Just remember that in Germany University doesn’t have
Athletics like in American College
“professional” football, basketball, baseball and hockey teams are absent. No facilities. No stadiums.
Little diversity, college-sponsored minority clubs are absent
No department of diversity, including LGBT
No Title 11 sexual assault prevention programs.
Campus police is absent
University provides education, very good education, but little else. University is in the middle of the city. If you want to see opera, you can go into an opera theater. University doesn’t have it’s own opera department. University provides housing (actually, very good housing) and subsidized food at cafeteria (actually, very good one), and medical care (good one) but it doesn’t have policies, police, sensitivity training, safety training, or anything else. The city is reasonably safe. Transportation is on bike.
No counselors. On the other hand, education is tailored according to the majors. If you want to be a chemist, you learn chemistry. If you want to major in biology - learn biology. Little general ed requirements. Difficult to transfer from one major into another (possible). On the other hand, majors are “broader”. US has many specific majors. In Europe majors are broader. Biology means any Biology for example.
^^^ Very true. But some of the dorms are um…diverse…(okay trigger alert!!!)…in the words of some students who have experience…be careful or you could wind up living in a Turkish or African slum.
In Germany dorms are very diverse, student body is very diverse. But the diversity is “non-organized”. There are no training or clubs or policy. Usually, pubs and beer-gardens replace organized diversity events.
Also, please keep in mind that German cities are often walking or bike distance. All events that are happening between Uni, dorm, and pub are within a bike distance. You don’t need a fraternity/sonority party, just stop by the favorite pub after classes and you will always find some classmates.
Professors are very, very accessible. They are interested in students because they want to recruit bright and motivated students for graduate work in their labs.
IMHO, in Germany Profs are more accessible than in US. In US everything is more organized: office hours, appointments. In Germany you can talk to Prof. after his lecture, very common and appreciated by Profs.
I’ll list out all the states where I’ll call the state schools “good” (which is purely by my own estimation).
Pennsylvania
Maryland
Virginia
North Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Ohio
Michigan
Indiana
Illinois
Wisconsin
Texas
Colorado
California
Washington
Add up the populations of these 15 states, it’s about 61% of the population of the US. So 61% of the US has good public options in state that are comparable in price to most Canadian and British universities.
And I don’t think most people in the US want to go to countries where the language is not English. Even if you find specific programs that are conducted in English, you still live somewhere where normal people won’t speak English. And in general the culture will be very different from the US (at least much more different than Canada and Britain are).
I have a burning question that I was going to take up with the semester abroad department once my D enrolls in college but you all seem very knowledgeable about schools in Germany perhaps you can help? D hopes to study meteorology at OU, they have semester abroad program at the University of Hamburg
here the info about the program: http://som.ou.edu/content/pdf/exchHamburg.pdf
D also would like to do a music minor. Do you think it would be possible for her to take an “applied lesson” class or “ensemble” class at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg while she is at the University of Hamburg? D asked about the music department chair about this and she said she would approve credit.
How difficult is it to take one or two classes at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg? She already meets the minimum German language requirement but I do not speak German and I couldn’t find anything on their web site about non-degree seeking students. I think she will have the time and the schools appear to be fairly close at least on the map.
Even if she can’t get credit, I just can’t see her not playing her instrument for 6 months!
@Vladenschlutte, MN residents get to attend UW-Madison (as well as UMTC, of course) at in-state rates.
In any case, unis tuition-free in Germany certainly are an opportunity, but a passable ability to read and speak & understand German would still be required even if the instruction in class is in English. Not just to get around but also to understand and fill out forms correctly.
xiggi: I wondered if you meant Robert Frost. Wikipedia tells me that, indeed, he taught at Amherst for a few years, but he taught at Middlebury for 30-some years, and lived and farmed in New Hampshire and then Vermont for most of his life. I’ve never associated him with Amherst.
In general, if you say “Great Poet of Amherst,” there’s only one person people will understand that to mean: Emily Dickinson. She was the granddaughter of the college’s founder, and daughter of its treasurer, and she barely left the town limits during her lifetime. (Her most substantial absence was a a few semesters attending what later became Mount Holyoke, which hardly counts as leaving.)
