A complete disaster

I feel the urgent need to express my anger because, one more time, i can only feel disbelief at how things are done in my country. I do not pretend to do an extensive and profound analysis. In reality, life is much easier and i don't need to do research and write up a PhD thesis to see and feel with despair that what many Spaniards left as famous quotes, hold true. In brief, that Spain is a country filled with indiference towards their people and future. Those who pursue a creative career, those who pursue research, those with intellectual curiosity, are doomed to indifference and contempt.Simple reasons, simple facts, just the experiences of a few years in a short 25 years life, have been enough to show me this, and have been enough to feel let down, disappointed. The chance to live, study and work in 4 different countries made me see that yes, Spain is different.

I only need to take a look at how the universities work. We can start from a huge and extremely inefficient bureaucracy, which during three years gave me lots of reasons to commit murder. People who do not know their job and people who are just not willing to do it. I will remember with anger the hours spent going from one place to another trying to find a person who would finally help me rather than sending me somewhere else. I will not forget the times when it seemed that i needed an eternity to get a simple document or a signature. As an example, i will not forget the time i was told i would have to wait from 3 to 7 days for a document (a simple paper) because i needed a signature from the head of the Secretariat. It didn't matter the fact that i kindly asked her to please call that person to come down (it would take 2 minutes) and sign because i was leaving Spain in two days and i really needed that document. In Spain things do not work that way and if you want something to work, you have to shout. So i did, and i said i needed that document and i was tired of people not doing their job and that she would have to contact that person immediately and the person would have to come down and sign. To come down just takes two minutes, the same as when she comes down to smoke her cigarettes and have her coffes every now and then. It took her half an hour to get the document done and it just almost cost me a heart attack. I will not forget that my friend missed an extraordinary scholarship that she should have obtained thanks to her academic records simply because the idiots lost some document and she was never informed on time. I will never forget the numerous emails I sent to different academic and administrative departments which were left without a response. I will never forget the absolute lack of coordination between different departments regarding all important matters. A whole bunch of helpless people whose most exasperating habit is the face of disgust with which they receive you and perform their job.

You can imagine my surprise when i saw that another way of doing things is possible. The shiny smiles i was attended with, the brilliant professionalism and the amazing efficiency i observed in Denmark...comparisons are indeed, odious. I will never forget the first time i went to a desk and i said i needed a document to be signed and sent to Spain. I asked if they could indicate me where i should go. She asked me what i wanted and after i explained it She told me: “No problem, we do it here! Just a sec.” All this with the biggest possible smile. I was baffled, with my mouth completely opened just watching how the girl signed the document and sent it by fax. OK, i thought Denmark must be Perfectland, an extraordinary exception never to be repeated again. Well, it turned out to be similar in New Zealand and so far it has also been quite good in Czech republic. New Zealand was a dream, problem solving at the speed of light. As an example, i remember i was selected as a proxy in one of the Electoral Collegues during the regional elections in Spain. This is mandatory so i went to a desk and asked them to make a letter stating that I could not attend because i was living in New Zealand. The letter was done and sent in 5 minutes, no cost, nothing but a big smile. Another example: when i went back to Spain i had some inquires and needed some things and I contacted both the supervisor for exchange students in New Zealand and the one in Spain. The one from New Zealand answered in a few hours. The one from Spain never. These are just a few simple examples, easy to grasp for everyone. Please, to all you Spaniards who read this and have never studied or worked abroad, can you possibly imagine this? Going to a desk (two at the most) and get your things done quickly and accompained with a big smile? I know it is difficult to imagine but believe me, it is possible.

