7 ms·

Studying in Germany isn't a bad idea at all. My brother did and it seems, unsurprisingly, that German degrees are well respected in the automotive engineering i

Studying in Germany isn't a bad idea at all. My brother did and it seems, unsurprisingly, that German degrees are well respected in the automotive engineering industry here in the states. On the other hand, there's 10,160 German students studying full time in the US at a higher nominal price from a 4x smaller population. Perhaps sometimes the cost premium is worth it? Especially if you can get others to pay it via scholarships.

ma2rten 11y ago
Those Germans don't necessarily came to the US for academic reasons. A lot of Germans just want to experience life the US. Others want to improve their English. That said, I understand that if the top school for your sub-field is in the US why you would want to come to the US for graduate school.
le_doude 11y ago
If you land in the Ivy league, then yes the price tag might be worth it. Who wouldn't hire an MIT engineer, or an Harvard Lawyer if they can afford it? But if you are not at the top schools why rack up the same type of student debt while you can get the same level anywhere else in the world? If your field is cultural then yes studying in the country in which it is more pertinent makes sense (Why study Japanese literature in Italy just to illustrate). But if your field is technical, or removed enough from local culture then looking around makes all the sense in the world. But frankly there is plenty of schools that I regard as highly as MIT, CMU and such that are Europe (Polytech Paris, Poly Lausanne, Normal School of Pisa, Poly Milan, ... I am forgetting a lot) or Asia (Tokyo Tech) and while you might need to get a loan for some costs it will never get to US levels (I studied in Unis in Italy, France and Japan to get my BS and MS and all my loans were exactly EUR15000 by the time I found a job ... I had part-times and Scholarships but those were not hard to get, and I had declared bankruptcy I could have gotten rid of those since I took those loans in Europe).
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  Schools like EPFL are good, but I wouldn't say they were as selective as MIT. I guess its a subjective measure. I got my undergraduate degree at UW, needed no loans at all (that was a different time though).
  - peterfirefly 11y ago
    Isn't EPFL one of the top places in the world for micromechanics and possibly also microelectronics due to the clock making heritage?
    - saryant 11y ago
      It's also the birthplace of Scala.
      - Chronic31 11y ago
        Scala is a dying language.
    - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
      All good universities have unique accomplishments.
- maehwasu 11y ago
  Of course if you can land in the Ivy League, or at least in the top half of it, you won't have any tradeoffs to make: the financial aid for families making less than $100K has gotten really good at Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford (I think MIT as well, not sure on the other Ivies). I made a slight profit in my final year at Harvard, combining financial aid with 5-10 hours a week of part-time work. Obviously it was nice for me, but it's sort of gross, in that the kids who need aid least (based on future earning potential) get copious amounts of it, while others are (in my opinion) scammed into onerous, non-dischargeable loans, with lower earning potential to boot.
- santaclaus 11y ago
  MIT and CMU are not in the Ivy League!
bayesianhorse 11y ago
I'd assume the real reason is that German is a very hard language rarely taught/learned in the US, and conversely, every German student with university access qualification has had at least 7 years of English lessons...
- peterfirefly 11y ago
  It is one of the easier ones to learn if your starting point is English. There are also plenty of study materials available -- for free. Plus the Goethe institutes. You can watch German TV here: mediathek.daserste.de/sendungVerpasst Start with "Die Sendung mit der Maus" on Sundays :)
- sampo 11y ago
  > German is a very hard language Usually German is classified in the second most easy category for native English speakers to learn. http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/lang...
- lispm 11y ago
  Funky, English is a Germanic language. Half of the words in English sentences are rooted in German or are otherwise related... I Ich real real is ist that das hard hart -> schwer learned -> gelernt in in the den and und student Student university Universität has hat had hatte years jahre lessions lektion
  - notahacker 11y ago
    sure, but the Anglo Saxon words sharing common roots with German have diverged at lot once you get beyond phrases as simple as "mein Name ist". It's not just a reflection on the English education system that after 5 years of high school German (and an A grade!) I could often grok more from a text written in a Romance language I hadn't learned than written German. On the plus side, German has no sounds English speakers should find difficult to pronounce, nicely regular word order and a fondness for compound words which are as simple to remember as they are long, but by the standards of European language groups the vocabulary really isn't that similar.