Robert Frost is a perfectly great poet, whose reputation has survived both his death and his popularity pretty well. But in terms of the Western Canon, he’s a class down from Dickinson, who is truly a Great Poet, really, along with her contemporary and diametrical opposite Walt Whitman, THE Great Poet of the U.S… But I couldn’t think what advice a potential student at a German technical university could take from her. Frost, yes.
My D is a German and Art History double major and is studying at the Freie Universitat in Berlin her junior year. She lived in a dorm in the back of beyond the first term, and found a flatshare (WG) for the second term because the dorm was unavailable for the whole year. She had to go to "viewings’ which are like auditions, where you show up with the other 15 people who want to rent a room in the flatshare. It’s Darwinian social competition and if you don’t speak any German, it can be problematic for you. She got a furnished room in a flatshare with 2 other working young people in Friedrichshain “warm” (utilities plus wifi) but it’s 500 euro and it’s still almost an hour to campus. Thank the gods for the favorable exchange rate.
JHS, I did not want to start a debate about the greatest poet with Amherst connection. There was a lot of personal opinion in the term I used. I am not an expert on Amherst or Robert Frost, despite having been taught by one Frost scholars. I just knew Frost has been honored at Amherst. See
Poet of Amherst = Dickinson to me, too. Automatic connection. Like if you referred to The Bard (of Avon)
I think the Dickinson/Frost discussion is an excellent example of miscommunication due to lack of a common Western Canon, though I am unwilling to advocate for one. I just think we can’t assume anyone gets our allusions any longer.
There are two dorms close to the TU. They are run by different organizations. Neither will accept an application directly from an international student. I’ve been unable able to actually connect with either organization. Sigh.
I think we have found a rooming option. It’s very close to campus, he can bike if he wants to instead of taking the U. It’s in a private home where they rent the upper level to students. He will have his own large room and share the bathroom with a student living in the one other bedroom. The house ‘mom’ will do their laundry and return it unfolded to their rooms. It is is a safe and well established family neighborhood.
We found this through a family connection…several layers of connection.
Rent is 500 Euro/month. There’s an option for partial including breakfast and dinner. That brings the costs to 750 Euro.
I’ve heard rumors about the WG application process. During the original overview of his program S stories were told by previous participants of having to send 50 inquiries before getting one response. And yes, some level of conversational German is necessary.
@3scoutsmom Though my D did not study music in Germany, she is currently a professional musician living there. She has semi weekly private coachings and lessons from faculty at a Hochschule . She said it’s very similar to the sort of situation you find at competitive schools here—if you are not majoring in music, then you cannot easily get into ensembles or take private lessons. But, even at the most competitive schools, the faculty does offer private lessons and she has found them to be relatively inexpensive. After they get to know your student they will probably turn her on to where she can practice and what some performing opportunities might be available.
Excellent reality checks in posts 28 & 39 (@Dietz199). Another issue for some kids (especially the Californians) is that smoking is much more prevalent among German youth. The article in the original post actually focusses primarily on Master’s students, where the savings are more significant. According to this article in the NY Times, only a very small percentage of US undergraduates take on burdensome debt: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/upshot/student-loans-the-facts.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1
My husband received his undergraduate and graduate education in Germany and he has commented many times how much he prefers the American system, with large dorms, accessible faculty and campus based culture. Perhaps things have changed over the years, but he still refers to some of his Herr Doktor Professors as “Dementors”. He also had to scramble every year for a place to live, often with irritable landlords and peculiar flat mates.
Several years abroad, as for a Master’s degree, can be a very enriching experience. However after 3 or 4 years the culture shock upon return becomes more significant. There is also a rather high probability that students will form relationships, both personal and professional, that may lead them to remain in the country where they do their undergraduate work. All things to weigh in mind when evaluating “cost”.
The automatic might be an individual issue based on the point of view and angles. Some might look at the family history and others might look at the contributions to the school itself.
Automatic connections can be fickle. Just as Big Al, aka the inventor of the internet! If there is a lesson here, is that it is easier to avoid “titles” such as the “greatest baseball players or all time” or “the best QB ever” as the answer will be different from New York to San Francisco and many cities between them.
After all, French fries imply an automatic connection to the wrong place.