[PolarOpposite]

I would like to hear your experiences of studying in Germany compared to the UK.
Personally: I have Germany family background so was able to move to Germany to do study here, but I have lived in the UK for a long time and did not go to school in Germany...I must say I find the quality of education in Germany very good, but I struggle here on a personal level: I studied in the UK as well, and I must say the people are much friendlier there, people were forming study groups, meeting outside of class etc. here I am even struggling to meet up with people whom I have been assigned to complete my assignments with...gosh I don't know.
I am a mature student, have worked before, and generally had a social life, but here I feel like back in school where people are bitchy and form cliques, I miss my friends in the UK and I have a prospect of 3 years here...*sigh* not sure what to do...

[ohdrama]

(Original post by PolarOpposite)
I would like to hear your experiences of studying in Germany compared to the UK.
Personally: I have Germany family background so was able to move to Germany to do study here, but I have lived in the UK for a long time and did not go to school in Germany...I must say I find the quality of education in Germany very good, but I struggle here on a personal level: I studied in the UK as well, and I must say the people are much friendlier there, people were forming study groups, meeting outside of class etc. here I am even struggling to meet up with people whom I have been assigned to complete my assignments with...gosh I don't know.
I am a mature student, have worked before, and generally had a social life, but here I feel like back in school where people are bitchy and form cliques, I miss my friends in the UK and I have a prospect of 3 years here...*sigh* not sure what to do...

that's the reason why i dropped out of my german uni and applied to attend uni in the uk.

some of my friends do have a fabulous time, though. so it seems to heavily depend on the uni and the environment the city is in. where's your uni and what do you study, if you don't mind me asking?
due to the fact that there are basically no 'societies', i found it really hard to meet up and get to know other students (went to a huuuuge uni. my course had about 400-500 people in first year). maybe you could have a look if there is something called 'fachschaftsrat' around? the fachschaftsrat of my faculty was fairly active and people seemed to have a good time, went out together etc.

[Nathanielle]

As above said, there some rare societies and the Fachschaften, where you can easier find friends.
I think it depends also on the course and your luck with people.
e.g. a course in the inner city with a lot of free choice vs. a course, where everyone follows the same syllabus, is a little bit away from town (=> people don't go home but spend the pauses together) and has a tutoring system to get to know the other "Ersties".

There are a lot of students, who love that life style, but for others it is "too big and free". You should also try the Hochschulsport to meet people (it is easier when you choose a team sport). Search students to form a learn group. On the other hand, as the universities are so large, it is often easier to get to know really good friends at a later state in your studies compared to a course with only 200 or a small university, where everybody just forgets, not everybody has this great student life. German students can be much more understanding as their are used to struggle at the beginning due to the large course sizes and no prepared social life. Living in a dorm or WG would help, too.

[PolarOpposite]

@ohdrama

thank you for your post
I study maths in Berlin, today I have looked at the end of term results and only 40% of the people who were allowed to continue the term have passed, this is around 25 % of the people who started the course.
I came the the UK for the summer to figure out if I want to continue the course, but it looks like it is going to be a struggle.

@Nathanielle
Thank you for your advice, I will take it if I decide to continue with the course

[Nathanielle]

And one hint: We are all getting older, so the younger ones seem to us more and more strange, independant of the country.

[PolarOpposite]

^ ha yes, you have a point there!

[Germany]

For the academic approach, which is not always the right way in Germany, because especially low-image dual "universities" and universities of applied sciences are relatively strong, it must be said that the universities are significantly under-funded compared to at least the leading education nations as the USA, UK, Australia, also Switzerland, the Netherlands and some in Denmark. The situation is comparable to France but less selective. The very elitist schools in France are better, the very most big universities are worse than in Germany.

Germany's internationally competitive research is very most of the times done in cooperation with non-university societies as Max-Planck society, Helmholtz, Fraunhofer, Leibniz society or enterprises as Siemens, Semicon Europe, SAP, Bertelsmann group, Microsoft Germany.

So before you are a researcher, the study situation is mediocre and worse than in the UK, most of the times. You need to organize yourself and there is not much support if you do not proactively seek it within the university.

Just now it happened that I got a warning for my first opened and declined thread for advertising a big university 100 minutes south of Berlin.

I am only a student there and nobody pays me, I just wanted to point out its most striking advantages, but I understand these were a bit many links for a first thread in the forums. So I try to brake myself. I risk another warning but for lightweight construction I can recommend our 50 minutes neighbor TU Chemnitz, which has not much international fame but would seriously earn some. Most courses there are only offered in German anyway.

9 universities are combined in the TU9 leading institutes of technology.
11 are so called German "universities of excellence". They were chosen by an international jury and get extra-funding, but more important some reputation.

Other (approved so) very good under-dog universities are TU Ilmenau (informatics) and TU Freiberg (applied material sciences). Still it is often wise to keep away from big cities while the 11 "universities of excellence" are all in metropolitan areas.

Others also have some internationally awarded excellence clusters, for example Uni Mannheim in business studies.