havign studied full time in germany and the UK... i have to say a lot of the negative conceptions of german universities are actually from germans. they think abroad everythign is much better and at home its not. and they usually are wrong.
of course a lot of things are different.
i will go through your post point by point, so bear with me if it doesn't look attractive. (and whoa, thats a lot of questions to go through). also keep in mind that thigns differ greaty from city to city, university to university, university type to university type (altho i'm jsut gonna assume you don't want to go to a university of appleid sciences if you have a durham offer) and course to course.
i can only tell of experiences i've had at universities of munich and erlangen-nuremberg and life in those respective cities.
Originally Posted by sunshine_92
Apparently, you don’t get nearly as much help from your tutors/lecturers, it’s all about independent learning and research, and if you struggle, no one really cares. And aren’t there often huge lectures with even a couple of hundred people, and all you do is listen, make notes and basically teach yourself quite a lot? Is that true, and if yes, how effective do you think that style of teaching is?
for some course, many in fact this may be true. it depends however on the course. some courses have only a hand full of students i.e. <20, so they will get excellent attention from tutors and professors. and i'd assume in engineerign and some of the less popular sciences (physics) you also get more attention.
in the more popular subjects such as german, history, business, especially at larger universities (i.e. 10k+ students) you will just be a number.
at my class in nuremberg, we were 800 first years doing the same course, all sitting in the same lectures. and yes as you said, its jsut sittign there, listening to the professor (some are a bit more interactive) taking notes (or not). but to be fair, its not really different in the UK. yes, the courses are smaller. but in leicester its the same situation. a hundered or more students sitting in a lecture, jsut like in germany, listening, taking notes etc.
classes and tutorials as mentioned, in germany are of lesser quality. it depends on the professor howver. for some classes in some modules it was quite intense with small work groups doing presentations etc. others it was liek a small scale lecture. this is partialy because students can pick what classes/tutorials they can go to. so the ones at a good time will be full (say wednesday afternoon, right after a lecture). the exact same tutorial, where on wednesday there are 150 students ttending, will only have 20 students attending on friday evenign or monday morning.
its not really true that noone cares, but it is true about independant learning. Univerities in germany are all about preparign you to be able to start a career in research i.e. actually end up a professor. in the Uk its pretty muh liek an extension of school. people correctly think nobody cares about their performance, because they don't ever talk to anyone responsible. if you actually go to a teachign assitant, tutor or even one of the nicer professors. they WILL help you. if you show you put in the work and are nto only sturggling because you're a slacker (which many students, including myself are) they will care. universities als ohave counceling serives and even on campus phychological and study help. mand tutors will offer to give extra lessons. most studently simply don't bother sharing their problems with anyone who can help and think its up to the professor, who has 5000 students to spot the problem of every single student he has.
another difference is that, at least in bavaria (i hear in other states and universities this is different), lectures and even classes/tutorials are not compulsory. so you can basicly travel the world all year and then jsut take an exam... and you don't even have to do that. altho it is generally recommended that you do. there are only very very few who do well without going to lectures or classes (well lectures are less improtant).
that all said. i think it is effective, dependign on what your target is. for a lot of people, the german system is not suitable, as it requires lot of independant work and basicly requires you to be able to sort your **** out on your own, such as timetables, exam registration, etc. noone will do that for you. and basicly i find it very effective as in, it teaches you what life will be like after university. where as in the Uk, univeristy is basicly an extension of school.
in germany you will fidn that peopel who graduate from uni, even at the same age, are more mature than peopel graduatign from britsh universities, where they basicaly mouth feed you... and een send your grades home to your parents and simply assume you're incapabel of living on your own (hence als othe more britsh style halls-system etc)
I’ve looked at some league tables (e.g. Times Higher Education Top 200 unis worldwide) and the first German university mentioned was rank 60, and there were at least 10 English unis listed above that! So it seems that even the best German unis would be more sort of average over here, right?
to make it short, those league tables are worthless. outside the anglo-american sphere anyway. the Times for example, it not more than a poll... where they ask people on what they think about universities. as an english langauge mgazine they mainly ask american, english, australian professors etc and get more responses fro mthem (if you look at the response statistics). so much for the qualitative part of the ranking. on the quantitative side. they do look at hard fact. such as research output etc, citations in top magazines. well the main screw up is... they only look at english articles. so if harvard or oxford would from one day to another decide to publish all their research i ngerman, they'd drop fro mthe rankig nalmost entirely. and well.. msot german unis do the majority of their reearch in german. so if you make up for that fact, german universities do quite well.
