Many people are happy that you can bring a cheat sheet, or worse, the entire book with you to the exam. Do NOT be happy, as those are the hardest exams! Because you bring the book, the professor can easily assume you have all the knowledge present, so you need to understand the topics completely (100%) to even stand a chance at answering those questions! Open book exams are BY FAR the hardest!
Fun heat transfer question from an exam: assume a bread has a round shape. Properties are , , , etc. The bread is room temperature. This bread is placed in an hot air oven without a fan. The oven is set to degrees. How long does it take to bake a bread, if the core temperature of the bread needs to be above 180 degrees for ten minutes? Now do the same but this time with a fan that blows air at m/s. Good luck! Those were killing!
I think it depends on the person and circumstances - if you understood the material well in class/during the exercise but feel like you have not a lot of time to study, they might be better. Same as oral or written exams - neither is truly easier than the other.
Their method to compensate for that is just adding more exercises. If you need to consult your books too much you wont be able to finish enough of the exercises. You'll be running out of time.
I study physics in Heidelberg, and unfortunately our exams are always just a week after the semester finishes. It's totally normal that 80% fail since you only have one. week (if you're lucky) to fully concentrate on learning for the five exams you will write in three days.
Fachhochschulisierung an einer Traditionsuniversität? ..😀Dann erreicht ihr ja bald das Niveau der bright brains. An der FH hat das doch Tradition seit dem Krieg. Nur die geistig Eingeschränkten an den Unis benötigten Monate für die Prüfungen. 😂🤣😀😉
I study Physics in Mainz an it is the same way here. Maybe that's just the way of the physics exams. But I also like it since I have a lot of freetime or time to do internships. Also you are supposed to study during the semester and we get plenty of help by having to do weekly assignments. Yes this is quite a lot but it helps
@@natsudragneel2640 yeah, I mean, it's just how it is and I can live with that. I just enjoy exam season because you can revise more deeply (during the semester I tend to skip things if I have no time) and I would probably take the most of it when I'd have more time in the end to think about the stuff on a deeper level 😅
@@flaviadeluce8141 yeah you are right, at least maybe 2 weeks more would be nice. This semester I am lucky and my first exam is on the 21st so I have some time and can still enjoy Fastnacht a bit😁
I study Biosciences in Heidelberg, also very hard. The way it's structured also doesn't make it easier, especially if you want to finish in the standard period of study.
According to the "Statistisches Budnesamt" (Federal Statistical Office) in Germany only about 1/3 of students manage their degree in Regelstudienzeit(Standard period of study of 6 Semesters).
Oh, that improved quite a bit. I started out in 2002 when they transitioned from Magister to the Bologna system of Bachelor Master. Only a third managed to get a degree at all, the rest dropped out. From my starting semester in Japanese Studies, only 4 out of over 35 managed to get it done in the six semesters scheduled. They basically took the 9 Semester Magister plan and crammed all of the language stuff in the Bachelor's six semester. That meant that the Bachelor was quite brutal, but the Master was way easier. Good times and the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
@@mephisto8101 Physics in cologne is exactly this to this day. We have a 6 semester bachelor with content which filled closer to 9 semester and a master with 4 semester but actually 5 to 6 would be more close to reality. There is even a record of the fastest master student ever, it took him 4 semesters and 3 months which means no one ever completed the masters in time Regelstudienzeit.
In my experience (studied Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) the recommendation to not skip lectures is true, but even more important are the tutorials! There you learn to apply the math you learned in the lecture correctly. Doing dozens of practice exams is also really good for math based classes. Once you start having to look up formulas, you are loosing the time needed to actually solve the questions. One EE professor in fact told the students "you won't have time to do solve all questions in an exam. You have to also learn to pick your battles in order to pass."
Two things to add here from my experience: 1. In some universities, if you fail an exam, you have to write it in the next semester, this is especially true, if the class is offered in both winter and summer semester. 2. In my program (CS at an University) I only had to do a few presentations for some seminars. 80% of my exams were written exams. Although in some exercise groups you will have to present your results weekly, but that's not really a presentation.
