Comrades, I’m stuck working on some university bullshit and thus I am bored. So, let’s shoot the shit. I am an Iranian computer engineering graduate student (have a bsc degree in CompSci) and I have noticed that my country Iran is completely… opaque, so to speak, to even leftist of various denominations from the outside. So, let’s talk comrade to comrade. Ask me shit about the daily soulcrushing grind of life in Iran…
How accessible is higher education? is it reasonably priced? free? is it hard to get into a university?
also how is k12/lower education divided in Iran for example in amerikkka it has 3 stages 1-5 6-8 9-12 and my home country has 3 but its 1-6 7-9 10-12 but i also know some countries have 2 stages. Im always curious about this cuz every country seems to do its own thing.
I answered this before, look into the thread (it was the first question I think). Iranian k-12 uses a 6-3-3 system, 6 years primary, 3 years Highschool (stage 1) and 3 years Highschool (stage 2)
Hey brother. Persian diaspora here. I wanted to ask some questions regarding to pursuing higher education in Iran.
How much of an impact would you say that the combination of:
- west sanctions such as AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.
- slow internet speed (I’ve only heard stories of this one that the internet is limited to ADSL2. Is that still the case?)
- brain drain from the country
has had on your education. Also, curious what your thesis is on comrade :)
Ah, I have to deal with this shit everyday!
Living here you will quickly learn how to use VPNs for accessing foreign services. Sanctions and domestic firewall definitely have a large impact. Internet speeds have improved BY LOTS in the recent years to the point of being quite modern. ADSL is mostly for shitty old homes who don’t have anything better than decades old copper lines, in which case I recommend getting a rooftop antenna for so-called “air fiber” service.
Brain drain is certainly a huge issue, but Iranian public institutions are quite good. We still have the old, experienced generation of professors who teach in public universities. Private ones are a fucking disaster tho (education quality is garbage)
What do you do on a free evening, how do you and the average person unwind from work? How does nightlife differ from the west? I absolutely hate the amount of drunkards in México.
Go out with the lads, get high on cheap weed, do some work on personal projects, play video games
We sometimes get drunk but only in parties and such because it’s illegal over here lol
How do you get alcohol if it’s illegal? is it sold like contraband or people homebrew their stuff lol
Moonshine lmao, people who are called “Saghi” brew and sell it + you always have to watch out for menthol poisoned supply
how religious are young people? i imagine younger generations are less than the past generation.
Pretty much not at all, unless they’re like born-again or conservative or like that
What’s the political situation like in Iran? Are there any real leftist parties? What do you think could be done to improve Iran’s current situation?
What’s the political situation like in Iran?
theocratic shitshow
leftist
Got mass executed in the 1980s and there are no real vanguards in Iran to my knowledge. Only anarchist student groups here and there.
What do you think could be done to improve Iran’s current situation?
Socialism is the only path forward!
What’s the average person in Iran like? I feel like we hear a lot about your government in the west but never hear anything about the Iranian people themselves.
I mean, imagine the average normie, Probably has some weird political line, spends the day on Instagram, probably thinking about money (economy is rough here man) and just going day to day trying to survive. “average” of any population is more or less the same.
Makes sense. I figure we are all the same in most places around the world. I do watch a lot of food tour youtubers and I always like when one is in Iran. The hospitality of the people seems out of this world and I can’t image my own country doing stuff like randomly inviting people over for diner lol.
What is the position of women? Are divorces, abortions and birth control accessible?
Pretty decent, especially compared to how it was under the shah (and oh boy, it was shit) in terms of literacy rates, participation in society, participation in economy, etc. (definitely MUCH better than any US ally in the region lol)
Abortions are only permitted in special cases, I think? Before 4 months of pregnancy but I’m remembering this VERY loosely
Birth control is readily available (although to the dismay of fundamentalists) and divorce is not my area of expertise so I don’t know how hard it is etc, but the woman in the marriage can ask for an arbitrary amount of money (mehriye) from the man upon termination of marriage who can even go to prison over this (obv, there is no marriage other than man/woman under the ‘Islamic’ Republic).
