81–90 of 258 posts
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I work in London. The natives here consider the UK as a separate entity from Europe. They talk about the mainland as Europe, and compare themselves to "Europeans", not to "other Europeans". This is the British culture of "us vs them", or "we are too good to be associated with you" that I live in now :P
Reminds me of the perhaps apocryphal Times headline: Fog In Channel Continent Cut Off
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…
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> Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast. Could you be a little more specific? The size of Europe, America and Asia is too huge for statements like that. There are definitely universities in Europe that are more similar to some in the US than other universities in Europe. I'm a student in Sweden and I have not experienced anyth…
I know how engineering courses look like in Poland. Universities are 100% free, but they have absolutely no qualms about kicking out weaker students. Electrical engineering course at any of the largest universities in Poland will enroll 300-400 people,but 200 of them will fail the first year. The last year is usually finished by In contrast, I studied in UK and getting through university at an Engineering course was…
It's about the philosophy behind it. In Poland (and Romania too, BTW), an institution defends its reputation first and foremost. Somewhere else, it's more business-oriented and the reputation is kept more by marketing than by other means. That is also how "top universities" classification is made - by counting only the highest results, not all of it. It's a nice hack on human mind, as both the students' and the average employers' bells ring when they think of those "top" universities, abstracting away a lot of "uninteresting" information.
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That's contrary to all my experiences. Gym/sports/languages courses/... are easily on par with US private unis, except less expensive.
Competitive college sports is pretty much non-existent in Europe.
What you are saying is that if you want to do competitive sports, you won't get a degree in history of business or other feign courses pros take in the US university sports system.
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These broad statements seem ridiculous to me. If you're speaking from personal experience, you should at least add which subject you studied and at which Uni/FH you studied.
Agreed. But the German education system isn't like Anglo (e.g., US) systems. 27% of this generation of Germans have post-secondary education, compared to 43% of their American counterparts. Someone explained to me that this is due to Germany's focus on trades and apprenticeship.
Yeah, the Berufsschulen (vocational schools) mirror the university system with 5+ year trainings that net apprentice/master certifications; and a master is in many trades necessary to be allowed to work as freelancer/found your own company – even for blue collar jobs like plumber, painter or car mechanic.
This has started to erode in the past two decades, though, because all those jobs are being automated and/or outsourced and people try to rush to the universities.
Edit: Apparently, (partially in reaction to this) a Meisterbrief now is considered to be equivalent to a Bachelor of Arts degree.
So you will see many highly qualified graduates working as waiters or in startups who pay little to nothing - so they can stay in posh Berlin.
At the same time companies in the countryside have a very, very hard time to get employees.
Apart from that spatial problem, there is one huge drawback: the language. Most of the study programs are still solely taught in German. And the requirements are tough!
I had some classes in English and it was totally weird, as there were never more than 2 students who were not German natives. Quality dropped as well, when you're discussing German philosophy in English, obviously.
I wonder if American students fleeing their country to save on education tax is more than anecdotical. BTW, the article mentions Germany, but isn't education cheap in most European countries?
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It's the same in Finland, at least in universities. If you don't pass your courses, the state stops paying the student benefits[1], but you can stay at the university. There is another, very low number of courses you need to pass every year in order to stay in, but that is very low indeed, it's only meant to keep registers clean of people not studying at all. 1: That's right, Finns are paid to study. I think students…
"Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are." There are scholarships (all over Europe) that depend on acquiring a minimal number of Bologna-credits, and those (at least in some countries) existed since the foundation of the higher education itself.
The grants when I studied in Norway were not huge, but they were unconditional for some number of years as long as you could document that you were still studying (basically it was sufficient to sign up to a couple of courses and attending the exams, whether or not you passed). This was 20 years ago - details may have changed.
I lived on my grants + student loan for the first year of my first startup, by continuing to sign up for a couple of courses which I didn't actually study for (attended may be two lectures...)
I am on a temporary work assignment in Germany (2 years). I would come back in a minute if I wanted to further my education. Its a great country, safe, modern, and residents (permanent or not) get a lot of support from the government. Free university is for the German people, but they extend it to foreigners because Germany needs people and they hope they stay. I've learned a lot in Germany I will take back with me a…
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.
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Source? OECD put it at 27% in 2011[1]. If that number is 38% today, then over 2 million Germans earned post-secondary degrees in the last 4 years. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_25%E2%80%9...