I want to return to education but how?

Hi
First of all you need to decide which course you want to take (why not business or economics if you don't want to be a lawyer? - law is very competitive and hard to get into) and then you need to contact the admissions depts for each course, explain your situation and then ask them what they would accept from you as mature student qualifications, i.e if they would prefer access or A levels, how many, what grades etc. Nobody on here can really answer that as every uni and every course is different!

Yes it's true that as a mature student they will probably be more flexible with you than the typical 18 yr old but for extremely competitive courses like law they aren't likely to just say "oh great you have the Mittlere Reife, you don't need anything else/one A level!" I am certain that the story of the girl getting into uni with one A level did not involve a law degree!!! But it is possible for some less academic courses, my ex got into sport science on a foundation year with only GCSEs and no Alevels at all.

Yes, if you want to possibly study in Germany then you will need A levels rather than an Access course - and I would imagine 2 A-levels wouldn't get you past the ZVS into a BWL course (I could be wrong but I would imagine BWL/Jura are just as competitive in Germany) you might even need 3 to try that. I'm studying in Austria but I have an undergrad degree as well as relevant A levels so it wasn't a problem for me (plus there is no numerus clausus in Austria, just entrance exams, also hardly any fees in Austria at the moment, just 16 euros a semester if you study in Mindeststudienzeit or 300 euros a semester if you go over that - might be worth considering instead of Germany )

Basically you need to contact the universities you're interested in first and then you can decide whether Access or A-levels are the best option for you. Hope this helps a bit

Viel Glueck und liebe Gruesse aus Wien
Clair

Hi
I'm studying Veterinary Medicine and we have our own separate uni so I can't really help with studying BWL in Vienna. You would need to look at the Wirtschaftsuni (http://www.wu.ac.at/prospective/) but I obviously have no personal experience there. As Austria is obsessed with "freie Universitätszugang" you only actually need A-Levels/Abitur/Matura at any grade to be accepted! (In Austria only really over-subscribed courses like medicine, veterinary medicine, public relations etc have any sort of entry requirements). So you could definitely keep Austria as a back-up plan as, at the moment at least, they take everybody! You will have to sit on the floor in lectures though and probably have to wait a few semesters to get a place in tutorials etc - it's not ideal! For law you would need to apply to Uni Wien (Haupt Uni, nicht WU)

If you want to do an MBA then you could actually just work in the finance industry for a few years and then do one directly without a bachelor first.....but you have to have definite (ie. high power business!) work and life experience for that path. Oh and bear in mind that if you don't want to stay in the UK, a bachelor degree will not be enough to get you graduate jobs in Austria at least (and Germany too I would imagine). The bachelor is too new and still very unacceptable here......it's a Magister or nothing!

Hope this helps - yes I would go for the A levels as they are much more transportable and better respected abroad than the access course

I'm going to throw in Open University - you can do this either in UK or in Europe. You don't need any qualifications to start as you can start with an Openings Course or a level 1 and slowly build up that way.

Wow you must have been away from Germany for a long time