You know… It’s funny how Farsi is widely known across Central Asia, but under different names, like, idk, Dari
Tell me, what do you think of people who speak Dari and such?
They are Iranian people who got separate due to imperialism; they are literally Iranian and the efforts to rename their language like Dari are basically historical revisionism projects. I remember an anecdote from an old Afghan lady who said “They came to our schools and changed Farsi to Dari on the book covers one day”. Sadly I cannot source this because I was it on Discord and it’s almost impossible to find now…
What’s with Iranian diaspora almost all universally being opposed to the government? Because theres a common dislike of both the US and Iran’s leadership, and a bizarre way of rationalizing it. I’ve heard on more than one occasion from Iranians that they believe that the US backed the Ayatollah during the revolution and it was their plan all along to bring about the Islamic republic.
Look the short answer is that the Iranian diasporoids are notoriously quirked up and they’re usually part of some monarchist/MEK cult/zio cult nonsense, so it’s better not to try rationalizing their positions because they come straight out of a crack pipe
There are people who say Khomeini was a plot against the gLoRiOuS mOnArChY and shit, there are people who fled Iran with lots of stolen money in 1979 and live in LA, there are doomer new gen immigrants who are the most anti-immigration hitlerites you can find
just don’t bother with them they’re mentally fucked
Noted, also just to mention, nearly all of these I’ve encountered were students who had come to study from Iran, constantly complaining about their country and going on about the “oppression”. Sort of sucking up to the locals by trying to distance themselves from their “backwards” homeland.
For some reason I can’t see some of the comments, so if you said something and I didn’t answer it’s some BS from Lemmy or inter-instance issues or something
Probably a language setting. Go to settings, shift left click on the first language -> shift left click on the last language -> save
huuuh who decided on this being the default behavior lmao it works now
How hard is it for most people to go to university?
Well, in Iran we have a 12 grades school system which is under the Ministry of Education and Development. You can do this for very little to no money, however, the quality of private schools which cost ridiculous amounts of money is of course better than some average public institution. Unless you’re an overachieving gifted kid who can then enroll in development programs from the state by that.
After that 12 years, you do a “Konkur”. It’s a SAT of literally the entire population of people who want to go to undergrad. You compete in the Konkur exam for a seat in the university. You provide a list of universities/degrees you want to enroll in, and you get accepted in one of those based on the order of your preference and your rating in the SAT. There is also some equalization factor here, people from less developed areas and other special cases get varying degrees of bonus % in the SAT scores. This has lead to some village kids from bumfuck nowhere villages getting into top public institutions before.
NOTE: Iran has both Public and Private universities. Unlike the west, Public ones are better by a -massive long shot-. Private and Public institutions use the same SAT; but you have to declare your willingness for going into private institutions separately.
Private institutions are generally much more lax, lazy, and really shitty in terms of education quality. You also pay for tuition. This is to the point that many parents will straight up soft-disown your ass if you only get accepted for private institutions. Public institutions are the scientific backbone of Iran and are much more difficult, but they are free (at the time of admission) so everyone wants a piece of that particular cake! The competition is fierce.
Personally, I have done both my university degrees in Public universities, and I gotta tell you they are fucking brutal. I don’t honestly yet know if the insane pressure was worth it yet. I sure as shit have more knowledge than my peers, tho.
Now there is a thing if you’re unfortunate enough to be born male you HAVE to do mandatory conscription which is -hell- so if you fail konkur they put your ass in the trains and send you off for 24 months of torture, so the pressure levels (and suicide rates) are really high in the male 17-19 years of age range.
EDIT: The universities are under Ministry of Science and the SAT is under the Sanjesh Organization but primary education is under Ministry of Education and Development. Bureaucracy is fun!