But if there is something that really breaks my energy is the education system and the quality of the lecturers. Let's begin with the lectures and this is possibly the hardest part to write for me since i also had the chance to meet a few fantastic lectures whom i will keep in my heart for the rest of my life. What in the hell is wrong with the lecturers in Spain? They look just like another bunch of office holders, unmotivated and without any passion for teaching. Countless are the number of lecturers I met whose teaching agenda resembles the one that was given in the prehistory. This is particularly striking in a degree like biology where you have to be constantly updating your knowledge and agenda, otherwise you get out of phase extremely quickly since the amount of data and knowledge broadens by the minute. This also means, many of the things that were believed to be correct a few years ago dont hold true anymore. It is extremely frustrating to find a lecturer at university who is teaching you something you know it is incorrect! When i went to university for the first time i was full of expectations, excited thinking of the incredible world of ideas, discovery, innovation, passion...and i found unbearable lectures, unable to accept a different opinion, unwilling to change their ideas or have any type of debate. Lecturers who would come to give a 50 minutes lecture that would consist of reciting notes. Boring lecturers whose goal seems to discourage their students. I will not forget our lecturer in the microbiology course. She would come day after day to class, to spend 50 minutes reading notes which had probably been prepared 15 years before or more. In the exam, she made thousands of corrections which were actually wrong! You can imagine the frustration of finding out that our grades are lower because this woman who is supposed to be teaching us is wrong. I didnt want to leave it like that and talked to a fantastic lecturer (one of the very few) and said that i wanted to go for an external correction. Her response? “You are correct but do not do it. They will all be on the side of your lecturer, it always happens and then she will have the right to recorrect your exam, and she will bring the grade further down, believe me”. I was shocked. Conclusion, i missed what would be translated as the excellence grant, which is very pursued scholarship, just for a few decimals, those that i missed thanks to a lecturer whose only goal seems to be to destroy the hopes and motivations of her students.

But what can you expect from lecturers who have spent all their lifes in the same university and have hardly (if any at all) had any professional career other than teaching? They have always occupied the same position, without any “fresh air”, they have never been abroad and never known anything other than their very limited little world of teaching. All the professorate receives money to do research, yet only 40% percent of the professors does any research at all. The research career of this 40% is often, very poor. Those who do research usually do it in the same place where they studied and then started to work, again having a “world” extremely narrow. I believe this is due in part to the very little prestige being a lecturer has in Spain, specially in something like biology, which is still considered to be, among people in their 40's or older, like being an outcast. This leads to having mediocre unmotivated teachers. Besides, the stiffness and slowness of allocating resources (which by the way are very limited) by our universities is incredible and the flexibility for our lecturers to move around through unviersities an absolute joke. What is a lecturer, who has never seen anything other than its desk, and who has never published a paper or done any research going to teach me? Once again, another world is possible.

Those lecturers in Denmark or New Zealand who would sit down to discuss a paper published by the same lecturer itself! A lecturer who would show us critical thinking and research-oriented approaches; who would discuss thousands of papers and the problems encounter, who would discuss troubleshooting and ask for our ideas and comment. Do you understand this, what do you think the problem here is, how would you solve it, what might be the reason for this result, what would you look for next? Hours and hours of discussions, seminars, slides, powerpoints...lectures and practical work where the professor is actually constantly asking you and encouraging you to not only ask but question things. But of course, these lecturers and professor are, first of all, researchers, with a whole career on their backs. They have a professional life on their field an because of that, they are suitable for teaching. Comparisons are, once more, odious.

All this is connected with our educational system, where everything is mostly lectures. That is once more, 50 minutes of boring lecturers reciting their notes and us copying them. Thousands and thousands of notes to be memorized. You see? It really looks like they are preparing us for some office positions! Then you go to another country to continue study like it is my case and i find that yeah, i probably have more knowledge than most of the people there, but i am missing something important. Students in Spain are in general unmotivated and they dont even really know why they are at university. They dont really enjoy, they dont take a lecture as something magical where you go to learn, to get fascinated, to train how to think. Not at all, there is only stress thinking of the final exam for which you need to put 100 pages of endless notes in your brain, those which you will forget two days after all exams are finished, when you get completely wasted to celebrate the end of the exam period. This knowledge makes no sense at all anymore. Of course you need to have some basic knowledge, but it is the hands-on work which provides you the experience and the capacity to create, to critically think, to innovate, to broaden your perspective and to solve problems. Of all what i learned at university, i seriously doubt i remember 5% of it, but in two years in the lab i have learnt 1000 times more than during my 5 years of uni. But i said that thesse endless notes do not make sense any more and it is pretty obvious it is like this. We have acces to internet, to thousands of data bases, electronic journals, webinars!! It made sense 50 years before, when getting access to some information was a real pain in the neck, but now? In 15 minutes i can find thousands of papers for a certain topic, lots of electronic books and discussion forums etc. I can contact experts in the matter and wait for their reply...i dont need those thousands of notes in my brain i need to think! I need to imagine, i need to ask, i need to find out, i need to wonder. This is something not understood in Spain, and this is because the administrative stuff, the lecturers and the politicians of my country have no professional life out of their office desk, have never created anything, do not have a view of the external world, there is no “fresh air flowing through the doors”. In three years and a half at the university in Spain i didnt have to write a single assignment which would resemble a scientific journal. We were never taught that. How to write a paper, how to make a good seminar, how to give a lecture, how to write a review. When i flick through the assignments i made in Spain and look at my high grades...i dont know if to cry or to laugh cause all our assignments resembled those from school. Not a single assignment that would look like a scientific journal in three and a half years and, as an example, i wrote more than 5 in a year in New Zealand.