I'm so happy that at my alma mater for the main lectures there were only two dates per semester. I failed my first math exam, but could retake it 6 weeks later and therefore could finish in "Regelstudienzeit".
One thing I never see being talked about concerning universities: there's no official vacation (only ~2 weeks for christmas/new years). Yes, you do have a "lecture free" time, but you're still expected to study for exams, finish projects, etc. That means, for a bachelor's degree you'll be hustling for 3 years (probably more). If you do a master's degree 2 more years. (not even speaking about phd) For me, I did a bachelor's degree in 3 years and a subsequent master's degree in another 3 years (not 2, thanks to Covid). I handed in my master's thesis with severe burnout. I have observed too many foreign students struggling with this as well. Adding to that, depending on the university, there may be rules where you can fail an exam only 1 or 2 times before being exmatriculated. You fail too often, they kick you out and you can't apply to that field of study anymore anywhere in Germany. Doesn't matter whether that happens in the 1st semester or the last. I was on my last try for a module in the 6th semester in my bachelor. The toll this takes on your mental health is immense. For foreign students it's even worse, since their visa depends on their study program most of the time. You fail too often, they kick you out, you need to go home again.
As it seems, it does not change much. Holidays were unknown at my old TU 40 years ago. Only lessons free time. Endless exams ... terrible! The FH guys were boasting they did 6+ exams in 2 weeks or so. We stupid TU guys needed months!😊😊😊
Yes... our old Profs , peace their ashes, had the perverse idea we had to do horror exams. I think it was absolutely madness. I am quite sure that guys much more talented than me, did not stand the pressure. I was a Second Chance guy, Zweiter Bildungsweg, that means a little older and somehow mature . I had no Plan B, that means I only wanted to survive! And I did. The aim was to reduce our heads. 180 should survive 2 years. If there were 300 guys, 400 guys... and months of lecture free time leads to terror exams. Logic! The exams were designed to make mistakes. Even multiple choice meant not one right solution . It could mean 2 right and 3 wrong solutions. One mistake meant zero points! Madnes! By the way we had 4 girls! 360 to 400 boys?
I think it depends on the university and course. This is probably not true for STEM but from my experience there might be no holidays but in Germany it is easier to just take a week off because there are not that many courses where attendance is mandatory. But like I said probably only true for business oriented studies like mine and not in science and IT.
Leidensfähigkeit gehört bei Ingenieuren dazu. Im Studium lernt man Leidensfähigkeit und danach ist man fit für das Berufsleben. If you got the sense... you finished your first exam!😊
as a chemistry student, who has studied abroad in Australia and got their BS and MS in germany. The difficulty between unis in germany seems to me to be pretty much the same, but at least in AUS it was much lower, even though I attended a top uni over there. i didnt have to study for exams and managed to pass with good grades. the work load in labs is also much lower and the general subject specific knowledge of the students is much more superficial in AUS. As a second year student from germany I attended thrid year couses in the honors program. the only advantage is that you have a more multidisciplinary knowledge imo. as what makes german uni much harder aside from the course material is that in germany classes typically only have one exams that counts for 100% of the grade and cannot be retaken.
Nahhhhh…. You can write all the exams twice and if you fail you have only 2 “third chance” … it’s not possible to write all the exams 3 times…. Hochschule Esslingen Engineering …. 1 Credit 30 Hours ? Haha no Chance …
As a master student in Tuebingen University, I cannot agree more with the brutality of the exam, especially Maths. But surprisingly, some student still got really good or even the maximum grade. It is good to be in the same class with highly talented people
It's worth noting that the first semesters at German universities are made intense on purpose. University admission is very liberal, almost anybody can get into almost any course. But that means the institutes need some way to filter out people who aren't serious, or who've picked the wrong subject. One way they do this is by making you _really_ pour yourself into your chosen subject at the start. That way they (and you) can find out quickly if you're in the right place. My Master's degree was a lot more relaxed than my Bachelor's overall.
