On the weekend following this year's college entrance examination tests, the oppressive 38-degree heat could not keep "liberated" test takers from having some fun on the town. Their young faces were brimming with anticipation over going to college and entering adulthood. But they may be in for a letdown if they're not careful.

Over the past 20 years, university departments have been expanding at such a rapid rate that college diplomas are now seen as high school diplomas and master's and doctoral degrees are now equated with bachelor's degrees. But while the overall number of degrees issued has increased rapidly, some departments are graduating students at a much faster clip than the average, heightening the risk that a dangerous bubble is being created for diplomas in these disciplines.

According to Ministry of Education figures, the number of higher education degrees (bachelor's, master's, doctorates) issued has risen 19 percent over the past nine years. But in some specific disciplines, the average increase has ranged from three-fold to 46-fold. (See Table)

The rapid growth in degrees issued in a particular discipline does not necessarily indicate the presence of a bubble about to burst. In some cases, it reflects legitimate growth in interest in a particular field.

In other cases, however, especially in fields where the private sector has an urgent need for talent, the number of graduates has increased substantially, but companies still insist they cannot find the people they need. That's because the faculty and curriculum in some departments have lost touch with the real needs of the marketplace and end up training students who are unable to live up to their degrees.

With their college entrance exams soon behind them, 100,000 prospective university freshmen will soon face a major decision: choosing their department of study.

"Some people have advocated putting the priority on choosing the school rather than a department. Others suggest choosing the department rather than the school. Both points of view are reasonable," says a human resources manager at a publicly listed company.

"But the most important thing is that what they learn is the same in reality as in name. We've used graduates from top universities only to find that what they learned in school and what their department name suggested were two totally different things."

Trap No. 1: Department Name Reflects Market, Not Reality

Minister of Examination Chaur-Shin Yung, who once served as Taiwan's education minister, says the aging population and a change in students' attitudes have led schools to go after students by playing to their interests and to the government's six emerging star industries. One tactic, he says, is to change the department's name to something more attractive.

National Dong Hwa University vice president Ruay-Shiung Chang accuses some departments with new names of simply offering something that they cannot deliver. Though the name has changed, he says, the faculty and the curriculum have not.

The most typical example of a department that merely tweaks its course offerings after adopting a flashy new name has been the college of agriculture at many universities. 

Agriculture departments have tried to take advantage of the rising wave of interest in biotechnology – one of the government's six emerging industries – to recruit students by repositioning themselves as "biotechnology" or "life science" institutes. Even National Taiwan University's College of Agriculture, to "respond to current trends" and to "better focus on the richness of bio-resources and bio-variety," renamed itself the College of Bioresources and Agriculture.

For universities, changing a department name is a relatively simple step that faces little resistance. The Ministry of Education (MOE) is only responsible for supervising total enrollment at each school and does not administer name adjustments. In other words, Taiwanese universities can freely set up new departments or change the names of existing ones as long as they do not exceed mandated student enrollment limits.

Because this repositioning strategy draws students to otherwise unpopular disciplines, it is no surprise that universities favor it. Over the past nine years, the number of university students graduating with bachelor degrees from biotechnology-related fields rose three-fold, and the number of those graduating in the field with master's and doctoral degrees rose 1.6 times.

Records from the MOE's Department of Higher Education indicate, however, that the course offerings and faculty specialties in departments that changed names remain old wine in a new bottle. As a result, professors specializing in irrigation are teaching recreational agriculture, some trained in geography teach cultural creativity, and others expert in mechanical engineering teach product design in industrial design departments.

Chaur-Shin Yung says this abnormal phenomenon is directly related to the university tenure system, especially in public universities. Schools essentially have no way to dismiss a faculty member, unless he or she has committed a serious ethical violation. Even if a department changes its name, if a tenured professor is already teaching there, "you still can't tell him to hit the road."

But if holdovers cannot be laid off, universities also lack the funds to hire new teachers. Moreover, the current allocation of manpower at universities revolves around departments, which prevents the support of professors across different disciplines.

That creates a serious problem because holdovers in newly positioned departments often have only a smattering of knowledge in the newly advertised discipline. Chou Ping, the head of Nanhua University's Department of Applied Sociology, noticed that in one university's department related to cultural and creative industries, there were professors who specialized in history and geography but none who understood or had ever come in contact with cultural and creative industries.

The result of this surge in new departments and flashy names is that students do not receive the quality of instruction and depth of resources they expect for their hefty tuitions. Jow-Fei Ho, the director-general of the MOE's Department of Higher Education, says the reckless renaming of departments has generated confusion among students over the departments' core values.

Chou agrees, saying frankly, "If students are not clear about the core values of a particular department, their training will inevitably be ill-defined. The professors are ‘irregular forces,' who do not have a clear idea of the goals of the department."

Students, however, are not the only victims of this trend. Professors have suffered just as much.  

Chou contends that when departments reposition themselves, they undermine the knowledge that has been accumulated by department faculty over the previous 10-20 years. To adapt to a new discipline, professors must modify their expertise, learning as they teach.