in fact, if you loo kat other statistics, such as research impact (measured by the EU amongst others) you will find german univeristies up there with Imerpial, UCL etc. if you look at nobel prize winners, you will find german univeristies known and unknown outshinign britsh and american ones. University of Goettingen has more nobel laureates affiliated with them than manchester, UCl, Imeprial, Cornell or Yale. Yet, ask who has ever heared of Goettingen. a lot of germans would also draw a blank there.
and if you are worried about teaching quality, i'll say this. german is though. really tough. you will learn a lot in a short time. teachign quality may be lwoer than in the UK, but content wise the standard is much higher. I compared curriculums before comming here. and I found that even after only doing 1 year at a germa nuniveristy, i'd stil leasily pass 2nd year exams in the UK. And again, using myself as an example, I have been a very average or even below average student grade wise. I never went to calss and started studying a week before exams. I barely passed. In the Uk, i got a 1st. with the same sheme. it is much easier to get a good result here than i ngermany. at my old university, a fail rate of 30% per exam was considered normal, 50% harsh, but not uncommon (in engineering subjects, that'd be the norma). to get, what be a 1st in the UK, you need to get more than 90%.
You will also have a lot mroe classes. I had around 6-10 exams per semster, as opposed to 3 in the UK. I had around 5 to 8 modules per semester as oppsoed to 3-4 in the UK. The difference in quality wa also show nwhen my uni sent students abroad.
A mate wanted to go aborad, to finnland for an erasmus semester in his second year. He was not abel to, he had to wait a year to go and even then, at the finish uni, he had to enroll into Masters-level classes at the finish partner univeristy. Because the courses they did at undergrduate level were not good enuogh for germany. In fact a lot of students had to wait until lthey had their bachelor untill they were able to go abroad (durign a masters) without too much hassle.
Uk degrees are pretty dummed down and you get draged through it no matter how bad you are.
It also seems to me that university is perceived quite differently by German than by English students – don’t they often tend to still live at home, and there isn’t as much socialising?
it depends. in bigger cities, such as munich, a lot of students wil lbe living home. but in smaller unveristy towns, such as heidelberg for exampel, you get very few local students.
student life as such... is an a bit ambiguous term. peopel who staay at home will of course have their own freinds. but in msot cases they simpy llive two social lives. social life is pretty good. it is not as organized as i nthe UK, but you will find student nights everywhere and parties sponsored by student organisations.
socialising as a student with other students in class. well its up to you really. some integrate well... others don't. persoanlly, eventho i was goign to uni in a new city, i spend msot of my social life with friends outside of uni. whom i meet outside of uni.
in the UK its more that students simply and almsot exclusively hang out with students. this is less so in germany. you get the full social spectrum to socialize with. not jsut your fellow students.
some like it, to be able to hang out with people who got jobs rather than go to uni, others simply want to stick to fellow students. but in germany you have more possibilities.
To me, a big part of the whole university experience is that you learn to be independent, have lots of fun with friends, go our partying etc (of course everything should be in balance with studying!) and just have the time of your life, whereas in Germany it seems that university is simply a place to learn and study rather than to socialise – do you agree?
no. defiantely not. if you want to learn to be independant, go to germany. if you want to live a sheltered student life, stay i nthe UK. but yes, in germany you will have to tudy more, but i will get to that later on
I also really like this system of colleges at Durham (and a couple of other unis such as Oxbridge), because I feel that it creates a family-type of atmosphere and it makes it easier to meet ppl and you feel proud and strongly part of your college – this collegiate (is that a word?) system doesn’t exist at all in Germany, does it?
well if you want somethign similar to a college. there are fraternities (Burschenschaften). but they often have a dogy reputation (of beeing right wing) and are more of a guy thing. most Burschenschaften won't accept females, but they're opening up more and more. I visited one, where they even had a chiense girl living with them and several easer neuropeans, despite havign a reputatio nof beeing a 19th century relict.
And campus universities don't seem to either - do students just have to organise accomodation themselves?
campus universities do exist. they're jsut not really common.
and it depends on what you define as a campus anyway. living on campus is very rare (but i think univeristy augburg for example has halls on campus). of course student housing exists. organized by the student union (Studentenwerk) and private (and supported by the studentenwerk or other organisations). They are MUCH cheaper than in the Uk. in nruemberg aroom cost as little as €110 per MONTH, as opposed to payign the same on a weekly rate in many places in the UK. but normaly, even in dorm you will get an acutal flat, rather than jsut a room. It is also very common that people who never even meet jsut randomly sort themselves out and share a flat (WG). And a lot of peopel also jsut live on their own, as i did. However it is likely that a lot of students are conglomerated in the same area. My appartment for examples... and msot i looked at, were based aroudn a massive student halls complex. and in my appartmentbuilding a lot of the poepel were students.