While I agree that the first two semesters (on average) appear „more difficult“ than later ones - or the Master -, the reason is not „weeding out“. It is that the first two semesters are filled with the foundational topics (for example, Maths in many areas), with often not much direkt motivating application („you need to learn the basics before you get to the interesting stuff“). Adapting to the learning speed (depth of topics, extend of topics, time management, …) is also a challenge for many freshmen, because it is very different from the comparatively slow speed at school. When you make it past the first semesters, and get into the interesting stuff and applications - which require you to have mastered the foundational stuff before -, and even in the Master, you have a better chance of picking the courses you want to take (=higher motivation), and are less forced to focus on learning foundational stuff (=again, better motivation), and see better progress (= you guess what I mean here). That is also why the Master may appear to be „easier“ than the Bachelor.
Yeah but you can feel f*d over when they give you 5 easy but time consuming tasks and one that is also time consuming but really challenging and then they expect you to have learned proper resource and time management in school (wich let’s be honest here, you don’t. I showed up to Abi without learning more than 4 or 5 hours in total and made it just fine). It’s not a failure of the universities themselves but of the Sekundarstufe not properly preparing you for actual academic and scientific work. I wish I learned how to write and research scientifically for more than less than half a year, one time a week, before having to hand in a paper with only one attempt to get it right.
in Physics as well as Business, here in Austria we regularly had 80% fail rates. That was in 2012~2015. Nowadays, theyre considering to lower the threshold because there are less students at universities now, and the unis need to attract enough students to retain the number of offered courses/the current curriculum. I'm working at a uni and doing some statistical analyses regarding my uni-specific metrics, and I have access to the students numbers (enrollment and stuff). Also, I'd be careful to call Munich the highest ranked uni in Germany, as rankings are very skewed and pose disadvantages to less standardized unis/unis that don't focus on accumulating funding.
Lowering the threshold means lowering the quality of our physicists and engineers, which is bad for the quality of our products and for the marketing power of these professionals, and we need as Europe to compete in a fierce international landscape. Not a smart move from universities in my opinion, as new graduates are already often less prepared than older ones. Fachhochschule is there for the people who don't have the interest/willingness/capability to succeed in standard university.
6:57 You can bring a cheat sheet to a German university that just blows my mind. As I'm from an Asian developing country, our education system relies on memorizing stuff.
Coming from someone who’s currently studying for a masters in Electrical Engineering, getting a 1.0-1.3 in an exam is very difficult. A 1.7-2.3 is good, 2.7-3.3 is decent. Most exams that you take have a pass rate of 40-60%, and that’s a pass with a 4.0 grade. Typically in an exam where 100 students sat for, anywhere between 40-60 people would fail outright,5.0. Maybe 1 person would get 1.0, sometimes the highest grade would be 1.3 or even 1.7. Maybe 10-15 people would get between 2.0 and 2.7. The rest would between 3.0-4.0. Sometimes, you might just be lucky and the lecturer can be in a good mood and make the exam easy and then you’d observe a much greater pass rate. Also, as mentioned in the video, the exams are set in such a manner that requires deep understanding of the material.
Strange, I am also studying EI (Elektro- und Informationstechnik) masters at TUM. I have completed all my credits except for the masters thesis and I observed different statistics. Rarely do more than 20% fail and often times there were >10% 1.0s. Maybe I got lucky with the exams or someting. Of course this statistic is a little bit biased as people who do their EI masters at TUM are probably not representing the average university student and people are free to choose their subject of interest, but still it somehow feels easier to me than my bachelors degree.
