Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast.
I studied engineering in Europe. When I went to Boston or London to work it was like I was the boss or something because I was much better prepared than Americans or British.
But Americans have much better job opportunities that make them better than Europeans after working some time in any field.
The world is controlled by the petrodollar and Americans enjoy lots of benefits as a result.
Europe is old and taking risks is so hard here. In Asia it is even harder.
> Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast.
While Universities in the UK (and probably the US as well?) boast with their retention rates that seem to approach SLA levels of nine nines, it is the exact opposite in Germany. Some of our universities are proud of their drop-out rates >50%, partly because only good students will get a degree at a good university. But you also have to keep in mind that quite a few courses don't have any entry requirements in many universities (others require a minimum score that consists of your GPA, optional test scores, and other metrics). You just fill out a form, attach a copy of your Abiturzeugnis (A-levels / high-school diploma), and voilà, you're now a student of computer science at one of Germany's top universities. It should not come as a surprise that not everyone finishes their course. In fact, tough exams after a year of study serve to weed out the weaker students. This gives everyone the chance to prove themselves in the subject, not some random test. It is also perfectly normal to change studies in Germany, so being kicked out isn't a disaster by any means (although you should reflect back and see where you went wrong ;))
I went to undergrad in the US, and there's a similar, but disguised, phenomenon. The difficult majors (ie: faculties/degree paths) would have very high "drop-out rates", in terms of people changing tracks after the first year or two. So indeed, less than half the people who entered with a declared intention of completing a degree in Physics, Engineering, Computer Science, or Mathematics would actually do so.
Quite a few could be found in the social-sciences and humanities departments after they were "weeded out" of the hard sciences. Personally, I think this is a crappy way to run things, since it means social-science and humanities professors have to deal with lots of students who are only there for a generic degree they can manage to obtain rather than for the specific degree path.
On the other hand, I put scare-quotes on the "weeded out", because often the precise method of weeding out weaker students is to simply not even try to teach well in the first year or two of math, science, programming, and engineering courses. So for instance, my fiancee actually cleared all her differential and integral calculus requirements via Advanced Placement (exams high-schoolers can take that grant university credits), with perfect scores, but when she tried to take Linear Algebra in our undergrad math department, she found the teaching so bad that she struggled to understand anything at all. Despite this, she pulled an A- in the course and was one of the top three students in her class/section -- but insists she barely understood anything at all.
It really makes me wonder what kind of pedagogical wonders we'd see if university professors were actually trying to teach well in courses below the third year.
Or, you know, if professors were taught how to teach introductory courses. As far as I am aware there is no pedagogical training for professors in Germany. There certainly isn't any for TAs (who are simplay the professor's PhD students).
It's a lot easier for professor to teach a subject they are enthusiastic about to advanced students than it is to get students interested in an introductory course.
I was much better prepared than Americans or British.
But Americans have much better job opportunities that make them better than Europeans after working some time in any field.
Great comment. Anyway I will never leave Europe for US/Canada/Australia[1]. I've visited some family in the latter and I feel that the advantages of these countries are not enough to make me live there. Exchanging peace of mind and a huge decrease of life quality for some extra probabilities of being rich and extra consumption doen't worth IMO.
Also have in mind that Germany != Europe
Edit: [1] I'm sure these 3 countries are very different between themselves (I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings), but they are still "new world" countries, where the main goal of voluntary "colonizers" was/is getting rich and be able to consume more than in their native countries. This common goal leads to a lot of similarities between them as, for example, the urbanism: suburbs is a "new world" invention and this will always imply a common lifestyle (car dependency, malls, ..).
I think you have been misinformed about the main goal of many early American colonizers.
Also, that's a rather tenuous connection to suburbs. US suburbs mostly developed 200 years after colonization. And 100 years after London (that's "old world", right?) invented suburbs.
I agree with you, suburbs were not invented in the "new world" but these countries made them popular, probably with the individual dream of a better life and particular conditions as land availability or cheap oil that leaded to the development of single housing to almost everybody.
I'm sure you agree also that suburbs in "old world" (Europe) don't have such a massive presence that they completely imply a certain lifestyle.
Suburbs in America are a byproduct of racism. They were invented when sharecroppers (freed African-American slaves and their children who then became indentured servants/laborers) from the south migrated en masse to the cities of the north and started moving into urban neighborhoods, and the white people fled to the outskirts rather than let black people live among them.
And in the next sentence, you remind us that Germany is not Europe.
Before the Canadians lynch you, you should amend your comment to point out that you are very cognizant of the differences between the US and Canada! Australia's different from the others in its own ways, not least of which is that it's on the other side of the planet.
Ok, fair enough: "send them into a rough hockey game" or something like that.
If there's one thing that sets a lot of Canadians off though, it's being considered like some large, deep-frozen 51st state of the US. For one obvious example of the differences, Canada has universal health care.
>Great comment. Anyway I will never leave Europe for US/Canada/Australia[1]. I've visited some family in the latter and I feel that the advantages of these countries are not enough to make me live there. Exchanging peace of mind and a huge decrease of life quality for some extra probabilities of being rich and extra consumption doen't worth IMO.
