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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

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 of "Fachidioten" here. That's a good thing, and also a bad thing. tl;dr If you want to reach for the stars in your career, study somewhere else.

_stephan 12y ago
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.
- doyoulikeworms 12y ago
  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.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - doyoulikeworms 12y ago
      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%9334_year_olds_having_a_tertiary_education_degree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_25%E2%80%9...
      - creshal 12y ago
        The Meisterbrief wasn't considered a tertiary degree until 2013, I assume this distorts the statistics.
        doyoulikeworms 12y ago
        Ah, that makes sense. It's funny, because some Americans grumble about the lack of focus on vocational training and trades, while OP was grumbling about the lack of breadth and liberal education in Germany. The grass is always greener.
        creshal 12y ago
        > 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 education, history, computer science, …) you should be able to pick a specialization without turning into a drooling retard.
        doyoulikeworms 12y ago
        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 additional breadth of knowledge.
        creshal 12y ago
        > 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).
  - brazzy 12y ago
    The explanation is correct; about 50% of Germans go through a formal combination of apprenticeship and trade school.
  - creshal 12y ago
    > 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.
mironathetin 12y ago
Well, that sounds as if you want to turn around the invitation for foreign students? As the (currently) first post states, americans love the safety of germany and the free education - and the beer. I encourage everybody to come here, then take home what you appreciated and make american universities a better place too (I write this under the impression of suicide reports at MIT and poisoning of competing lab colleagues at stanford, the murder of a visiting german student in Missoula last year). Ignore the german hierarchies. I wouldn't put it as drastic as DrinkWater, but german universities have their little kings at the tops indeed. But this doesn't concern students, only scientists. The atmosphere is much less competitive here, more a friendly competition that supports teamwork and good science - as it should be. Have a good time everybody.
rsp1984 12y ago
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 that the top German Engineering Universities (Munich, Darmstadt, Aachen) are comparable to the top US universities in that area (Stanford, MIT, ...). Now with regards to broadness of thinking and knowledge, it's true that the US values this much higher than Germany and the situation hasn't especially improved with the Bologna process in Germany. However the big argument is that German universities are free and cost of living is low. Then why not study in Germany and get some of the US mentality later in your professional life by working in the US? I'd argue that valuing choice of college/university too high is a mistake that many people make. Instead figure out first what you want, focus on getting your skills and how to discover new opportunities in life. No college university can really help you with this.
- _stephan 12y ago
  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?
  - _delirium 12y ago
    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).
interdrift 12y ago
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.
- eru 12y ago
  That may be true if all you are looking for is knowledge. University also gives you contacts and a piece of paper.
  - interdrift 12y ago
    Isn't that the point - knowledge?
    - eru 12y ago
      Not really. As said, you can get knowledge from other sources. Now more so than ever.

_stephan 12y ago

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.

doyoulikeworms 12y ago
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.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - doyoulikeworms 12y ago
    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%9334_year_olds_having_a_tertiary_education_degree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_25%E2%80%9...
    - creshal 12y ago
      The Meisterbrief wasn't considered a tertiary degree until 2013, I assume this distorts the statistics.
      - doyoulikeworms 12y ago
        Ah, that makes sense. It's funny, because some Americans grumble about the lack of focus on vocational training and trades, while OP was grumbling about the lack of breadth and liberal education in Germany. The grass is always greener.
        creshal 12y ago
        > 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 education, history, computer science, …) you should be able to pick a specialization without turning into a drooling retard.
        doyoulikeworms 12y ago
        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 additional breadth of knowledge.
        creshal 12y ago
        > 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).
- brazzy 12y ago
  The explanation is correct; about 50% of Germans go through a formal combination of apprenticeship and trade school.
- creshal 12y ago
  > 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.

mironathetin 12y ago

Well, that sounds as if you want to turn around the invitation for foreign students? As the (currently) first post states, americans love the safety of germany and the free education - and the beer. I encourage everybody to come here, then take home what you appreciated and make american universities a better place too (I write this under the impression of suicide reports at MIT and poisoning of competing lab colleagues at stanford, the murder of a visiting german student in Missoula last year). Ignore the german hierarchies. I wouldn't put it as drastic as DrinkWater, but german universities have their little kings at the tops indeed. But this doesn't concern students, only scientists. The atmosphere is much less competitive here, more a friendly competition that supports teamwork and good science - as it should be. Have a good time everybody.

rsp1984 12y ago

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 that the top German Engineering Universities (Munich, Darmstadt, Aachen) are comparable to the top US universities in that area (Stanford, MIT, ...). Now with regards to broadness of thinking and knowledge, it's true that the US values this much higher than Germany and the situation hasn't especially improved with the Bologna process in Germany. However the big argument is that German universities are free and cost of living is low. Then why not study in Germany and get some of the US mentality later in your professional life by working in the US? I'd argue that valuing choice of college/university too high is a mistake that many people make. Instead figure out first what you want, focus on getting your skills and how to discover new opportunities in life. No college university can really help you with this.

_stephan 12y ago
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?
- _delirium 12y ago
  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).

interdrift 12y ago

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.

eru 12y ago
That may be true if all you are looking for is knowledge. University also gives you contacts and a piece of paper.
- interdrift 12y ago
  Isn't that the point - knowledge?
  - eru 12y ago
    Not really. As said, you can get knowledge from other sources. Now more so than ever.