Are there perhaps some German unis that are more similar to the ones over here (maybe international ones?) and which I might prefer?
there are soem privates ones. but msot are busienss schools. and they are expensive.
I would also be interested to know if you know about any German unis where you can combine more than two subjects. I’ve got a place at Durham for Combined Honours in Arts (which means I can combine up to 4 subjects), and I’ll probably chose Arabic, Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations, but am also thinking about doing French (I don’t have to decide yet though coz I’m having a gap year first anyway). But the thing is, this Combined Honours course at Durham is rather untypical, in fact it’s unique even in the UK as far as I know, so I don’t think there are any German unis that offer a similar option, are there? As far as I am aware, you can only do joint honours and combine two courses (either 50-50, 2/3-1/3 or 75-25) unless you study Lehramt. Or do you know of any unis that enable you do combine 3 courses?
again, no short answer. Soem courses are in their nature combined. YOu can for exmapel take Economics with Chiense or so. But generally, takig ntwo subjects implies you are takig n2 degrees. you need to be VERY good for that. they only let very few people do it, as it requires a lot of work to do two degrees simultaneously and chances are lcasses overlap etc. Almsot nobody does it, since quite franky, especialy with the new bachelor system, where yo uhave time preassure, it is insane.
The one question that sums it all up is probably: Is it worth paying higher tuition fees and coming out of uni with a debt/student loan which I will have to repay, just to be able to go to Durham, do a course that sounds really great and most likely receive a better education than I would in Germany, or are German unis not that bad after all considering that they cost nothing/hardly anything? Is there really that much of a difference, so that it will pay back and be worth spending more money on the tuition fees?
It depends on what you want. Persoanlly i belive studyign in germany will make you more independant, mature and give you a MUCH better education. If you are really interested in developing youself as a person and truly study your subjec, go to germany. Despite what germans and rankings say, german universities and graduates are HIGHLY sougth after and have a great reputation. esepcialy in engineering and science.
If you jsut want to do a degree in something you find interesting and have a easy time, whie lgoig nt oa un iwith great reputation, go to durham. Esepcialy if you're planign on doign a language, its poitnelss to go to germany. language degreees are very uncommon. in germany studying a language is somethign you do in your free time durign your degree, not as a degree. But go for an erasmus year in germany.
PS: I should probably also mention that I much prefer the British culture... ppl over here are so friendly, welcoming, polite, charitable, care a lot about others; whereas I often find German people very blunt and in-your-face, even rude, generally negative and pessimistic, they moan and complain a lot and tend to be rather selfish and just think of their own advantage. And I feel that in the German culture, it doesn’t count who you are, but what you have achieved, an attitude I don’t like. Sorry about being so critical, I don’t mean to offend anyone (remember I’m German myself!) and it’s of course a generalisation, but that’s how I feel, so the culture/mentality is another reason I’d prefer to study in the UK.
yes you beeign so critical about te germans is very german indeed. nobody will take offense to that, its our favourite hobby.
but i think you are wrong. it depends on whom you associate with and where. My grandmother from Saarland thinks she's never been in a city with peopel that have been as unfriendly and rude as in MUnich. In munich we think franconians are rude and unfriendly. My friend from franconia came ot visit munich and imemdiately disliked the arrogance of everone... without even having talekd to anyone! And franconia is jsut a 1 hour train ride away. In franconia themselves, moving between the triangle of Nuremberg-Fuerth and Erlangen is like movign between coutnries, eventho they're all neighbourign cities in a 20km radius. A main reason I studied in Nuremberg was because i imemdiately fell in love with the city and people and was amazed by how friendly they were. eventho in the original bavaria, peopel consider them unfriendly. Its all a matter of perception really. I don't find britsh particulary polite. Of course they will say Sorry, Excuse me and all that whenever they can, but those are just words. I perosnally have foudn neighbours for example to be much more carign of eachother in germany. And in germany the only people who cared what i achived were my friends, who'd be happy for me. Here i have the feelign noone cares if i achive something.
sorry for the long post and i hope nobody feel offended etc. etc.
i hope it has at least traces of usefullness
Discussion of universities, colleges and courses outside the UK.
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What is it like to study at German universities?
Re: What is it like to study at German universities?
) compared to unis in Germany but I really don't know enough to compare. But my sister did media&sociology (which, I know, is not very academic anyway) and she learned close to nothing 
So yeah, I think it's worth paying higher tuition fees. 
Which college do you have an offer from? For me it's basically the same, I like that you have that community feeling at Durham and that you have a sense of identity if you know what I mean. 
I got an offer from St Johns 
