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American students head to Germany for free college

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Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#181

Post by borgia »

galfarragem wrote: post #41
Htsthbjig wrote: post #24

Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast. I studied engineering in Europe. When I went to Boston or London to work it was like I was the boss or something because I was much better prepared than Americans or British. But Americans have much better job opportunities that make them better than Europeans after working some time in a…

I was much better prepared than Americans or British. But Americans have much better job opportunities that make them better than Europeans after working some time in any field. Great comment. Anyway I will never leave Europe for US/Canada/Australia[1]. I've visited some family in the latter and I feel that the advantages of these countries are not enough to make me live there. Exchanging peace of mind and a huge dec…

>Great comment. Anyway I will never leave Europe for US/Canada/Australia[1]. I've visited some family in the latter and I feel that the advantages of these countries are not enough to make me live there. Exchanging peace of mind and a huge decrease of life quality for some extra probabilities of being rich and extra consumption doen't worth IMO.

I'm a European currently living in Canada, who has also traveled the US pretty extensively. The US and Canada aren't really interchangeable. Canada can at times feel like America-lite but in most real ways it's thankfully very different to the US.

I didn't move here because I saw "advantages" regarding personal prosperity, mainly just for the experience. The quality of life here in Toronto isn't a huge difference from what I've experienced in Europe. Comparatively low crime when compared with other major cities on this side of the pond, low poverty, reasonable cost of living relative to IT salaries, etc.

Apart from that, the people are great and really live up to the stereotype and are overall comparatively laid back like in Europe.

What it is lacking though is cultural substance and identity. It's pretty bland. Nothing has any real character. In that way it can feel a bit like a major US city and will be the main reason I move back to Europe in the coming years.

Living and working in the USA is something I'd never consider personally. I'm also approaching 30 and in a few years kids will be along the way, and I would never consider bringing a child up in the US. I don't mean to offend American posters here with this, but what you offer is just not for me, and I could never be a part of something that actively supports the US government and its policies.

But if you were looking for a change I'd suggest giving Canada a shot for a while. It's very different to the other two you've lumped it in with and in great ways and if nothing else it would give you an experience to learn from.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#182

Post by creshal »

doyoulikeworms wrote: post #158
creshal wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while OP was grumbling about the lack of breadth and liberal education in Germany. Yeah, I've no idea where that's supposed to come from. The only area where I'd consider the education to be narrow is at universities – and there it's by design, because after 13 years of breadth-first education in the Gymnasium (mandatory three languages, music, sports, arts, chemistry, philosophy/theology, physics, maths, political…

Well, I don't know anything about Gymnasium, but it doesn't sound very different from K-12 compulsory education in California. Except the many languages and computer science-- children learn to program in Germany? That's amazing. I don't think the average high school-educated American is a drooling retard (contrary to popular belief...), but the onerous General Education requirements of bachelor's degrees provide add…

> Except the many languages

Learning multiple languages is a necessity in Europe, it's handled similarly in the surrounding countries.

> and computer science-- children learn to program in Germany?

The basic courses don't get further than Excel macros, but in the extended courses it's fairly solid (data structures, algorithms, multithreading even back before multi core CPUs were a thing, …).

> but the onerous General Education requirements of bachelor's degrees provide additional breadth of knowledge.

That seems to be the difference, then. Our bachelor degrees are already limited to domain-specific knowledge; you're supposed to do several degrees if you want to further broaden your horizon (arguably not entirely unreasonable if it's free).

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#183

Post by creshal »

cylinder wrote: post #179
Amezarak wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible for everyone to be a net exporter. At the same time, being a net importer is not in itself a bad thing. The reason the US doesn't have free college for everyone is not because it is a net importer. The US could afford Germany-style benefits; that's not the problem. Canada probably could too.

It's impossible for everyone to be rich, should we not strive to be rich?

Being a net exporter does not have the same benefits, a nation should strive for an equilibrium, as both extremes are unsustainable in the long term.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#184

Post by creshal »

iamjdg wrote: post #116
Amezarak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> something to strive for no? No. If everyone strives to be a net exporter, you quickly end up with a race to the bottom. > i think of countries export to import ratios like personal finance income vs expenditures. if you spend more than you make, where we you get the money to reinvest in yourself. you'll borrow it until you can't make the minimum payments and then default. This is the wrong way to think about it. Th…

thanks Amezarak, good points. i think striving for net exporter is only a race to the bottom if you use one tool to get there. but if a country innovates their way there, is it not a race to the top? germany finally bent a bit letting the eurozone printing money. i like to see it as germany trying to steer the eurozone into real economic growth rather than fake growth (unleashing new money at a low interest rate(. ev…

> germany finally bent a bit letting the eurozone printing money

This money is needed to sustain Germany's export as much as it is needed to sustain Greece's and Spain's and Italy's import… because guess where Germany's exports go?

The Eurozone can only function if there's (internally) a trade equilibrium.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#185

Post by dragonwriter »

kaitai wrote: post #180
Happydayz wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US educators are well aware of the German model. Like you said, we've opted not to go with serious tracking for students. The minimal tracking we already do is controversial as is. It would be a huge ruckus for us to do what the Germans do and start segregating students by ability soon after elementary school. We just value different things differently, and in this particular case we accept less optimal social outcom…

Thought experiment: I wonder if one reason the US doesn't do formalized tracking of this sort is that it would be distasteful to formalize the inequalities in our system, but yet we don't have the stomach to actually provide equal opportunities. We have de facto tracking by parental income and social capital. Look at the other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science: AP CS is basically a class that i…

> Look at the other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science: AP CS is basically a class that is only offered if the parents agitate for it and the district has the money. Somehow in Mississippi this just doesn't happen, and we are fine with that as a nation. Keeps us wringing our hands about who says what words in the workplace instead of having to make a substantive change in what we offer students.

