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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 st

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 speak very little to sometimes none at all. - They can only pick companies where speaking only English is tolerated. - Since they speak English, they tend to stick to themselves and cannot integrate. Some of them have a hard time even ordering food. - Indian Bachelor degrees are not comparable to German degrees. I have the feeling that there are some good universities, but others are nowhere near the German standard. Their skill levels are usually lower than these of their German counterparts. It makes sense: I have talked to people, who came from a small village and used a computer in their undergraduate course for the first time. - When you talk about their plans, it becomes clear, that they aimed for the US or the UK and took Germany only for the price and are often not planning to stay, but to take the next opportunity to board a plane to the US. At the moment I do not think it makes any economical sense for Germany. I would do the following: - mandatory German language courses - mandatory German language knowledge, even for English speaking courses - much stricter admission standards, individual tests instead of trusting non-EU standards - better integration with the labor market - maximum to the number of months you can stay in a dorm (already the case for German students) - initiatives to form German + foreign flat shares (primary way of living for students in Germany) At the moment we are just sending the bad students back home and the good students to the US, after they got a free education here. The local university close by reacted and increased the required GRE test scores to Ivy League level. The admissions dropped by an order of magnitude. Germany is very social-democratic when it comes to education, so politicians avoid the word "elite", but when it comes to picking talent, you really should not. I think Germany should capitalize on the political climate in other countries and pick quality over quantity. A tax paid university should not be a third-world aid program.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
discordianfish 9y ago
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?
- ed_balls 9y ago
  If you'd double my salary I still wouldn't move to Germany. Learning a new language is too big investment.
  - discordianfish 9y ago
    Not even talking about attracting talent but retaining it. That being said, in Berlin startups you don't need to speak german. You just need to be down with working for a shitty salary at a meaningless e-commerce project or copycat that is never intended to succeed.
    - anon_7523 9y ago
      I think you are essentially confusing "tech" with "web" (granted SV mostly does the same). Go to Southern Germany, if you want tech jobs, not Berlin.
  - sparkling 9y ago
    You can live and work in Berlin without speaking single word of German.
    - mafribe 9y ago
      You can, but Berlin is not (yet) where most of the interesting high-tech jobs are. Moreover, if you want an interesting social life, eventually you'll have to learn the local language, there's no way around it.
  - jernfrost 9y ago
ar0 9y ago
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.
sparkling 9y ago
I can confirm most of this, also talking from personal experience during my Bachelor and Masters studies. The majority of Non-EU students that come here seem to have a very hard time. I have no idea how they passed the German language test, most of them speak very little german, definitely not enough to fully understand a lecture held in German. Their prior education is not comparable to the required standard that native students must meet, so most of them are doing rather badly grade-wise. When i talk to them, most of them state they wish to return to their home country once they finish their degree here. Needless to say, there are exceptions to the rule that hustle hard, excel and plan to stay in Germany once they finish. In summary: Germany seems to get the B or C level bunch of students, while the A level students go to the US or the UK.
captainmuon 9y ago
My experience in Germany is the exact opposite, foreign students are usually the most communicative and the most dedicated at the same time. And it is not like getting a degree is an automatism. If you are bad, you will fail and drop out. There has been an inflation in grades in the recent years, but most degrees are still hard to obtain and require that you really learn what you are doing. Maybe it is different in different fields, but at least this is my impression in physics and the natural sciences.
trident117 9y ago
I would have to agree with you being an Indian student in Germany right now. I have seen a lot of Indian/Pakistani/Middle-Eastern students at my University with lower skills than what is usually desired of them at a Master's level. Of course, I can't generalize and there definitely are a lot of talented students in the mix as well. One interesting fact is, that my University recently reduced the number of admissions given to International students with probably some changes to the admission criteria, the standard of new students has now increased. Also, you are right about some Universities being closer to German standards than others in India (I guess every country has good and bad Universities, the onus here is on the German Universities to identify the right ones and improve the admission criteria). I personally do not see a lot of difference between my University back home in India and the one I am enrolled at in Germany.
alismayilov 9y ago
I did my master in Germany and I work in German company now. Yes, I speak little German, but I am improving it. My friends also came to study in German universities. At least half of them stayed here and all of them speak at least some German. I think companies also benefit a lot from this. It is much easier to hire somebody who already lived and studied in Germany than who never been here. Me and my friends are here, because German universities are free. Otherwise, we would not neither here nor U.S. and U.K. Because they are very expensive, there is no way to come from third world country and afford all expenses.
ryanalam 9y ago
"A tax paid university should not be a third-world aid program."
rdl 9y ago
What about having high standards on tests and some kind of practical evaluation, but not requiring third-party credentials to enroll, particularly at the graduate/professional level? i.e. not going for the 18 year old undergraduate market, which is very competitive, but something more unique. (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.)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