Practical focus. Dialogues, discussions, field work...that is what other serious countries focus on. We focus on memorizing and when the practical work comes, we dont even have workbooks for all the students. Overcrowded universities, flooded with unmotivated students missing resources. Our universities are, what a brilliant lecturer described once, as cofee for everyone. There are way too many people and the problem is that there are almost no ways to discriminate between those students who are worth something and those who are not. An astonishing 30% of university students abandon university within the first two years! The average time at university is two more years than the expected! And this happens because the basic education in Spain is also failing, filled also with unmotivated teachers incapable of transmiting passion and love for what they teach to their students. An education where students hardly have to fullfill any requirements, where students begin too early at university (i started when i was 17) before they can make up their mind and an education where students get completely disappointed once they make it to uni. In Spain, everyone has to study, and you find students who do not care at all and therefore go throughout the whole degree without asking a single question to their lecturers. How in the hell is it possible that most of the students i met at university were uncapable of writing a text without making grammar mistakes! Even now, when i read things from friends, i get shocked, with some grammar mistakes that should be punished with prison (do not take this literally). Universities filled with students who do not know how to write, who do not have any ambitions and who do not really see anything precious and beautiful in being at uni. Where is that field of excellency that was supposed to be the uni? How can you motivate your students, how can you really get the best out of them, how can you get close to your student, discuss, get to know it, when you have 100 people in class? In Denmark i had group discussions of 10-20 people and in New Zealand too. What a marvelous thing.

Apparently, our minister of education believes that this might be solved, at least in part, by increasing the university fees and cutting money expenditure on research and education. What a brilliant fellow. He even says that in Spain there is the attitude of “everything for free” and things cannot continue this way. Do you want to know, my dear minister, what free means? In Denmark, you do not pay anything for your degree, either for a bachellor or for a masters. Even if you are a foreign student, you pay nothing. Every single Danish student receives enough money a month during 5 years to manage to leave on that, out of their parents home. That is, you have students focusing on their studies while learning how to get by out of their parents home (many times in other cities), establishing strong conections with other fellow students and flatmates. This brings the point that students in other countries are much more mature than in Spain since they already live by themselves and have a broader mind than a Spanish student who still lives with its family. In Denmark, they even find funny that 22 year old students still live with their parents. Sweden is very similar, another beautiful example on its own. University education is also usually free of charge in Germany and it is free also in Czech Republic (although that might change soon). I could continue with examples and countries but the idea is clear. These countries invest much more in their students and education, they seem to be floating on what you, my dear minister, consider the attitude of “everything for free” yet the research is more and better and the student failure is much lower. It seems that not all is about money but i would say more about mentality and the system...but of course you dont want to change that, since you have the same failed mentality.

