Stereotypes about Polish people being stupid?

College in general these days I have come to regard as vastly overrated, confessed to be a long-term professor myself:-)
Education has become ever so watered down, there've been blogs about it, namely "CampusMentis" on the West Coast somewhere. Gaps in our universal knowledge, save for the familiarity with our immediate surroundings, have gotten so bloated, it's no wonder, being asked where China is on a world map proved too much to handle for many junior high schoolers throughout Middle America.

Recalls the now infamous quip by George Bernard Shaw: "The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school."

Shaw had the ultimate alibi of being brilliant, therefore, while dull to his teachers, he later excelled as few others in mastering the English language.

College students today usually can furnish no such convenient excuse!

Great post Lyzko!
The same is true here in The UK.
Higher education has become so watered down that unless you have a degree in a truly useful subject,it is next to worthless.
When I was a student,less than 10% of us went to university,I don't know the latest figures but it must be well over 30% now.

Result?
The jobs that used to be offered to A level students now need a minimum of a degree.....poorer jobs for graduates......and the poor A level students are no longer offered those jobs.....but they have a 3 year advantage and a no student debt advantage over their graduate friends.....

But then again, the same thing has led to Poland doing very well, as employers value the way that a large part of society is educated.

Here in the US, the more people at the very top such as Trump continue to make a mockery of truth, language, and history, it ought to come as no surprise that learning, much less true scholarship, are becoming less and less valued!

Before my time, yours as well I'm sure, ball players, including the Babe, Satchel Paige and many of the other greats, earned but a pittance of what they'd be earning these days, having to paint houses during the off season in order to simply make ends meet. They obviously earned more than a policemen, letter carrier or fireman even way back then, but much more within perspective than is the case now.

I rather think that such is little more than right! After all, if an engineer, teacher, lawyer or doctor must legitimately spend long years in school perfecting their skills or craft, they ought to earn far more than someone who is only a success by dint of certain natural physical abilities, albeit enhanced by practice along with strenuous exercise.

In the movies, today's actors such as Drew Barrymore, earn more than any of the really great stars of the 30's or40's, more often than not, with far less talent.

Can we honestly compare the present Ms. Barrymore with the likes of grandpa John, great uncle Lionel or great auntie Ethel.

No, it's not that standards have simply "changed", they've downright declined in order to accommodate watered-down, popular tastes, far lower than the popular tastes of yore.

I can't say that I'm familiar with the Polish university system.
What I will say is that most of the better educated Poles I know here in The UK took "Sensible" and "Useful" courses.
And many of them topped that up with further Open University courses in The UK.
These people are not currently benefiting Poland,but from what they say about returning home,Poland may benefit eventually.

I think the most important thing that Polish universities would benefit from would be transforming their structure to resemble that of the best American and British Universities which are always at the top of the rankings:

timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

But this takes time and money of course.

Positive thing about Polish Uni's is that they are less "political" than many other European education systems and so called "gender studies" are not as popular in Poland.

Why would someone waste 5 years of their life studying this just to become a barista in the future is beyond my comprehension.

The fact is that it never has or had anything to do necessarily with what one studies at college. Can't tell you how many ex-engineering, economics, even math/stat/business majors with whom I graduated, NOT able to find even entry level work for as long as a year and a half upon graduation!

It's all a question of supply and demand, in Poland as elsewhere.

I was Modern Language Major and it simply happened that the language in which I was majoring became unusually "hot" at the start of the '90's and so my profession took off. Had that not been the case, it is most probably that I too would have had to go the barista route as well, hocking myself into debt for the rest of my life, having to put marriage, home, and children on hold indefinitely.

So happened that my particular area of academic endeavor allowed me to carve a niche for myself while still in grad school. I surely didn't plan it that way, but it was merely the luck at the time of a cooperative world economy.

Poland can into space :-)

youtu.be/yCrlzO02tMs

Doesn't look great to me...

It's just a first prototype. Do you remember the humble beginnings of Space X? :-)

As a kid I used to think it was historical envy of a country. But when I was a young adult I met a very "sophisticated" person who was telling me the "ways of the world". One thing they said was that "Americans are smart". Then went on to say which countries were stupid. Well, if you cross the border from say France to Switzerland there is a noticeable difference in everything manmade. Switzerland looks smart. France does not! So you could say that Poland compared to another country is stupid, like for example comparing their food to France, or even Germany. I believe this is why. Borders really seal in culture and cultures can vary widely.

@LTK
No sir, Poland has the best food of all Europe and surely better than Germany or even France.

That's why the modern left hates borders.... they reveal collective differences which are intolerable to the left which tends to see humans as interchangeable widgets....

mafkeis, here is yur average poolish middle aged guy for you who grew up during communism:

wroclaw.wyborcza.pl/wroclaw/7,35771,28298964,jest-zawiadomienie-do-prokuratury-na-piotra-rybaka-za-szczucie.html

True, Alien!
Have heard great stuff about Polish produce, particularly apples:-)
Back to the threat topic, Poles were and are scarcely the only ones in Europe with an often unfounded reputation for being "backward".
During much of the 19th century, the Swedes of all people, were deemed semi-literates in the United States, who sounded like clodhoppers when they spoke English.

And the Frisians remain the butt of all jokes in Germany.

Today, as with the Poles, the Swedes more than caught up to the rest of the West, and like Poland, Sweden is as much at the top of her game as any other country I can think of.

It should be American stereotypes about Polish people being stupid. That is American thing.

Indeed that's already been covered here at some length.

@Strzelec35
Piotr Rybak is not an average Polish guy.

Poland has not caught up to the west in a single way or factor. start with customer service...

I beg to differ! Poland has been the "Miracle on the Vistula" for a while now and has had a prominent IT industry since at least the early 2000's.

Surely, Poland still has a way to go, yet all things considered, she's doing far better than once expected.

In my days, the miracle was people earning X and spending 2X.

Ha-ha, Rich!
Poland has advanced considerably since '68 and you know it:-)

Not much or actually worse. Poles make sh*it money (one-quarter of what people make in the US), but in many cases pay Western prices or very close to it.

Sounds alot like Russia right around perestroika and glasnost.

What are you smoking, and where can I get some of the same? Ever heard of coq au vin or beef bourguignon? Can gołąbki or kotlet schabowy compare?

If Poland had the best food in Europe I would expect to see quite a few more Polish restaurants in New York.

@Bobko

Yeah, calling any national cuisine better than the French is pretty tenuous territory (although the Italians can make the French sweat, and you give a German an oven and some flour they become as dangerous as they are behind a tank). But, those climates and soils allow for a much greater variety of foodstuffs during a longer period-the french and italians.

Nonetheless, gołąbki and kotlet scharbowy are pretty damned good in their own right. The Poles do a great job with pork and dairy products and root vegetables, IMO.

Not to miss an opportunity to sing my own praises: I made a beef bourguignon two Sundays ago that kicked all kinds of ass.

National foods should be compared on the basis of obesity, cancer, and diabetes among consumers. Poles do not score well in that contest.

Thankfully, they're usually based on the more joyful aspects such as taste, texture, and aroma. Polish food does well, IMO. I like Kuchnia Polski (or however you say it).

There are simple rules about food. If it tastes good, enjoy it. If it tastes delicious, don't eat it. If it's sweet, think cancer and dump it.

@Bobko
Not only in NY but also in Germany it is difficult to find Polish restaurant. This only confirms that the quality of Polish cuisine is still unknown and still remains an insider tip.