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Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

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Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#151

Post by d33 »

discordianfish wrote: post #141
anon_7523 wrote: post #91

My personal experience says, that it is not working out. I cannot tell for the whole country, but I do have some insights, since I am hiring and interviewing students and studied in one of the universities mentioned elsewhere in the thread. There is an English speaking Master program, consisting almost entirely of Pakistani and Indian students. Some facts about them: - They are not required to learn German, so they s…

This comment is so German on so many levels. The reason those people aim for jobs in the UK or US is because there aren't good tech jobs in Germany. Arguing for mandatory German classes to 'lock in' talent somehow is simiarly uninspired as tech companies here. What about creating jobs that good people are willing to work at?

What makes this post German? It sounds convincing to me and I'm not German.

Also, how would creating the jobs reduce the risk mentioned by anon_7523? Do you believe it's a bad idea to integrate the people you already provide with education, for free?

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#152

Post by cagataygurturk »

paganel wrote: post #73
MarkMc wrote: post #71

If you are a young person living in a poor country, the two best investments you can make to improve your standard of living are (a) get a university education; and (b) immigrate to a rich country. Germany offers both: 1. A free undergraduate university degree 2. For every graduate: 18 month work visa after graduation 3. For every STEM graduate who earns more than EUR 40,000 per year: approval to work in Germany fore…

> Yes, you must first learn German, Maybe because of this? > be able to borrow EUR 9,000 to apply for the student visa Also, this. 9,000 euros does not seem like too much for people from first-world countries, but for people coming from relatively speaking much poorer countries that sum is quite high.

Why learning German is a big issue? These are young people who can learn a language easily and in the beginning nobody expects you so high proficiency and people will always help and encourage you to learn the language. In Europe many educated folks know min 2 languages more and very open to learn more, you just need to leave your comfort zone. Learning languages also develops intellectually.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#153

Post by Nimitz14 »

alpha_squared wrote: post #103
kough wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of those schools are unlike the others. It makes absolute sense to go $250k in debt for an MIT or Harvard degree, makes less but still some sense for Tufts and Olin, and makes no sense at all for the rest. And the average college that Americans experience is a 2 year community college; very, very few attend schools of the caliber you're mentioning. It makes no sense to lump all these different schools together w…

> It makes absolute sense to go $250k in debt for an MIT or Harvard degree No it doesn't? I think we should stop putting schools on a pedestal because of their name. I admire some of the research and work that comes out of those schools, but in the end their degrees are no better or worse than other schools' (regarding undergraduate, I can't speak for graduate). The only differences come down to network and academic…

What you say is not true.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#155

Post by sgift »

discordianfish wrote: post #141
anon_7523 wrote: post #91

My personal experience says, that it is not working out. I cannot tell for the whole country, but I do have some insights, since I am hiring and interviewing students and studied in one of the universities mentioned elsewhere in the thread. There is an English speaking Master program, consisting almost entirely of Pakistani and Indian students. Some facts about them: - They are not required to learn German, so they s…

This comment is so German on so many levels. The reason those people aim for jobs in the UK or US is because there aren't good tech jobs in Germany. Arguing for mandatory German classes to 'lock in' talent somehow is simiarly uninspired as tech companies here. What about creating jobs that good people are willing to work at?

> The reason those people aim for jobs in the UK or US is because there aren't good tech jobs in Germany.

The reason those people aim for jobs in the UK or US is because there aren't well paid tech jobs in Germany.

I've fixed it for you.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#156

Post by ar0 »

discordianfish wrote: post #141
anon_7523 wrote: post #91

My personal experience says, that it is not working out. I cannot tell for the whole country, but I do have some insights, since I am hiring and interviewing students and studied in one of the universities mentioned elsewhere in the thread. There is an English speaking Master program, consisting almost entirely of Pakistani and Indian students. Some facts about them: - They are not required to learn German, so they s…

This comment is so German on so many levels. The reason those people aim for jobs in the UK or US is because there aren't good tech jobs in Germany. Arguing for mandatory German classes to 'lock in' talent somehow is simiarly uninspired as tech companies here. What about creating jobs that good people are willing to work at?

I think you are confusing "tech companies" with "web start-ups". Germany has a different focus than Silicon Valley and thus a different type of "tech" jobs as well. There are a lot of challenging engineering and IT jobs where you will work together with top-notch colleagues in industrial automation, mechanical engineering, etc.

Note that Elon Musk is still dreaming about building tunnel boring machinery, while at Herrenknecht you can already innovate in this field today.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#157

Post by faragon »

In my opinion, unless German IT companies accept to work in English because available workforce in neighbor countries already know English, or they're going to have problems attracting world-class talent. I.e. accepting as "acceptable behavior" people not willing to learn German as a requirement.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#158

Post by Symbiote »

lordnacho wrote: post #135
aphextron wrote: post #23

Should I study engineering in Germany? I'm looking at undergrad programs in California right now and the numbers don't add up for me. Not just tuition, but cost of living as a full time student as well. I also feel like it would be much easier for me (a non-traditional student) to get into a better university over there, as they pretty much just look at your test scores. Not all this GPA/extra-curricular "well rounde…

Here's my 2 cents. My background is I studied engineering in the UK where I live, but grew up and lived in the Germanic world. I have a brother and several friends and relatives who studied in the US, and friends who are German graduates. So maybe I can Frankenstein some advice for you. - In the US, you study a broad range of subjects at undergrad. So my bro had to do literature classes and such, even though he reall…

Two minor things:

- I think Cambridge is very much not a campus university, because it's scattered around the city. I think of a campus university as somewhere like Warwick, Nottingham or Reading, with academic buildings within a large park-like area sometimes including residence buildings, where people not studying or working at the university don't often walk.

- I was asked to show my diploma for my first job in the UK. I don't know if they checked it with the university.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#159

Post by ar0 »

anon_7523 wrote: post #91

My personal experience says, that it is not working out. I cannot tell for the whole country, but I do have some insights, since I am hiring and interviewing students and studied in one of the universities mentioned elsewhere in the thread. There is an English speaking Master program, consisting almost entirely of Pakistani and Indian students. Some facts about them: - They are not required to learn German, so they s…

Give them some time. The big U.S. and U.K. universities have decades of experience in selecting the best and the brightest from around the world. They have huge admission teams that know the local education markets and can tell you which Chinese university's degrees are first-class and which are not.

For German universities, having to select foreign students is a new development and it will take time and a bit of trial & error to get it right. It's the same in Switzerland: every Swiss high school graduate can attend university, so an "admissions process" just didn't exist there. And now that many international students want to attend Swiss university, you get a lot of students in master's courses who don't have the required pre-requisities. But I'm confident the universities will learn and build up these capabilities.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#160

Post by markdown »

JanSt wrote: post #142
markdown wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. Are there options for the 73% that don't go to Uni? Trade schools? What about at lower levels (ages 5-12)... do kids get to progress to the next level regardless of performance in an annual exam (like the US "no child left behind" policy), or do they have to have to repeat a year/level if they fail?

Yes, nearly everyone in Germany either has a university degree or a so called "Berufsausbildung". The Berufsausbildung is a specific training to do a certain kind of occupation (craftsman, computer programmer, carpenter) and is based on approximately 50% of schooling and 50% of hands-on work in a company. It typically takes three years and usually you stay at that company as a worker afterwards

Interesting. Thank you.
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