discordianfish 9y ago

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?

ed_balls 9y ago
If you'd double my salary I still wouldn't move to Germany. Learning a new language is too big investment.
- discordianfish 9y ago
  Not even talking about attracting talent but retaining it. That being said, in Berlin startups you don't need to speak german. You just need to be down with working for a shitty salary at a meaningless e-commerce project or copycat that is never intended to succeed.
  - anon_7523 9y ago
    I think you are essentially confusing "tech" with "web" (granted SV mostly does the same). Go to Southern Germany, if you want tech jobs, not Berlin.
- sparkling 9y ago
  You can live and work in Berlin without speaking single word of German.
  - mafribe 9y ago
    You can, but Berlin is not (yet) where most of the interesting high-tech jobs are. Moreover, if you want an interesting social life, eventually you'll have to learn the local language, there's no way around it.
- jernfrost 9y ago

ar0 9y ago

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.

sparkling 9y ago

I can confirm most of this, also talking from personal experience during my Bachelor and Masters studies. The majority of Non-EU students that come here seem to have a very hard time. I have no idea how they passed the German language test, most of them speak very little german, definitely not enough to fully understand a lecture held in German. Their prior education is not comparable to the required standard that native students must meet, so most of them are doing rather badly grade-wise. When i talk to them, most of them state they wish to return to their home country once they finish their degree here. Needless to say, there are exceptions to the rule that hustle hard, excel and plan to stay in Germany once they finish. In summary: Germany seems to get the B or C level bunch of students, while the A level students go to the US or the UK.

captainmuon 9y ago

My experience in Germany is the exact opposite, foreign students are usually the most communicative and the most dedicated at the same time. And it is not like getting a degree is an automatism. If you are bad, you will fail and drop out. There has been an inflation in grades in the recent years, but most degrees are still hard to obtain and require that you really learn what you are doing. Maybe it is different in different fields, but at least this is my impression in physics and the natural sciences.

trident117 9y ago

I would have to agree with you being an Indian student in Germany right now. I have seen a lot of Indian/Pakistani/Middle-Eastern students at my University with lower skills than what is usually desired of them at a Master's level. Of course, I can't generalize and there definitely are a lot of talented students in the mix as well. One interesting fact is, that my University recently reduced the number of admissions given to International students with probably some changes to the admission criteria, the standard of new students has now increased. Also, you are right about some Universities being closer to German standards than others in India (I guess every country has good and bad Universities, the onus here is on the German Universities to identify the right ones and improve the admission criteria). I personally do not see a lot of difference between my University back home in India and the one I am enrolled at in Germany.

alismayilov 9y ago

I did my master in Germany and I work in German company now. Yes, I speak little German, but I am improving it. My friends also came to study in German universities. At least half of them stayed here and all of them speak at least some German. I think companies also benefit a lot from this. It is much easier to hire somebody who already lived and studied in Germany than who never been here. Me and my friends are here, because German universities are free. Otherwise, we would not neither here nor U.S. and U.K. Because they are very expensive, there is no way to come from third world country and afford all expenses.

ryanalam 9y ago

"A tax paid university should not be a third-world aid program."

rdl 9y ago

What about having high standards on tests and some kind of practical evaluation, but not requiring third-party credentials to enroll, particularly at the graduate/professional level? i.e. not going for the 18 year old undergraduate market, which is very competitive, but something more unique. (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.)