Studying Engineering in Germany

A.J.B

I just thought that it might be a good idea to study mechanical engineering in germany, im doing a-levels at the moment, and i dont speak german very well, how does one apply to a german university, what is the process like, and what german universities are best for mechanical engineering or aerospace engineering.
Thnx

Reply 1

KLL

you're gonna need to show proof that you can speak german first.
you normaly apply to universities direction (except for North Rhine Westphalia i think where they have a system similar to UCAS)
process is individual from uni to uni, department to department and course to course. altho generally for engineerign courses at most unis you jsut have to show up and sign up. other than that most subjects have a NC (numerus clausus), which means you get in if you have a certain grade on your a-levles (which you'll need to get convertrted at the Zeugnissanerkennungsstelle). and the places on the course are assigned by academic merit only.
for some more fancy courses or units that consider themselves more facny, they have further testing. TUM i tihnk requires a letter of motivation, might even require an entrance exam for some subjects etc.

best unis for engineering subjects are generally the technical universities:
big names include:
TU Munich
Uni Karlsruhe
Uni Stuttgart
RWTH Aachen

Uni Erlangen also had quite a good reputation.
generally employers won't care however what uni you are from, as they noramly consider all unis to be equal. (we don't have a rankig nsystem as i nthe UK or US)

other than that there are the universities of applied sciences, which are more.. British in teaching, evey also have compulsory placement years or semesters. a bit comparable to ex-polys i nthe UK i guess, they have however an excellent reputation with employers and are often even more compettitive to get into.

Reply 2

T o b i

The main advantage of studying at a German university has already been pointed out by KLL: Germany has a wide range of excellent universities but you don't have ridiculous rankings like in the UK. Furthermore, since you are a EU citizen, you will pay comparatively little tuition fee, or (depending on the state in which you're studying) won't pay a penny. If you consider studying in Germany, I'd recommend reading the following first: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,8010,00.html

Reply 3

KLL

even non-EU citizens don't have to pay (or pay no more than 500€ per semester)

also check out http://www.daad.de/en/index.html
http://www.study-in-germany.de/

so you will probably have to invest a year or half ayear into learnig ngermany first. but its worth it.
rewards are amazing, engineers have a quite high status in germany, especialy since the german economis is missing 50-100 thousand of them, and we are needign more every year. salaries are way beyond those in the UK. starting salary on average is ca.40k€ for a graduate (with a bachelor)

Reply 4

A.J.B

so how would it work, i take a gap year to learn german and then apply, or just 6 months or what exactly? because i only know how to say hallo and ich verstie nicht, haha

Reply 5

KLL

A.J.B

so how would it work, i take a gap year to learn german and then apply, or just 6 months or what exactly? because i only know how to say hallo and ich verstie nicht, haha

well depends. some unis accept applications for the summer term aswell (which means you start uni in april)
other than that the standard is... application deadline for subjects with NC or other selection criteria is sometime mid june (in bavaria anyway). but if it doesn't have that ,you can jsut enroll without any hassle in august-september.

Reply 6

A.J.B

KLL

hmm, so an application for engineering starting in the summer is basicly learning german from april till october and then starting with the engineering stuff?

Reply 7

KLL

well depends o nthe uni and state...

Reply 8

Sabinnie

No idea if this thread is still relevant, but I just came across it randomly and thought I'd give you some input:

If you really want to study engineering in Germany, you'd have to understand the language really, really well. I'm at a (german) university with an engeneering course and have friends in it who are german and were quite good in school, and they are failing subjects left and right because it is really hard.

If you have additional language issues, that might create a big problem. Also, learning german is really hard. I'd suggest you take a gap year and spend it here learning the language. I can't imagine someone being able to speak german well enough to study at university level after just a couple of months. :/

But don't be discouraged, it is certainly possible! =)

Reply 9

green_glitter

Sabinnie

I definitely agree!
I have a friend who was brilliant at maths in school, she's doing Computer Science at RWTH Aachen now and she's really struggling with the maths aspect of the course...sciency courses often seem to have "Siebfächer" to find out who's "serious" about the course (=> a lot of students don't pass those modules and need to take them again, or drop out altogether).

You should definitely look into the differences between FH (universities of applied sciences, usually more like school, more practical and with more support) and university, whether you can enrol at university with A-levels (or just FH), what sort of language qualifications you need etc.

There is a "league table" of sorts here http://ranking.zeit.de/che9/CHE?module=Fach&tmpl=p201_faecherliste and there's http://www.hochschulkompass.de/ to see which unis/FH's offer mechanical engineering.

Reply 10

Dr. Ofxo

There are also some English-speaking universities in Germany (which, btw, I think are much better than 'normal' German universities), so if you really want to go here, you can apply to one of them (you can apply directly, not via the usual process) and learn German while you're there - you'll only need English! If I were you, I would definitely go there:

www.carl-benz-school.de/

Also, you can look at www.jacobs-university.de , which is also completely taught in English and where around 75% of the students are not German. However, I think the carl benz school is much better.

Reply 11

A.J.B

Dr. Ofxo

thnx so much for this! im definately gna apply to carl-benz school of engineering!!!

Reply 12

Dr. Ofxo

A.J.B

thnx so much for this! im definately gna apply to carl-benz school of engineering!!!

Great

Good luck with your application. Please let me know once you got a decision from them and once you made a decision yourself, so that maybe one day I will know that I had an enormous impact on somebody's life simply by writing a post in this forum :smile:

Reply 13

KLL

jacobs univeristy (formerly international univeristy bremen) also has an excellent reputation.