<p>I'm a rising-junior English major trying to further narrow my choices for a Spring '13 trip. Right now, I'm down to</p>
<p>Hannover
Bielefeld
Dortmund
Giessen
Eichst</p>
<p>Ahh you’re doing ISEP too eh? That’s what I’m doing.</p>
<p>I decided to go with Eichstatt-Ingolstadt because Ingolstadt has a renowned business school. As an Economics student I saw that it fit my needs best. Another big draw that I had was the community. Ingolstadt and Eichstatt are small but not too small. They have enough people that I feel there is a strong culture there.</p>
<p>My goal is escaping my university and experience true Bavarian culture.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>I teach in the English department at Bielefeld University. All of our courses are taught in English–a fairly large selection from linguistics, EFL teaching methods, British and American Literature as well as history and culture. We have four American ISEP students here this semester. They have also found courses to help them learn German. Bielefeld does not have a lot of accessible “history” --it is mostly a modern small city-- but we do have a castle and the Teutoburger Forest is great for hiking. Our university has an excellent history department but most of their courses are taught in German. One nearby town is Lemgo–famous for its history of witch persecutions and also Hameln–famous from the Pied Piper. Both have a number of “charming” half-timbered fairytale-style houses.</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies. I took a closer look at both Eichstatt and Bielefeld, and both look beautiful.</p>
<p>To be honest, nobody would call the town of Bielefeld “beautiful”, although it has one or two attractive spots and is surrounded by wooded hills.</p>
<p>If you’re not super into learning about Bavarian culture, I would go with either Dortmund or Hannover. Both are great cities, and Dortmund is a fairly large city that’s close to many other famous cities in Germany (which will be perfect for weekend trips, etc.!). Depending on what you want to do with your trip (make new friends and travel a lot, or really immerse yourself in one city, etc.) I would say that some things to consider are: </p>
<p>How much culture/history do you want to have accessible to you close to where you are?
How much time do you want to travel to other places?
Do you want a university in the quiet suburbs or in the bustling center?
What kind of experience are you looking for: the big-city modern day culture with incredible history mixed in, or the quaint and peaceful small town where everyone knows each other and you’re all family?
How much do you have to/are you willing to spend for living costs?</p>
<p>Basically, what do you want to do (make a list of your top 3 goals) and see which university would satisfy those three goals the most. </p>
<p>For example, to me studying abroad is more about experiencing a new place and new people more than academics (even though that’s very important), so I chose Berlin for my study abroad program and it’s absolutely amazing! My university is in the center of the city so I can go visit a museum after class, have a picnic out on the lawn by Berliner Dom or snack on a Currywurst by the Brandenburger Tor for lunch, or explore any of the old palaces and opera houses across the street during break. </p>
<p>Don’t underestimate your language skills - I took 5 semesters of German before I came and all the courses I’m taking are taught in German! I can understand about 80-90% of the lectures, and the professors are very accommodating and nice about making my experience better.</p>
<p>In Germany we have almost 500 universities of higher education.
Most coures are only offered in German, some also in English.</p>
<p>Whatever has something to do with international elite & research is very most of the times partnered by the four academic elite organizations or enterprises because also Top German Universities rarely have a funding higher than 600 million Euros per year though it is growing. </p>
<p>75 or 100 universities are highly academic universties.
Almost 200 universities are universities of applied sciences.
200 universities are dual programs of studies and corporate education but still universities.</p>
<p>There are a lot of private collegues which I would not recommend unless it’s a real university as Jacob’s University Bremen. At least you should know what you can expect, for example biotechnology is not a protected term.</p>
<p>For automative studies universities of applied sciences are highly recommended, especially for German speaking potential students. HAWtech consists of six leading ones: FH Aachen, HTW Berlin, HTW Dresden, HS Darmstadt, HS Karslruhe, HS Esslingen.</p>
<p>But now let’s get more academic:</p>
<p>There are 11 universities of excellence with internationally awarded future concepts, excellent clusters and renowned graduate schools for international PhD studies, by the way within Germany the Dr. title in front of the name after writing a thesis for some years still is often preferred much, Dr. habil. is the very highest academic rank in Germany comparable to somebody with a PhD from a top-ranked US university. </p>
<p>These so called elite universities (media term, all kinds of media say so but it’s not exact the title of these universities and also not totally true) are: RWTH Aachen, FU Berlin, HU Berlin, Uni Bremen, Uni Cologne, Uni Constance. TU Dresden, Uni Heidelberg, LMU Munich, TU Munich, Uni Tübingen.</p>
<p>Besides these there are 9 leading, the TU9, institutes of technology: RWTH Aachen, TU Berlin, TU Braunschweig, TU Darmstadt, TU Dresden, Uni Hannover, KIT Karlsruhe, LMU Munich, TU Munich.</p>
<p>I highly recommend the “CHE University Ranking 2012/13”.</p>
<p>Uni Mannheim is still preferred very much for business studies. TU Freiberg is worldwide known for its management of material ressources, TU Ilmneau europeanwide for informatics, Frankfurt for Finance, Mainz for physics, Bonn for PhD in economics.</p>
<p>I cannot say anything bad about TU Darmstadt. It still has an outstanding reputation though PERSONALLY I would prefer TU Dresden because:</p>
<ul>
<li>much more beautful city</li>
<li>1500 companies with more than 48,000 employees make Dresden the largest European cluster in the microelectronics, information and communication technology sector. The power of small.</li>
<li>Europe’s leading location (in absolute numbers) for microelectronics, 3 Max Planck, 1 Helmholtz, 3 Leibniz, 13 !!! Fraunhofer Institutes</li>
<li>applies most patents among German Universities</li>
<li>leads the highly detailed CHE ranking in electronics, electrical egineering and information technology</li>
<li>recently became German “university of excellence”</li>
</ul>
<p>This is just my very personal preference. I shoud not deny recommending TU Darmstadt because they are really known to be very good. I don’t know this special program but cannot imagine it to be displeasing. German universities are generally underrated specially when it is about such programs.</p>
<p>Uni Mannheim is an academic university, HS Mannheim is a university of applied sciences (similar ones are often called HS, FH or HTW), BA Mannheim is a dual education. Some refuse to call these studies and say it’s an apprenticeship for the smartest non-academics. The public administration has very similar programs (to BA) while a academic university is needed for the highest jobs in administration.</p>
<p>The best mark is 1.0 and 5.0 the worst.
Law students have an average IQ of 120.
Law graduates have an average mark of 3.3.
Biology graduates 1.3, psychology and mathematics 1.4.
Chemistry 1.5, History graduates 1.6, economits 2.4, physicians 2.4.</p>
<p>Generally the worse the university the better the average mark.</p>
<p>I’ve studied abroad in Germany twice, once in high school, and then again with the CBYX internship program as a gap year. I found Bielefeld to be incredibly boring. Berlin is amazing, I would study at the Freie Universit</p>