but have always lived by the motto work hard - play hard. There is a time for everything. If you loose track of your responsibilities to yourself you are borderline endangered to becoming a vegetable. I have seen this happening to really good guys and it's a shame. You'd hope that failing a class would be a wakeup call, but if that is not the case then you are on your way...

Who is to blame for this? Not an easy question - certainly the environment makes it very easy to discover your dark side . If you are prone to over-indulgance...well...then Bangkok will give you a hard time resisting. I can see why you are digging in the pedagogics part of your job to prevent outcomes like these, but I am not sure how much you can achieve on your own (or with just a few others). You'd probably have to have an entire program be taught by a handful of teachers that are able to keep people challenged and motivated. After all, what it comes down to is probably a lack of challenge to some that has them fall over - others are able to find (or motivated enough) and create their own challenges elsewhere.

In regards to the group you were referring to,

It is this sort of people who always ask "why?"... "why do you do it this way?"... "why don't you do it that way?"... with the enormous arrogance and ignorance of people who believe they found the sorcerer's stone. They don't accept that different cultures might do things differently, and they can't see any sense in such approach.

These students usually come as semester abroad students to us, and after the semester they are happy to return home. They feel well with this. We feel well with this too, since they hopefully learned they should stay in Germany and should never leave the country again.

YES - they can be very annoying. Not only for locals but also for other international students who prefer to deal with the differences rather than plainly overrule them. Some of them become so enraged over this that all they can talk about is just that. It sometimes goes to a point where you have to really distance yourself as otherwise their negativity would drag your mood down as well.

[Uli]

After reading my last comment, I hope it didn't come across as arrogant. With the "breaks you" category I was referring also to the group of (fulltime) students who get totally sucked into Bangkok's [regular] nightlife. Nothing wrong with that on face value - however, when you go partying 7 days in a week, cure a hangover with another hangover, show up at your exams with an enormous hangover, fail the exams and then start blaming the lecturer for not letting you pass, then you really have a problem. I am/ was certainly no angel, but have always lived by the motto work hard - play hard. There is a time for everything. If you loose track of your responsibilities to yourself you are borderline endangered to becoming a vegetable. I have seen this happening to really good guys and it's a shame. You'd hope that failing a class would be a wakeup call, but if that is not the case then you are on your way...

There was nothing arrogant in your comment, don't worry.

Those totally sucked into Bangkok night life are not my experience. May be it happens, but if they never attend classes I never learn about it. May be, we are simply too far away from the nightlife spots. Once you visited the nightlife spots in Bangkapi, well, there's not too much risk to get "sucked in".

The party people I remember over the years indeed were Khaosan Road addicts, and all of them were Europeans. It's known from some Asian students that they spend any free minute in Pattaya, but they still do their courses well.

Almost everybody tries it out, the Bangkok nightlife, I guess. But it quickly becomes boring, doesn't it? It's just a business, and listening to "you have a beautiful face, I love your smile" turns one instantly down.

Bangkok probably has changed a lot in regards to individual freedom, even when this does not include freedom of speech. There are more alternatives available these days than getting drunk and taking a prostitute of any of the three sexes...

Similar it is with drug addicts. Those I recognized are exclusively Thai. Sure, I can only recognize the traces, optical and behavioral patterns over the day in class, but that probably makes a real addict. The one trying it out once or twice a month cannot be recognized this way, of course.

After all, making or breaking (with all related problems) is in my experience indeed a matter of the mind, not of the nightlife anymore.

[weriis.com]

I have found many students that come here to breeze on by and have fun every night to be happy. They do not perform to their best, but they perform better than they thought they themselves would have. They have a positive attitude and I see them learning a lot. Sometimes the academic content of the course is lacking but these students socialize and begin to think more about the topics they are studying and to me, they come to life. They start thinking and they have a large capacity to think and I see some very high or potential high caliber students.
I do see a few that like the nightlife and perhaps I am just old, but me, myself, I need as much time as I can get to do my assignments and research.

When you look at all the opinions in regard to what makes a good university in this thread, you could probably summarize a list or two in order of importance the factors that make a good international program. Once you make a list or two and you analyze them, I wonder if you could go backwards, by closely looking at the factors of less importance and change the model.

[Konstantinos]

I have to mention Mahidol U here though on a good note! From what I have seen, their programs are excellent (at least on paper) - especially in the Sciences department. If you care to go through their curriculums and course outlines, they cover lots of relevant material as you'd expect from a university anywhere in the world. The feedback I have received from students and lecturers alike (admittedly from a very small sample) has been great. I guess what I am trying to say is that there are exceptions to the rule!

In regards to your comment,



This was indeed the case for me, in addition to studying a lot on my own - mostly on subjects not related to my degree at all. I also did have to relearn a lot after Thailand - not because of the education I received there, but due to a personal change in career aspirations (basically my preferences changed from aspiring to purely commercial roles to scientific roles within a commercial context). Coming from a BBA background, a had to study (and still am studying - you can never know enough!!!) a lot of maths and stats to be competitive for these types of roles. Without the experience in Thailand, I believe I wouldn't be as focused as I am today so I improved a lot in that department !

On another note, I have experienced that studying in Thailand can have very extreme outcomes on a person - it either makes or breaks you. I have seen both cases and I am sure you know what I am referring to. You probably will have seen and also have life examples on your campus fitting into these two categories, Uli. I do hope, however, more of the former than the latter!

Hi ^^ im a greek student and i plan to attend an international program in BKK but im between DPUIC and ABAC can you suggest me the better one? thank you

[emsfeld]

Again, I do not know all schools and their standards. Personally I have experienced two (BUIC mainly and one course at ABAC). I wouldnt want to make a judgement call on ABAC based on one unit only though. I have quite a few friends who studied at other Thai unis and from the feedback I could gather, the following stand out:

- Mahidol U, seems to offer many international degrees at comparable standards,
- Thammasat U, not so many international programs from what I have heard but good standards

If I had to do the same thing all over again, I'd probably opt for Mahidol - simply because they offer the program of my choice.

I've never heard of DPUIC which probably implies a lot already. In regards to ABAC I heard lots of negative feedback about their undergrad programs. Postgrad programs appear to be better based on the feedback I have received. I liked BUIC and believe that the majority of their courses were good when I had studied there 8-9 years ago. A lot of the teachers back then left and I can't really comment much on their standards today. A lot of BUIC students I knew both Thai and international, however, went on to postgrad degrees overseas and were accepted at UK and OZ unis without any problems - some even got scholarships.