Actually yes, you want to change things, and indeed this is another characteristic of our beautiful country. The two major political parties which alternate in power have found very funny to be constantly modifying the educational system. Small patches for enormous wholes, patches which only damage more since without a program with continuity we will get nowhere. A wonderful example was all this Bologna plan, never properly explained and an absolute disaster. Lecturers arguing to keep their lectures and positions, defending its share of power (deplorable). They said that it was to adapt to education in Europe. What the hell? Biology is now a 4 years degree when the bachelor in most countries is 3. There are not true masters and this is just an excuse to pay thousands of euros (the price is rising like foam when serving a beer) for a ridiculous “masters” which lasts 1 year, a year and a half at the most in which there is almost no practical work (6 months at the most), there is no real masters thesis to be writen up and there is no real continuity afterwards. My friends, university mates, who did the 5 years degree called licenciatura like me, had to do a master because surprise surprise, although they were still part of the old plan they were not allowed to go to PhD straight away anymore, they had to do a masters, they had to pay thousands of euros for something which hardly taught them anything, left them profoundly diappointed, only delayed their PhD and ruined their pockets. In other serious countries, you have a serious bachelor at the end of which you have to write up your first thesis. Afterwards you go into the 2 years master program. In the case of Denmark or New Zealand, for instance, the last year of the masters is only in the lab. You find a supervisor who has a place (there is place for everyone since all professors pretty much do some research) and you work on their topics for that year. That is real research and so in the end, you might even publish a paper if you are lucky. Students can start before of course, in their bachelor or in the first year of master if they have the courage and the excitement to look for the place. In Czech Republic i work at the Academy of Sciences, a public institution but it is not a University. It is full of students, from the bachellor to the PhD doing their research there. You can contact a researcher, say you want to do the research there for your thesis and if you look interested enough, you get a position. Even the bachelor students get some money for their work (learning process) there. Can you Spaniards believe this? Can you really believe that in your second year of university you would have a place doing research together with people with a whole research career on their back and getting some money a month for it? In Spain yes, there is a place for a few students who get in contact with some department and have the luck to find a lecturer who is also doing interesting research and has a place and resources for you. These are very limited places and of course you get no money at all for it. In other countries, available to almost everyone. But of course it is difficult to do this when there are almost no resources and the university is filled with unmotivated people and overcrowded, offering coffe for everyone while rejecting research. The whole Bologna plan was intended for small groups to have discussions, tutorials etc. How in the hell can you do this with 1,4 million university students? When most of the universities are completely bankrupt and have no resources to implement the new guidelines? An absolute joke. In Spain most of the students finish uni without having worked in a lab so in conclusion, no lab, no thesis, no final state exams...nothing.

Documents obtained free of charge, labs available to everyone, getting even paid for your work, all this happens in other serious countries...our beloved minister says that we are used to having everything for free but we pay for everything in this freaking country. Every single document you need to apply for, a scholarship or for any other reason, you pay a serious amount of money and besides you have to wait sometimes days, weeks, months or even years (i will get back to this). This is another fantastic thing, the scholarship. Spain actually does have quite a few scholarships but many times the method to select is quite wrong and not always people who deserve those scholarships actually get them. They are too grade-oriented and it really overlooks many important things like technical aspects of that person, creativity, independence, maturity, motivation, cultural development, future projects...During my studies i didnt find a single person with better grades than me yet i found many people who were definitely better than me and who i know will have a much more prosperous future from a scientifically profesionally oriented perspective. Simply because they are good, they think well and because of their ambition, interests and passion.

Just a few things that make up the whole thing sad and ridiculous. I think of all my uni mates and in general i feel sad. There are two main programs by which doctoral training is funded. These programs are called FPI and FPU. The call for FPI was in February last year and the provisional list with the accepted candidates was in July and should have been aproved at the beginning of August. They came out in December, simply because they didnt want to authorize the expenditure. To begin their PhD, the students had to enroll in September. But without the approved list, they did not have access to tuition. Imagine those who pursue a masters which cost thousands of euros. Imagine those who pursue PhDs, they are already 24 or older and get no money at all. Besides, the "FPI" also grants aid for material to research groups where the students are to join. That means most people have begun to work without getting paid or having insurance. Others simply cannot afford it so they have not begun.

