[RUME] studying undergraduate mathematics outside the U.S.

[Tevian Dray]

This may not be directly relevant to your study of what happens in other
countries, but I call your attention to a letter in the December issue of the
AMS Notices [Manley Perkel, AMS Notices 52 (2005) 1318], which says in part:

	In the country in which I was an undergraduate, the
	idea of asking university undergraduates to submit
	mathematics "homework" for marking (grading) was so
	far from the norm it would have been laughable.  And
	I mean that literally.  Laughable.  No one -- not one
	student -- would have carried it out. Nor would a
	single instructor even have attempted to do so.

	Homework, by which was meant a written assignment for
	turning in and marking, was totally an elementary school
	or high school concept, for children only.  University
	students were supposed to be adults, not children, and
	were not given homework.  This is not to say we were not
	given problems to do in our university courses.  On the
	contrary, we were given many typed outpages of these.
	But we were never required to turn them in.

The country in question is not specified.

Tevian Dray
Professor of Mathematics
Director, Vector Calculus Bridge Project

MAIL:	   Dept. of Mathematics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR  97331
PHONE:     (541) 737-5159	(Math Dept:  (541) 737-4686)
FAX:       (541) 737-0517
EMAIL:     tevian at math.oregonstate.edu
WWW:       http://www.math.oregonstate.edu/~tevian