You know, when you think about it America sucks :/

If it makes you feel better, being an expert in an academic field means you studied in America. Their equivalent degrees are not that equivalent.

(Psst, Shiri, this is going to need a new thread.)

No, it doesn't.

EDIT: Oh, I am not arguing that your universities are better funded or have better professors. But our universities are open to everyone and allow them to gather the necessary knowledge to progress. You aren't automatically an expert just because you finish some big-name university.

>_> I resent that!

But, having only read the first few posts, I have no problems drawing nudes of either sex. There really is a treasure trove of artistic value in the nude human form; symbolism of all the facades being stripped away, etc.

And I'm only 18, so.. I think you were just unfortunate enough to be in a room with a bunch of immature idiots.

Why exactly is someone graduating from Cambridge or Oxford or any of these not an expert? But someone who graduates in the US is?

Ethnocentrism?

Because Xavius likes to think America is the greatest in everything, of course.
(Hey, mine is on 27th)

In terms of the Austrian system, you have the Bakkalaureat and Magisterstudium degrees, the "equivalents" of an American Bachelor's and Master's degrees, which is what most people aim for for a typical educated profession. The Bakkalaureat is a six-semester program, and the Magisterstudium is a three- to five-semester program. A Bachelor's degree nominally takes eight semesters, although Americans are known to take substantially longer to complete it, because an American semester is heavier than a semester under the Bologna process. A Master's degree is three to eight semesters, depending on program (generally four). Doctorate studies on both sides of the pond are nominally two years plus thesis, which really means that you graduate when your professor is bored of you. Under either the German or Bologna process, though, you don't get a real liberal arts education (with exceptions, obviously--a Bakkalaureat in the humanities means you're getting a liberal arts education, else you aren't really a student of the humanities) until you're in your doctoral studies, whereas the American started his liberal arts studies right out of high school.

Well, the UK doesn't count. They don't use either of the Euro education-lite degree programs. Half of the top ten mentioned don't use it at the national level, and if you give me a day (need to get ready for work soon), I'm willing to bet that a couple more in the top ten issue Anglo degrees.

But what does liberal arts have to do with being an expert in a field? Say, Molecular Biology. Why does going to a US school and having to take a certain number of literature/fine arts/foreign language/civics/history/what-have-you make you more of an expert in Molecular Biology than the person who goes to the foreign school and doesn't?

Remember when outsourcing educated jobs to India was all the rage? Tons of those jobs came back, and the almost universally cited reason was a lack of creativity. They couldn't refine processes like Americans could, and they didn't operate well when situations required flexibility and reaction.

It would be horribly racist to say that people from India are inherently less creative, but what they did lack was a liberal arts education. I'm a student of biotech myself, and while you can go a long way piggybacking on other people's creativity, a lot of biological modifications require a healthy dose of creativity. That's what liberal arts studies foster--cross-education, synthesis of information from disparate sources, learning from things other than the traditional authorities in your field.

No we don't, that was changed.

EDIT: Also, you then also have to take into account that our basic schoolsystems are different as well. We get our liberal arts education earlier.

That's because as typical, my tangent sentences got in the way. Let me type it out with all tangents neatly itemized.

Everyone needs to believe they are superior to someone else in some way. (Tangent 1). Current media trends are busy painting women as far more superior both in morals, intelligence and physicality to those poor mud eating men, who can do no wrong - just make a sassy/clever remark that you're sure to have ready at all times. This rubs off on some aspects of daily life, which makes me want to chew the carpet and froth at the mouth. Tangent 2.

Tangent 1: Maybe that's what all the Buddhists harp on about acquiring - freedom from the need to feel ABOVE OTHERS.
Tangent 2: For example, the rant I had to listen to at the pub the other night that I was mocking women because I was wearing my (female) roommates harem pants, two scarves and nothing else and how I need to crawl back to my cave because of it - anything I said in my defense was dismissed as "male :censor:" and the entire thing turned into a long whinge on the history of feminism (or, I think it was. I stopped listening) and the utter superiority of women, using media examples as her prime ammunition.

Yeah, reverse sexism annoys me...trying to point it out makes you a male pig.

Lol, as hard as I'm trying, I cannot imagine this being in any way appropriate, unless it's a really funky bar or my mental image is flawed in some way.
You were instigating the whole situation, I bet.
Anyway, you can always think about it this way - pissy, power tripping extreme feminists will most likely end up all alone in the end. Unless they're lesbians. And they probably are.
Wait, am I being sexist or in any other way inappropriate?

Most likely.

I myself have taken a lot of art classes and I've never seen anything as bad as what happened to you, Marina. Having said that, I'm not at all surprised this happened in your class. Those boys were totally at fault for their behavior. It's really a behavior that seems to be ingrained. Just look at TV today. Violence, drugs and swearing has been saturated into television, but sex an nudity is much more restricted.

Especially in the United States, society and politics are strongly weighted towards Christian values. For some reason, a bunch of people got together and decided that "strong Christian values" means that sex is the worst thing that you can do. It's even worse if you are at your sexual peak and you are told that sex is evil. Even if you aren't Christian, or don't believe the general consensus on the subject, these things become ingrained into your programing.

It's really sad when these ideas turn into the destruction of art. The boys in your class were terrible, but if they keep down this path they could become very destructive. It's terrible what all this can lead to. The closing down of school programs, destruction of property, and censorship.
Just look at the Crusades...they were full of destruction and censorship. It's disgusting how they censored what they didn't destroy. Those statues weren't created with fig leaves on them...that came afterwards.

I could go on, but I think I made my point. I feel bad for you Marina. I wish people were smarter about these things. (hrm, this makes me think about a rant I could do about the educational system...but I'll save that for another time ).

You are being sexist or inappropriate when someone gets offended. You terrible person.

As soon as I am at home I will prove it to you with messaged photographs. I'm sorry, is the topic still there or is it a smoking pile of rubble?

I'm merely curious, what does this has to do with the boys ogling the female models and having homophobic reactions? Perhaps I could understand if you said that Christians have strong anti-gay sentiments, and that resulted in the homophobic reactions (which I don't agree, but I will be able to understand why you feel that way). But why does what you call the Christian concept of 'sex is bad' have to do with this?

I'm a Christian, so perhaps I'm inherently biased towards Christianity. But this seems a little strange to be brought up here.

Well, their actions were absolutely horrible and I feel sorry if the models heard the comments that they were making. I think I would just have told the main instigators to leave and give them a zero for the day. I would send the main teacher an email of the behaivor and what was said. Probably some were just going along with the crowd, but that still does not make it right. And I would not have an issue drawing a naked man or woman (though I can't draw a straight line to save my life).