241–250 of 254 posts
Certainly laudable. How does one "stick around" after graduation - do you have to learn German?
Depends on the area of work I guess. It's not that uncommon to have English as company language in startups or IT companies in general, but even if not you'll get around with English just fine.
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…
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You can't really think the instruction at these institutions is inferior. US are masters of hype and marketing and UK are masters of prestige.
I'm just going by the rankings. There are several of these lists, and the overall picture is pretty similar - the best universities are judged to be US/UK, with the odd sprinkling of European/Asian in the top ranks.
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You explicitly talked of "neighboring countries" of Germany - here I provided evidence that the situation is different. > being ha handicap having to learn French or German for a temporary job Here I rather see the problem: The people only want a temporary job in Germany - so they see Germany just as a stepping stone for their career. If I were a staff manager at a company, I would be very cautious to hire such a per…
Well, for neighboring countries I meant EU countries. You can have near unlimited low-qualification worker supply from your strictly speaking neighboring countries, but not necessarily world-class skilled workers, specially, if those workers willing to move from one country to another can pick options with less conditions. Also, you can have potential supply, not willing to move, just because of nationalist stuff (fo…
There are only three EU countries (UK, Ireland, Malta) where English is an official language - soon there will be only two. For comparison: German is official language in four EU countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg) and French in three (France, Belgium, Luxembourg).
Now let's look at data for language knowledge in the EU:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Languages_of_the_...
The most common first language in the EU is German. Other important first languages are English, French and Italian (this table has not yet included the fact that soon for English this number has to be much lower).
Totally (in number of native and non-native speakers) English (51%) looks more important than German (32%) or French (26%).
Now I tell you an observation: When (EU) people are talking that they know English as an additional language, this often means "really bad English" (just try to converse with Italians in English ;-) ). This is clearly not sufficient knowledge for using English in a professional environment. On the other hand when they claim to know German or French as an additional language, this typically promises much better language skills than if such a claim is made for English by some person. So I would argue that "people knowing enough of the language such that in, say, half a year they could use this language in a professional environment" for English the "51%" must be made smaller by a lot, while for German and French a similar correction should be much more minor.
Really: On a wordwide scale English might have a large role, but if you talk about EU, there are other languages (in particular German and French) that are at least of similar importance "for EU purposes" (just as in South America Spanish and Portuguese are the important languages and not English) - and with Brexit their importance will surely even increase.
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…
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You can survive sure, but I'd be really hard and expensive to start a company. How am I suppose to read german law and fill government forms? Have a lawyer to everything for me? Thanks no thanks.
You'll have a hard time starting a company or anything without consulting a lawyer or legal service in Germany. And you won't be taken seriously e.g. by banks etc. Fortunately, cost for legal advice on this matter is significantly less than in the US, AFAIK. Plus, you have the bonus of being able to do business in 27+ countries with marginal or no extra effort.
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Well, for neighboring countries I meant EU countries. You can have near unlimited low-qualification worker supply from your strictly speaking neighboring countries, but not necessarily world-class skilled workers, specially, if those workers willing to move from one country to another can pick options with less conditions. Also, you can have potential supply, not willing to move, just because of nationalist stuff (fo…
> Well, for neighboring countries I meant EU countries. There are only three EU countries (UK, Ireland, Malta) where English is an official language - soon there will be only two. For comparison: German is official language in four EU countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg) and French in three (France, Belgium, Luxembourg). Now let's look at data for language knowledge in the EU: > https://en.wikipedia.org/…
P.S. My English is also "bad", being a Spaniard myself, but enough for working in English in IT (not for writing novels, obviously).
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…
(My German is 1- to 1 right now, but I could probably get to 2- to 2 without too much work over a year, but I have no undergraduate degree. If I wanted a professional degree without completing undergraduate, I'm mostly stuck with UK schools (LBS, LSE, ICL being the top options) in MBA or Econ, or a back-door "special student" PhD route somewhere. If there were a German institution which made this straightforward, it would be worthwhile for a lot of people in the mid-career stage in technical fields who don't have formal credentials. Those people would be far more likely to remain in Germany, or at least to maintain some connection to Germany.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well, for neighboring countries I meant EU countries. There are only three EU countries (UK, Ireland, Malta) where English is an official language - soon there will be only two. For comparison: German is official language in four EU countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg) and French in three (France, Belgium, Luxembourg). Now let's look at data for language knowledge in the EU: > https://en.wikipedia.org/…
English is the lingua franca in IT, worldwide. Everyone in IT knows it, to some extent. And even general population get English as second or third language. English teaching is generalized at developed countries, while German it is not. P.S. My English is also "bad", being a Spaniard myself, but enough for working in English in IT (not for writing novels, obviously).
At an internship at a German-French software company there also was a French programming department (alongside the German one, where I interned). I can assure you: They hardly knew English, at best it was a mixture between French and English, where to understand the English (in the source code) you often had to translate it back to French in your mind (because otherwise it made no sense).
The thing is, the fees discussed in Germany ( ~1000€ / semester) are no where near covering the costs of a seat for one student. It's just a drop in the ocean, so they might as well keep it free. And when tutition is free for Germans, it seems wierd and discriminatory to take fees from foreigners. I grew up in Germany, but don't have a German passport. Should I pay more? Where do you draw the line? I was studying whe…
> when tutition is free for Germans, it seems wierd and discriminatory to take fees from foreigners German citizens subsidize this "free" university with their taxes. This includes low-level workers who have never visited a university. So essentially you are asking poor people in Germany to pay for the education of middle-class or rich people from other countries.
Poor people who only have a bike and make minimum wage in a way pay with their taxes for freeways (or Autobahns) - even if they are never going to use them. Is the conclusion to stop building streets with tax money?
Collectively, on average, poor people get more out of the state than they pay into it. If I'm rich, I will pay much more taxes than my kids will be able to use up by going to Uni. If I'm poor, it's the other way around (assuming we take advantage of it).