More of the same with the “FPU”, whose call was in May but in november we found out that many places where removed and that funding was reduced in 50% for stays abroad. Imagine the shock of those who were already abroad and found out they were not going to get any money, or those who had been arranging the stay witht the foreign institution and finally had to communicate they cannot go. Most of the friends from uni who still are in Spain have been working for free for months, or many months waiting without getting compromised with anything else. Doing a PhD in science absorbes most of your time however i have friends who have to be serving drinks in pubs to be able to afford their PhD since they are getting nothing. Most of my friends who are between 24 and 28 years old are still living with their parents and have no income. Many of my friends have run away and left Spain and they are studying abroad. They send me messages telling me all the offers or opportunities they have to continue a career there. Of all my close friends, i can only think of one who is completely independent now and does not need support from a scholarship or parents and of course, he lives abroad, just like me. This is way worse than what i ever had to go through but i know the feeling of being without money and feeling abandoned by your institution. When i was on eramus i started in August 2010. I didnt see a single coin of the scholarship until the end of february 2011, 6 months!! When i went to New Zealand, it also took 6 months until i saw any money. When i told this to students from other countries, they were all shocked. They all got their money before going or immediately after arriving. What the hell is going on in Spain?

These are things that keep floating in my mind. A desolate landscape that fills me with sadness and anger. This whole thing came back to me yesterday evening, for a very simple and stupid happening which just reminded me everything. When i applied for the PhD position in Czech Republic, they asked for my title. I said well i am sorry but i havent got it yet. Yes, i applied for my title in july 2011 and i dont have it with me yet. They didnt believe me and it really took me time to convince them. Only when i showed them a document stating that i applied for it, signed by the University president, they accepted it, still incredulous at what was going on. In Czech Republic, like in any serious country, you get your title immediately, because you deserve to have it immediately, especially considering how important it is when it comes to applying for jobs and positions. In Czech Republic, like in any serious country, the tittle is for free. In Spain, your title, which you have gained thanks to the effort through years, costs 150 euros. A title that costs 150 euros and which i have not seen after a year and 7 months! But the most funny thing comes now. I received yesterday a letter stating that i had obtained what would be translated as exceptional degree award, which is obtained when you have the best grades of your promotion. I receive this a year and 8 months after i finish and you know what you get out of it? You are exempt from paying the fees for your title BUT only if you show this notification before applying for the title! I applied for this tittle more than a year and a half ago you idiots! At this stage i just burst laughing. Spain is different. In Czech Republic, students with As and Bs in their record automatically get some money a year, without the need to apply for it and if you finish the degree with the equivalent to what i got, which is “summa cum laude” they get much more money and a lot of recognition. I dont care about the money although of course it would be nice to receive some, but i care about that recognition, that acknowledgement. In Spain all scholarships, everything seems to be money oriented but people forget about you. There is no acknowledgement of your effort and your achievements, no motivation, no encouragement. There is nothing but in this case, a letter arriving to my parents home, a year and 8 months later. Many excellent students are never addressed, never wanted, never acknowledged, indifference is the response and so they just leave. Where i work here in Czech Republic i receive lots of emails in the areal mail offering PhD and postdoc positions. If you go to the website of the Faculty of Biology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid there is a bulleting board for job offers. I have been checking that every now and then, mostly as a curiosity, always expecting to find something. Do you know how many times i found, not many, simply a single job offer? Never.

Thinking of all this, does anybody wonder why Spain does not have a single university among the 200 best ones in most of the world lists? United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Norway always find representatives in these lists. But then again, how are we to get this without any continuity in our educational program and a complete revolution in our concept of the importance of education, how to teach students and the value they have for our future? But our beloved minister believes, we are used to having everything for free and his approach is to cut, cut and cut. The science secretary Carmen Varela already said it, there are too many researchers in Spain (i wonder where) and they have to focus on quality. For sure, they are on the way to get that...

In Spain is taking place now what is called brain drain. Our beloved minister says to that: “...many of those, once they acquire some experience abroad, come back, and this is a very enriching experience for our country, and highly valued by our companies”. I would lie if i said i left Spain because of the lack of opportunities. I never tried. If i live abroad is because i love it, i love living in a foreign country and experience it every day. However, believe me when i tell you, Mr. Jose ignacio Wert, beloved minister of education, that if i had left because of the lack of opportunities, after what i have seen, i would never go back to Spain. And believe me, beloved minister, when i tell you, that many of those who left in search of opportunities, will never go back to Spain. I tell you this because, unlike you, i live abroad, and i know what i am talking about.

Our beloved minister of education, Mr. Jose Ignacio Wert. Photo obtained from nesiakrenaia-elenafuentescara.blogspot.com