greatSchism wrote:I understand where you're coming from with this in terms of having pride in your university and your country. You know it all has to do with money and as long as it's mutually beneficial, they will continue these programs as long as possible. Are you working in France as a doctor now? How was the exam? What is the most common country of origin for students?
Yes, it has all to do with money. People studying the real degree are not allowed to pay (but it doesn't change the fact that the poor cannot study anyways, because there are no student loans even for the lower costs), while the lazy failures from other countries get every luxury including kindness. And they sometimes even complain online how the Czech students aren't trying hard to make friends with them. They are really oblivious. Many of us would have preffered to get a loan and pay, to get a better quality, and not to be treated like trash. Nope, instead we get to be humiliated forever with "you studied for free, so shut up and be our slaves".
I was a doctor in France but got only the choice of very bad specialties. Now I am trying another country. The exam was horrible, my Czech medicine studies had been near worthless for it and I had had too little time aside to prepare for the french exam (and not sufficient means either, due to geoblocking), and so I got to "choose" only from trash specialties for trash candidates low on the list. I accepted for a year, but it simply didn't work for me, I didn't grow to like that specialty. I was not bad at all (patients, colleagues, even the boss was content with my work), I could have completed the education, I can learn all that is needed. I was especially good at everything not related to that specialty. But I regretted every day, I hated myself everyday, I was ashamed of being in that specialty every day, and so on. But it was simply too unfair to prepare on an extremely hard but extremely useless faculty for an extremely hard and very different exam, competing against people with every advantage. Like 95% of the foreign candidates end in the last quarter of the list.
What are the most common countries of origin? There are two main categories:
1.people from better countries, who failed at home. Spain, Portugal, not the French (those go to Romania), extremely rarely someone from an anglophone country
-Not saying all the application systems are just, some of the candidates could have been good and just not jumped through unreasonable hoops for various reasons. But still, they had been the worst back at home and went for the easier degree.
2.people from worse countries, who are motivated, but cannot afford the real anglophone countries or cannot get in the better qualities in those countries. (various countries of Middle East, but also other regions)
-Usually more motivated, but not prevalent. The better candidates among them usually go either to the better countries, or they learn Czech and study with the real students.
And there are a few exceptions that are Czech. I had had a rather stupid classmate in highschool. A kind and pretty girl, who could have succeeded at something else, but she simply didn't have the sort of talent needed for a demanding degree in spite of her parents' ambitions. She failed to get to any real medical degree in Czech. She got accepted without any problem to the foreign class, and she got at least to the second year.
Cavesa wrote:That's an interesting way to do it. If you get through all the other problems (such as some of us simply being unlikely to find a language match), the voice messages are a very nice alternative that I haven't considered much. It removes at least the time zone or schedule compatibility problem. It is not entirely like a normal conversation, but close enough.
"All the other problems" are what can sometimes be discouraging because you're trying to use what limited free time you have, and you want to get the most out of it.
While it is not perfect or like a normal conversation, it still requires some effort to translate the audio and then prepare what you're going to say in advance. You lose having to respond in real-time, but you can practice in other ways. After I record a voice message, I listen to it to ensure that I like how I sound in terms of my pronunciation and correctness. I usually end up doing a few takes.
Well, if I went for the voice messages, I would probably do very little preparation and try to sort of simulate the real-time situation. But what you describe makes a lot of sense! It might actually be perfect for some types of conversations.
I wonder whether job interviews should be practiced like this, with recording myself and trying various takes on the usual questions.