In my
previous post I talked about how much risk you might be taking in case you are
applying to a low ranked university in USA and the dollar dream might turn out
to be entirely different. In this post I will be talking about one of the best
alternatives for students looking for higher education abroad apart from USA.
And the alternative is none other than the land of innovation Germany.
But my
post is completely focused on students who are thinking of pursuing engineering
masters abroad and particularly students looking for automobile, automotive, mechanical,
mechtronics, robotics, and electrical engineering degrees abroad.
Before dwelling
into details look at the following companies which started in Germany and I
want you to guess the companies which are related to the fields mentioned above:-
I will list a few of them for you to ponder-
Altana chemicals, Audi , BMW,
Bosch, Daimler AG,
Mercedes-Benz,
Porsche,
PUMA,
Siemens,
Volkswagen
Group, IFB etc
Higher
Education is Germany according to me is one of the best. Why?? Like the co-op
programs in Canada about which I will post later most the courses in Germany
has an mandatory internship as part of its curriculum. In bachelors the
internships ranges from 6 months to sometimes 1 year as part of the 4 year
degree and in masters it might last for 2 months to 6 months in its 1.5 year or
2 year courses catalog.
The
internships are in conjunction with industries which I have mentioned here and
thus you can imagine the exposure, the opportunity and the knowledge impact of these
internships. But getting an internship in these companies is not easy and I don’t
want you guys to start dreaming of German Euros now after dreaming about American
dollars.
In this post
I won’t talk about the education system since that part will be focused by
another blog post of mine in near future. This post will just highlight the few
benefits of considering Germany as your study destination.
Do you know
that most of the universities in Germany don’t charge you tuition fee and you
just have to pay a subsidized fee of 60-800 Euros depending on university for
transportation and student ID for the whole semester. Thus you don’t have to
worry about travel cost since all you need to show is your ID and the whole
Germany is yours to explore. Thus you end up saving not only 50-80k$ fee which
you might have spend for you education in the 2 years but you save on other
stuff like transportation as well.
Next if you don’t
know German will it cause a problem? The answer is no. I heard few students (including
me once) have a belief that you have to know German in case you are going to Germany
else your visa will be rejected. Guys this is a wrong notion. If your course is
completely in English then all you need to show the visa officer is your IELTS
or TOFEL results and viola you will get your VISA in time.
Many courses
are taught entirely in English and you can search about these courses using
this link:-
Most of the German
universities don’t charge you any application fee and the few which charges are
applied through UNI-ASSIST services. Using this you have to pay a fee of 68
Euros for the first university you are applying for and then a fee for 15 Euros
for any extra university you might be applying for. But you only have to pay this
fee if the university in which you are interested in is a member of uni-assist.
Do you know
that German university doesn't charge you any extra fee for learning German language?
Most of the universities have a international language center and you can take German
classes there for free. Thus not only you will have an extra language as your asset
in future (and mind you, knowing German language can open doorways for new
opportunities and is a very popular language in Europe) but you are going to
learn it without spending a single penny. Ask your friends how much they are
paying for learning an extra language in other countries BTW.
After
graduating according to current visa changes a student gets a post graduate
work visa of 18 months during which he can look for job in Germany and if he
gets a job and his company is ready to sponsor him after 18 months of period is
over then a visa extension of 24 months. It’s enough to find a job inn Germany
since currently German economy is booming and they are having shortage of
engineers in their field. Also you can work for 240 half days in the period of
365 days and you have to meet the criteria of 40000-45000 Euros per year salary
if you want to continue working in Germany after the 18 month period. By the
way the starting salary of a graduate ranges from 35000-40000 Euros in these
field so you don’t have to worry about that.
Now the
problems you might face while applying for Germany and going to Germany are
also to be dealt with since with every sweet a salt matter occurs evenly.
Learning
German language is quite important particularly if you are in the field of marketing
and business and you want to work in Germany after completing you education
since you have to interact with the locals and mind you they are proud to be Germans
and use their language with pride even if they know English. And for part time
jobs (20 hours a week) outside the university it becomes a must to know German
language. Inside university for getting a TA, RA it’s enough if you English
language for English taught courses.
Next there
are hundreds of international courses in Germany which are taught entirely in English
but there are thousands of courses which are taught in English and German
combined. So if you know basic German then it will be highly useful to select a
much specific course.
One big advantage
and disadvantage of applying to German universities which has unrestricted
admission (i.e. if you meet the admission criteria you will be admitted) is
that you will get offer letter easily but the problem is that the other eligible
students will also get offer. So, the student and faculty ratio is very less in
most German universities and the classrooms are huge with lots of students
attending lectures. The faculty is not able to concentrate properly on
particular students and you can’t make an impact which you could have made if
you had studied in other country universities.
Like USA,
Germany also has hundreds of universities and getting admitted in a low ranked
university might be a problem again since even though German economy is booming,
the other European countries economy is in crisis and there is a brain drain of
university graduates from other EU countries to Germany for job search and thus
there is a heavy competition you have to face. But the employment rate is high
the in the field of engineering and you don’t have to worry much about
competition.
I think I covered
in detail the advantages of studying in Germany and the few hiccups you might
have. But overall it’s a good bet and you don’t have to take up heavy education
loan for your studies thus leaving you in a state of calm. Feel free to comment
and watch out for my next blog post which will deal in detail with UK Higher
Education options.
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