Ho describes this as a "vicious cycle" for university departments. Feeling pressured to attract students, schools restructure their departments, but because faculty members and the curriculum have trouble adjusting to the new reality, the school fails its evaluation and is required to reduce enrollment. That only increases pressure on departments, so they opt for the safer alternative: offering the old program with new packaging.

"That's why lots of people say that in a new department or a newly renamed department, the students during the first few years are the most unfortunate," says examination minister Yung. He believes the MOE must step in and regulate department name changes, at least to prevent them from making a move too quickly.

"They should wait until their faculty have had a chance to adapt before undertaking the change. Only that way will it not be unfair to students," Yung says.

Trap No. 2: Have Diploma, Lack Ability

In recent years, enrollees in university law departments have skyrocketed, to the point where one law professor has urged the government to look into problems related to Taiwan's legal education.

"The legal education system makes many people feel that it is easy to set up. All you need to do is hire a few teachers and a lot of students will show up," he says. Many commercial law professors hired by university law departments never received formal legal training, and the departments do not offer courses related to everyday legal practice or chances to actually practice law, leaving many graduates unable to write legal briefs or basic legal documents.

Having a diploma that means little in the real world is also common in the tourism and hospitality field, where practical knowledge is prized. 

"Creating a dedicated teaching kitchen with 20 stoves and ovens costs at least NT$30 million to NT$40 million. Many schools simply set up a bar because it's the cheapest to install," says Patrick Su, an assistant professor in National Kaohsiung Hospitality College's Department of Hotel Management. Not only is the university not willing to make the investment, but also most of the tenured professors do not have practical experience in the field. Having studied straight through from the undergraduate level to the doctoral level, they are not familiar with practical matters.

One design chief at a prominent high-tech company provides a typical reaction to the trend. "Promotions at universities are all based on academic achievement. The higher the level, the more important educational background is. But in our world, the emphasis is not on a Ph.D., but on actual ability."

The MOE stresses that it has opened the way for top business people to teach at universities, with salaries and benefits commensurate with full professors. But many schools still use academic achievement and research as the main criteria for promotions, because that will strengthen their evaluations by the MOE. As a result, many prominent business people have trouble breaking into academia.

Riddled with professors lacking practical experience, academia may need to step up its interaction with the private sector. Otherwise, it will produce a generation of students moving in directions at odds with commercial trends. Some universities strongly resist the idea, however.

The corporate design chief says he has actively tried to set up cooperative ventures with universities, but his overtures have been rejected. Thus, even though enrollment in design departments has soared, he proclaims helplessly, "We can't find any design talent."

To emphasize their alignment with the real world, some schools hire a few business people to teach courses on a part-time basis, but the quality of the instruction is inconsistent. National Kaohsiung Hospitality College's Su says he has seen many schools hire small travel agencies and hospitality operators to teach classes, only to find that the quality is difficult to monitor.

Despite inconsistent quality standards, the number of graduates with tourism and hospitality bachelor degrees has nearly tripled over the past eight years, while the number earning a master's or doctorate in the field has risen a stunning 1,270 percent.

Another executive at a design company says Taiwan has cultivated talent knowledgeable in only one field. In today's society, however, the demand is for what is known as "T-type talent" – people with depth of knowledge in one specialization, but also a broad range of knowledge in other areas.

In their current form, university departments are ill structured to develop "T-type talent." More flexible programs that stress different arrangements are better able to meet the talent needs of modern society. 

Searching for the Best Teachers

Conceiving new programs is a more flexible approach than establishing new departments, because they can secure the support of faculty from other departments, which dramatically enhances quality by making courses more specialized and complete. The schools also get the added benefit of not having to absorb the cost of hiring new teachers.

Attempting to capitalize on biotechnology "fever" is a good example of this. Universities can assemble professors in the fields of biology, agriculture, medicine and even engineering to form different biotech programs. Those looking to stress cultural and creative industry curriculums can bring together teachers from art, design and marketing departments to cultivate the multidimensional talent so highly in demand in today's cultural sectors.   

Another benefit of these cross-disciplinary programs is that if they do not meet students' needs and do not attract new blood, they can be summarily disbanded, in favor of a new program with a new vision and a new handpicked faculty team. This approach steers clear of the restrictions of Taiwan's Teachers' Act, which makes it nearly impossible for schools wanting to set up new or renamed departments to dismiss teachers and thus free up the budget to hire new ones.

At present, many of the emerging industries targeted by the government are relying on specially designed programs rather than individual academic departments to cultivate talent. In the field of green energy, for instance, the MOE has launched a program run by National Central University called the "Pioneer Program for Green Technology." Aside from National Central University's Green MBA and Green EMBA programs, many schools have initiated similar programs in "green studies" and "energy technology." Meanwhile, National Taiwan University and National Chengchi University have introduced various programs related to cultural and creative industries.

Enrolling in a university department is the first important choice most students make in their transformation to adulthood, and they must try to wade through boundless academic and professional seas. Although universities are not vocational training centers, students need to look beyond satisfying their own interests in making this decision. Gaining an understanding of trends and the issue of supply and demand, as well as the content of each school's curriculum, could save them from falling into the university traps that await them.

Translated from the Chinese by Luke Sabatier