I think you'll find that the people "wringing hands about who says what words in the workplace" (at least, if by that, you are referring to public concern with things like race, gender, and sexual orientation-based harassment) are, in no small part, the same group of people actively concerned about and things like math and science education. They just aren't particularly influential in Mississippi.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#186

Post by cabinpark »

pwenzel wrote: post #154
khabaal wrote: post #111

As a german who works for a german university, i would like to point out that studying is actually not totally free. Here at the University of applied sciences in Münster, you would have to pay a total 235€ every six month, consisting of a social contribution of 85.44€ and a student body contribution of 145.75€, for which you will get a ticket for free travel by bus or by train inside North Rhine-Westphalia for the w…

That's pretty fair, considering many schools in the US now cost $25,000 USD a year. How much is health insurance?

I pay 40 euro a month for my health insurance.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#187

Post by Nicholas_C »

grkvlt wrote: post #146

> [The] German admissions process [...] is vastly different than it is in the United States [...] It's much more transparent, and it is entirely academic based [...] There are no recommendations or extensive resumes. This is exactly the way University admission should be handled. It's much the same throughout Europe and the UK. I would hate to have had to go through the hoop jumping exercise of the US college admissi…

Absolutely not in my opinion. What about students that have to work while going to school? I had to do this and I can assure you that it really hurt my GPA. Other more well off students will of course have higher GPAs because they can afford not to work and can pay tutors. These students who have worked full time or have faced other difficulties will not be able to explain why their academics are lacking if it's entirely academics based.

I also think essays and interviews are great ways to assess the candidate's true interest and compatibility with programs.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#188

Post by creshal »

Happydayz wrote: post #151
TheBeardKing wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may still be too much emphasis on 4-year college requirements for most vocations in the US. Mediocre students are being pushed towards college, where they may or may not graduate, and end up with debt even with federal and state subsidies. Worst case is not finishing and having tons of debt with nothing to show for it. These same people would be much better off with a 2-year vocational degree, and a job market…

US educators are well aware of the German model. Like you said, we've opted not to go with serious tracking for students. The minimal tracking we already do is controversial as is. It would be a huge ruckus for us to do what the Germans do and start segregating students by ability soon after elementary school. We just value different things differently, and in this particular case we accept less optimal social outcom…

> what the Germans do and start segregating students by ability soon after elementary school

It's not that fascist.

For one, the parents decide which schools their kids go to, the states can only give recommendations (which are regularly ignored by Special Snowflake Parents).

Additionally, the decision is not final. Students can (and do) switch to a higher school form if their grades are good enough, and work their way from the lowest school form to university.

And after a recent reform, they don't even need to, as vocational schools (for which all students are eligible to after 9 years) are now able to grant bachelor degree equivalents.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#189

Post by _delirium »

_stephan wrote: post #98
rsp1984 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having grown up and studied in Germany and having lived and worked in the US too I know the differences quite a bit. Yes, thinking is more narrow here in Germany and the "Fachidioten" that you are referring to are real. However, the depth and thoroughness of domain specific knowledge that you acquire with a German university degree are hard to beat, specifically in Engineering / STEM. I would even go as far as to say…

Can you maybe explain a little more how the "US values broadness of thinking and knowledge ... much higher than Germany"? Do you have some concrete examples in mind?

Based on experience in both the U.S. and Danish university systems (not the German one, but I believe it shares some similarities), the U.S. university education has a bigger focus on interdisciplinarity, where you focus on a major but also are required to take courses in other disciplines. The Danish system focuses specifically on the major.

If you major in CS in Denmark, you will take CS courses and only CS courses, to a fairy close approximation (due to staffing this might include 1 or 2 courses taught in the math department, but that's about as far outside the CS department as you're likely to get). Whereas if you major in CS in the U.S., it's frequently the case that there is a "common core" everyone has to take that includes other courses. For example, I did my CS degree in the U.S., and I had to take about 4 semesters of natural sciences (w/labs), 1 of engineering, 6 of mathematics, several humanities courses, etc., in addition to my CS courses. In Denmark a CS student is very unlikely to ever find themselves in the natural-sciences, humanities, or engineering departments (in Copenhagen they aren't even in physical proximity).

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#190

Post by RodericDay »

Happydayz wrote: post #151
TheBeardKing wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may still be too much emphasis on 4-year college requirements for most vocations in the US. Mediocre students are being pushed towards college, where they may or may not graduate, and end up with debt even with federal and state subsidies. Worst case is not finishing and having tons of debt with nothing to show for it. These same people would be much better off with a 2-year vocational degree, and a job market…

US educators are well aware of the German model. Like you said, we've opted not to go with serious tracking for students. The minimal tracking we already do is controversial as is. It would be a huge ruckus for us to do what the Germans do and start segregating students by ability soon after elementary school. We just value different things differently, and in this particular case we accept less optimal social outcom…

Americans have greater equality than Germans?
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