@@drakey6617 I am doing masters in cs and most exams have a fail rate of 20~35% and no definitely no more than 2 people get 1.0. The exams are usually attended by 100 students (more or less). Strangely from what I have heard in my program, is that very small classes (by German standards I guess) have very very low failure rate and a high incidence of 1.0s or high grades in general
I study prehistoric archaology (humanities/ cultural science) in vienna, austria. 5 to 8 exams within 10-14 days at the end of the semester do occur regularly in my schedule, plus 2-3 presentations each semester to train working with scientific literature, public speaking and presenting archaeological topics to an auditorium. I couldn't do it if I wasn't preparing good and structured learning material during the semester as well as intense, but short learning sessions along the way. In 7 semesters, I only failed one single exam, typically I land an A or B grade. If you know your learning type and adapt a strategy that works to make progress happen, you're invincible. Anything is possible.
I am also a Student in Munich. I study teaching and although I wrote a bachelor thesis, the University of Munich won’t recognize it as one, since I have not „collected enough credit points“ even though I studied 3 subjects. Our finals are super tough. One of my subjects is German and I’m supposed to know everything - there no guidelines in what I am supposed to know or not. I just have to look at the former state exams and figure out myself what is necessary. I have been studying for 6-7 years now. If I fail, I will only be able to do the exam a year later. And even if I pass it was only my 1st state exam - which does not count as a real graduation certificate. However, If my grades were good enough (which they are not) I could do a phd (mind you, I neither have a bachelor or master). I wish I would have just studied something else, seriously
Again, very nice video! They way how you are graded might differ between disciplines (science and technology: usually a lot of written exams; social science: small seminars in which you have to do presentations). The following is more or less true for the engineering disciplines: A big difference to the American system is that at German Universities (note; not the Universities of applied science!) you are more on your own. Lectures can really be hard to grasp during the lecture. You nee some time to work it out after the lecture. For this, the University usually offers class-room like exercise groups. Sometimes the participation in these exercises is a prerequisite to be admitted to the exam for this topic. At the end of a semester you then have exams, often as written exams. If you fail a course, you have write it again before the next semester of even next year. If you fail three times, then you are out. With the universities of applied sciences it is different. The lectures are usually easier to follow and the teaching is more class room like. However, exams are usually done at the end of the semester. A big, big differences for some international students is the very direct and "negatively oriented" German feedback culture. There is no sugarcoating of the students performance. Feedback is mostly given on the parts that are wrong. Es ist gut (it is good) or es ist okay (it is okay) is a high German praise. Don't let yourself frustrated by this and keep asking for feedback. It helps. On time management: Remember, that for learning in the end only the output (meaning what you have learned) counts. This depends on many factors but usually extensive repetition with different approaches helps. Start early, don't try to learn to much in a day. Do something that is fun and get enough sleep. There are some good youtubers like Benjamin Keep (excellent science-based content) or Justing Sing that have a lot of content on this.
You are so true! A German instructor misunderstood the Japanese "hai"... it is not really yes. He asked the Japanese guy again and again. Did you get it? The Japanese always said "hai". At least the German instructor got angry... because he could see, the Japanese guy got nothing but said "hai " again and again. I said to the colleagues: I guess all the Japanese are gone tomorrow. I was partly right. 3 were gone 2 remained. I asked them, why they were still here and the other 3 were gone. Answer: We are not from Osaka.😉
In Österreich ist es nicht anders. Sommerferien sind die einzige Verschnaufpause die man hat. Im Ingenieurwesen hab ich 5 Jahre nur Sommerferien gehabt, weil man auch in den Weihnachtsferien was machen muss. Das Auslandssemester hat mir gezeigt, wie anders es im Ausland ist. Da ist das Studium richtig angenehm.