I'm a European currently living in Canada, who has also traveled the US pretty extensively. The US and Canada aren't really interchangeable. Canada can at times feel like America-lite but in most real ways it's thankfully very different to the US.
I didn't move here because I saw "advantages" regarding personal prosperity, mainly just for the experience. The quality of life here in Toronto isn't a huge difference from what I've experienced in Europe. Comparatively low crime when compared with other major cities on this side of the pond, low poverty, reasonable cost of living relative to IT salaries, etc.
Apart from that, the people are great and really live up to the stereotype and are overall comparatively laid back like in Europe.
What it is lacking though is cultural substance and identity. It's pretty bland. Nothing has any real character. In that way it can feel a bit like a major US city and will be the main reason I move back to Europe in the coming years.
Living and working in the USA is something I'd never consider personally. I'm also approaching 30 and in a few years kids will be along the way, and I would never consider bringing a child up in the US. I don't mean to offend American posters here with this, but what you offer is just not for me, and I could never be a part of something that actively supports the US government and its policies.
But if you were looking for a change I'd suggest giving Canada a shot for a while. It's very different to the other two you've lumped it in with and in great ways and if nothing else it would give you an experience to learn from.
> What it is lacking though is cultural substance and identity. It's pretty bland. Nothing has any real character. In that way it can feel a bit like a major US city and will be the main reason I move back to Europe in the coming years.
You nailed it. 'Lack of detail', it seems silly but that's what I really miss in the 'new world'.
>Exchanging peace of mind and a huge decrease of life quality for some extra probabilities of being rich and extra consumption doen't worth IMO.
I don't think you understand what it's like to live in the US and Canada as an educated worker.
>* but they are still "new world" countries, where the main goal of voluntary "colonizers" was/is getting rich and be able to consume more than in their native countries.*
Whoa, how are you using the internet back there in 1912? I don't think you understand the reason that English colonists came to America or how America even works today.
Your whole comment reeks of arrogance, ignorance and condescension but hey what do I know? I'm just an new world American, not a cosmopolitan, wise European who is recently celebrating twenty consecutive years without an episode of ethnic cleansing happening on his continent.
I didn't say that European people are better than the others - they aren't, I just said I prefer Europe system/way of life comparing with Australia (the only one where I've had a long stay). I even said that "new world"[1] countries have some advantages.
[1] I couldn't find a better term to refer to western world outside Europe, I don't have the intention of hurting anybody's feelings.
[2] With "voluntary colonists" I don't mean only English colonists, I mean emmigrants in general.
> Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast.
Could you be a little more specific? The size of Europe, America and Asia is too huge for statements like that.
There are definitely universities in Europe that are more similar to some in the US than other universities in Europe.
I'm a student in Sweden and I have not experienced anything that supports the quote above.
I know how engineering courses look like in Poland. Universities are 100% free, but they have absolutely no qualms about kicking out weaker students. Electrical engineering course at any of the largest universities in Poland will enroll 300-400 people,but 200 of them will fail the first year. The last year is usually finished by <10 people on time, there is plenty of people taking resits for years, and it's not uncommon for exams to be so hard that they have 100% failure rate. I have several friends studying engineering in Poland and well, first of all you need to pass all of your assignments to be able to take the exam(if you failed any of your practicals or assignments you are not even allowed to take the exam), and then like I've said it's not uncommon that out of 20 people taking the exam all 20 fail.
In contrast, I studied in UK and getting through university at an Engineering course was very easy if you didn't care about grades too much. You could even fail an exam completely and still be allowed to continue, which is unthinkable in Poland.
The main difference is, that in Poland all that matters is the diploma,not the grades you got, while in UK a diploma with a third or 2-2 grade is nearly worthless. So I think that Universities in Poland are much more careful about actually letting people graduate, while in UK pretty much anyone can graduate,but poor grades make their education worthless.
"So I think that Universities in Poland are much more careful about actually letting people graduate, while in UK pretty much anyone can graduate,but poor grades make their education worthless."
It's about the philosophy behind it. In Poland (and Romania too, BTW), an institution defends its reputation first and foremost. Somewhere else, it's more business-oriented and the reputation is kept more by marketing than by other means. That is also how "top universities" classification is made - by counting only the highest results, not all of it. It's a nice hack on human mind, as both the students' and the average employers' bells ring when they think of those "top" universities, abstracting away a lot of "uninteresting" information.
As an anecdote, some years ago, I heard about people in Poland that enroll in college (where education is nearly free) just to have access to student discounts!
Student discounts used to be massive in public transportation, accommodation and almost everywhere, even in some restaurants and bars in academic cities. Nowadays these discounts are not as they used to be, so I don't think it is still a common practice.
Some discounts are still significant (33% for railway and mass transit). But I don't think that it would be enough to go through trouble of applying to university. You would be kicked out for not passing first semester anyway. What destroyed recruitment strategies for less popular faculties was army. When army abandoned mandatory conscription many less popular faculties where quite surprised by dramatic drop in number of candidates. People used to apply to escape military service and some of them actually finished degrees despite silly motivation to apply in the beginning.