ma2rten 11y ago

Those Germans don't necessarily came to the US for academic reasons. A lot of Germans just want to experience life the US. Others want to improve their English. That said, I understand that if the top school for your sub-field is in the US why you would want to come to the US for graduate school.

le_doude 11y ago

If you land in the Ivy league, then yes the price tag might be worth it. Who wouldn't hire an MIT engineer, or an Harvard Lawyer if they can afford it? But if you are not at the top schools why rack up the same type of student debt while you can get the same level anywhere else in the world? If your field is cultural then yes studying in the country in which it is more pertinent makes sense (Why study Japanese literature in Italy just to illustrate). But if your field is technical, or removed enough from local culture then looking around makes all the sense in the world. But frankly there is plenty of schools that I regard as highly as MIT, CMU and such that are Europe (Polytech Paris, Poly Lausanne, Normal School of Pisa, Poly Milan, ... I am forgetting a lot) or Asia (Tokyo Tech) and while you might need to get a loan for some costs it will never get to US levels (I studied in Unis in Italy, France and Japan to get my BS and MS and all my loans were exactly EUR15000 by the time I found a job ... I had part-times and Scholarships but those were not hard to get, and I had declared bankruptcy I could have gotten rid of those since I took those loans in Europe).

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
Schools like EPFL are good, but I wouldn't say they were as selective as MIT. I guess its a subjective measure. I got my undergraduate degree at UW, needed no loans at all (that was a different time though).
- peterfirefly 11y ago
  Isn't EPFL one of the top places in the world for micromechanics and possibly also microelectronics due to the clock making heritage?
  - saryant 11y ago
    It's also the birthplace of Scala.
    - Chronic31 11y ago
      Scala is a dying language.
  - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
    All good universities have unique accomplishments.
maehwasu 11y ago
Of course if you can land in the Ivy League, or at least in the top half of it, you won't have any tradeoffs to make: the financial aid for families making less than $100K has gotten really good at Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford (I think MIT as well, not sure on the other Ivies). I made a slight profit in my final year at Harvard, combining financial aid with 5-10 hours a week of part-time work. Obviously it was nice for me, but it's sort of gross, in that the kids who need aid least (based on future earning potential) get copious amounts of it, while others are (in my opinion) scammed into onerous, non-dischargeable loans, with lower earning potential to boot.
santaclaus 11y ago
MIT and CMU are not in the Ivy League!

bayesianhorse 11y ago

I'd assume the real reason is that German is a very hard language rarely taught/learned in the US, and conversely, every German student with university access qualification has had at least 7 years of English lessons...

peterfirefly 11y ago
It is one of the easier ones to learn if your starting point is English. There are also plenty of study materials available -- for free. Plus the Goethe institutes. You can watch German TV here: mediathek.daserste.de/sendungVerpasst Start with "Die Sendung mit der Maus" on Sundays :)
sampo 11y ago
> German is a very hard language Usually German is classified in the second most easy category for native English speakers to learn. http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/lang...
lispm 11y ago
Funky, English is a Germanic language. Half of the words in English sentences are rooted in German or are otherwise related... I Ich real real is ist that das hard hart -> schwer learned -> gelernt in in the den and und student Student university Universität has hat had hatte years jahre lessions lektion
- notahacker 11y ago
  sure, but the Anglo Saxon words sharing common roots with German have diverged at lot once you get beyond phrases as simple as "mein Name ist". It's not just a reflection on the English education system that after 5 years of high school German (and an A grade!) I could often grok more from a text written in a Romance language I hadn't learned than written German. On the plus side, German has no sounds English speakers should find difficult to pronounce, nicely regular word order and a fondness for compound words which are as simple to remember as they are long, but by the standards of European language groups the vocabulary really isn't that similar.