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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

#231

Post by eru »

chronial wrote: post #222
ryandrake wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely anywhere there are exams, there are rich parents paying for exam prep in order to gain an advantage.

In Germany, university admission is based on your final grades in school, which are an accumulation of your grades of the last two years. Rich parents can of course help their kids be better in school, but there is no efficient exam prepping.

Grades only really matter for medicine, psychology, and perhaps law. If you want to be an engineer or physicist or mathematician etc, they take everyone.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#232

Post by eru »

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…

Try Asia. Singapore is essentially a better Germany.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#233

Post by eru »

_delirium wrote: post #189
_stephan wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Keep in mind that Germans go to highschool for longer. The Abitur covers a lot of the interdisciplinary ground that you have to take in an American undergraduate degree.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#234

Post by eru »

creshal wrote: post #182
doyoulikeworms wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Computer science education seems to vary a lot between high schools. It basically depends on how good your teacher is. (Each state also has an official curriculum.)

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#235

Post by eru »

interdrift wrote: post #78
DrinkWater wrote: post #46

I would have killed to get the chance to study in the US. American students are far more complex and broad in their knowledge. And that's a very good thing you shouldn't underestimate. It helps a lot in your career. Germany loves hierarchy and "conservative" thinking. And that is reflected in every aspect of society, even academic education. The main focus is to produce people that Germany needs. We have a shitload o…

Having an university degree will soon be worthless ( not in our lifetimes ) but the revolution has already started. Online courses offer much better results for less money. In fact I think the best place you could be right now is : having a degree ( in which you didn't put all that much of an effort ) + work experience while you are studying + online courses from top universities.

That may be true if all you are looking for is knowledge. University also gives you contacts and a piece of paper.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#236

Post by eru »

mcbetz wrote: post #86

Yes, there is a massive flow of incoming students, especially here in Berlin and in other large cities (Hamburg, Munich, Cologne). But after graduation, exactly those cities do not offer great job opportunities. What makes our economic system strong are the many small to medium entreprises, often family businesses. And those are seldomly in the nice urban areas but mostly in the southern countryside. So you will see…

Posh Berlin? Exciting perhaps, but not posh.

I hope that the startups and competition between them will drive up salaries eventually.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#237

Post by eru »

chrisBob wrote: post #99

This is an interesting contrast to the US. Germany educates foreigners for free because they want them to stay. In the US it is very hard for someone to stay after going through a publicly funded PhD program. Other than exporting our culture I am not sure what the goal could be.

It's more than one goal. The visa regime is a complex (and foul) compromise between different political pressure groups.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#238

Post by eru »

darkhorn wrote: post #62

You can study at METU / Turkey. It is one of the best 100 universities in the world. Very cheap compared to the USA. And it is a state university, founded with the help of the USA during the cold war. http://www.metu.edu.tr/announcement/odtu-among-top-100-unive... Less than €550 per semester for foreign students (if you are Turkic it is cheaper (might be free), or if you are Turkic country citizen, or if you have gra…

I've been at METU for Erasmus. It was fun and I recommend it!

But do not go for the academic quality. The best courses were just on par with the average course I had at a no-name German university. I don't know how they came up with the top 100 ranking---perhaps it's based on research?

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#239

Post by eru »

tempodox wrote: post #157
adaml_623 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just ask yourself if there are any other benefits to having U.S. students studying in your country. Think outside the box. Your comment comes across as quite xenophobic with it's 'aliens can have a free ride'.

Calling someone xenophobic because they would be unwilling to give away for free what is worth money everywhere else to people who didn't contribute to what they're taking, comes across as quite self-serving.

But they ARE willing to do just that. Go figure!

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#240

Post by eru »

wolfgke wrote: post #138
chli wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get the idea that Swiss are obsessed with not paying taxes ? In fact Switzerland and Germany are very similar in all the aspects you mention.

I agrree. Being German, it's my impression that the Swiss are even more honest with taxes than the Germans. The general impression in many countries rather is: The Swiss are very honest with their taxes, but don't care about tax honesty about foreigners in their own countries (getting people to be honest about their taxes is a problem that each country has to solve by itself). This is different from the German mental…

Reminds me of "Weil nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf." I'm still looking for a pithy English equivalent.

(See http://ingeb.org/Lieder/palmstre.html for the full text of the poem.)

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