That ratio is the same as any EE program in the USA. 66% of the class will flunk out within 2 years. From my experience, only about 20% remained at the end of 4 years.
I did a CS course at AGH too. I had well over 100 people on my first year (couldn't physically fit them into some lecture halls), after first semester this halved. Second year there were fewer than 40 of us even after transfers. I think it's the most fair way to run courses.
It's the same in Finland, at least in universities. If you don't pass your courses, the state stops paying the student benefits[1], but you can stay at the university. There is another, very low number of courses you need to pass every year in order to stay in, but that is very low indeed, it's only meant to keep registers clean of people not studying at all.
1: That's right, Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are.
"Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are."
There are scholarships (all over Europe) that depend on acquiring a minimal number of Bologna-credits, and those (at least in some countries) existed since the foundation of the higher education itself.
In most (all? not sure) of the Nordic countries it's not scholarships (well, you have scholarships too), but at least used to be blanket grants to everyone that qualifies for a university place, combined with cheap loans.
The grants when I studied in Norway were not huge, but they were unconditional for some number of years as long as you could document that you were still studying (basically it was sufficient to sign up to a couple of courses and attending the exams, whether or not you passed). This was 20 years ago - details may have changed.
I lived on my grants + student loan for the first year of my first startup, by continuing to sign up for a couple of courses which I didn't actually study for (attended may be two lectures...)
Yes, this is indeed the case. For a typical university student, you get a grant of 335,32€ a month and a up to 201,60€ for residence (up to 80% of the your rent). And up to 400€ a month of government-guaranteed cheap student loan. If you are skimpy, it's just about enough to get along.
In Denmark I get around €750 per month from the government as a student, and I can take another €400 euro or so as a very low interest loan if I want. I can also apply for assistance with rent as needed.
Actually, it is also sort of the opposite in Finland. The student grants are smaller than unemployment benefits etc. If you just stay at home doing nothing you are eligible for more money than if you enroll as a student.
And I'm thinking of dropping out because of this. I'm just accumulating debt because the student's benefits are not enough for me to live on. The quality of teaching in my uni is really quite shit and they've seriously "compacted" important courses (e.g. in math) and it looks like most students in my group are not leaning anything at all, nor are they expected to. It's quite demotivating, even depressing.
Don't forget that starting next year, you will no longer be able to reapply to any Finnish universities if you have been accepted to one before. I would at least get a bachelor's degree so it will be easier to apply to universities abroad if you ever want to continue your education.
Technically speaking I haven't been accepted into one, because I cannot apply without secondary education. So I'm paying to study in one. That ought to change, come next semester. But I don't know if I want to waste two or three more years on this crap.
"I studied engineering in Europe. When I went to Boston or London to work it was like I was the boss or something because I was much better prepared than Americans or British."
What do you mean by "I studied engineering in Europe"? London is in Europe.
I work in London. The natives here consider the UK as a separate entity from Europe. They talk about the mainland as Europe, and compare themselves to "Europeans", not to "other Europeans".
This is the British culture of "us vs them", or "we are too good to be associated with you" that I live in now :P
I understand that in the campaigns for upcoming elections, some parties pledge to arrange a referendum about whether UK should stay in Europe, or float across the Atlantic.
That's a bit different though. It's typical in Ireland and the UK to refer to mainland Europe as 'the continent', whether they consider themselves European or not. The likes of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Cyprus, Malta, the Channel Islands, &c. wouldn't be considered part of 'the continent', though some might consider the Mediterranean islands to be 'continental'. 'Continental Europe' is not the same thing as 'the continent of Europe', but a subset of it that excludes its island parts.
This is not unlike the way that the 48 contiguous states of the US are considered 'the continental US'.
Frankly, I find the attitude of some English people towards the continent and Europe as a whole to be somewhat silly.
"What do you mean by «I studied engineering in Europe»? London is in Europe."
I understand your objection, but on the other hand there is also a reason of compacting the message sent across that may work for other European countries too. Instead of saying "somewhere outside my country, but here in Europe nevertheless", it goes just "in Europe" taking the speaker's location as a relying context (opposed to "in here", as "in this country").
The state pays for your education.
Germany has a very good engineering education. Where do you think comes the brand "made in germany" from? We germans still build the best cars and machines.
Slight correction: the brand "made in Germany" was initially invented to warn against low quality products from Germany (19th century used to be a lot of copycat). Quality got better and the meaning changed.
[pretty sure it was also used as a "business propaganda" instrument after WW2 and only tipped to "good stuff" after that]
I studied engineering in Europe. When I went to Boston or London to work it was like I was the boss or something because I was much better prepared than Americans or British.
But Americans have much better job opportunities that make them better than Europeans after working some time in any field.
The world is controlled by the petrodollar and Americans enjoy lots of benefits as a result.
Europe is old and taking risks is so hard here. In Asia it is even harder.