Ihr habt Sommerferien? Das letzte mal als ich Freizeit hatte war vor dem Studium, bei uns heißt das "Vorlesungsfreie Zeit", bedeutet Klausurzeit, Laborkurse und was sonst so alles nicht unter Vorlesung zählt und falls man doch frei haben sollte muss man für gewöhnlich arbeiten, weil kein Student in einer Studentenstadt vom Bafög leben gleichzeitig Essen und Wohnen kann
@@Satori_kun Als ich in Österreich studiert habe, gab es fast nichts in den Ferien. Ich hatte eine Werkstattübung, die in den Semesterferien abgehalten wurde, sonst nichts. Alles andere war in der normalen Zeit. Manchmal war es in den Ferien sogar schwer, für Arbeiten in die Räume reinzukommen, da alles ausgestorben und abgesperrt war. Lernen ist ein anderes Thema. Sommerjobs waren recht üblich. Nebenjobs eher weniger. Vor allem nicht in studienfremden Bereichen. Ich hatte einige Programmierjobs nebenher. In meiner Firma sind fast immer einige Studenten als Nebenjob. Ein guter Teil der am längsten angestellten Kollegen sind Studenten, die hier angefangen haben und dann ihr Studium nicht mehr fertig gemacht haben, da es wegen Vollzeitjob nicht mehr ging.
I searched a lot on UA-cam for a channel that explained very honestly what teaching is like in Germany, and this channel is the best of all... congratulations on the excellent work... I love your videos... the content is very good...
I did the Bachelor at a FH and Master on the University. Not a Full time Job. Do a Job during the study, will help you to organise your time. Also you will meet people outside the Campus. Most of my points were in exams.
I like that in Germany the differences between universitys are neglible. I would even say, the "famous" universitys are worse for students. Sure they score high in the academia department and many ppl go there. They can offer you expensive cutting edge research. However if you just focus on what is taught you are usually better off in cheaper universitys. My Professors in Trier are easily approachable and I talked with all of them in private at one point during my Bachelor's. Now I'm in my Master's and we have a lot of students who joined from different universitys. The RWTH Aachen is also very famous in the computer department and I met someone who did his Bachelor's there. He said it was fun in regard that he was able to work with interesting hardware (especially robotics), but the quality of the lessons wasn't as good as here. The Professors mainly wanted to do their research and saw teaching students as an annoying thing to do on the side. Also there were way more ppl, so the individual contact was very bad. So even if you go to just a small university: If you go for a degree in something usefull, you shouldn't be able to get it for free and should have extensible knowledge. The reason I am mentioning this is because I had a friend who studied abroad in the USA (I think in Detroit). The things he was able to get away with for his bachelor's in computer science were laughable. Things like "Fairytales" and "Story Telling" were actually courses he could get credits for. It seems to me that the education is more of a business model there selling degrees, rather than education.
Really informative video! 😊 Could you please delve into more detail on the following topics: 1. Time Management 2. Study Strategies & Note-Taking Additionally, it would be great if you could share the methods or techniques you personally follow.
I deliberately chose not to pursue a traditional university education at that time, as I found the instruction at the college, with its practical connections to the business world, to be more engaging. Here, we are afforded equal opportunities, and as computer scientists, we have a vast array of job prospects on the horizon.
I study social sciences. Most Students failed the law exams. Some of them are open book exams, but there´s no time to have more than a glance at best. In social sciences one can often choose the topics to engage with, which can be a very hard choise and require a lot to stick to. Decisionmaking, Planning, structuring and delivering on time is the challenge. Most students take a few semesters more, honestly I think it´s the right way to go, as good deeper or special topics are much more likely to yield recognition and reputation it´s also more engaging, fun and the wisdom or concepts will more likely stick for a lifetime rather than just for the exam and be forgotten.
If you have to do presentations differ depending on your subject or university. Im currently in the bachelors degree electrical engineering at RWTH and i've never did a presentation. We just do exams. But id rather do presentations, because you have in your own hands how much time you want to put in it. In exams you have 90min and random topics. And our prof never tell us what topics are more important. You have to figure that out by yourself, for example throught old previous exams.
You can do presentations in Seminars. It is the most important course for networking for your future field of research. Talk to the profs of your field of interest ask for Seminars, Praktika places or HiWi-jobs to get a food footing for your research before you have to decide your thesis.
That is why German engineer are considered some of the best in the world. Because we have to learn to think for ourselfs or we will fail our studies. It is expected that you can solve problems of your own. I always took what notes I was allowed o bring, but once I had written and understood them I rarelly referenced the at exams. No time and after doing practices exams, I know most of the formulars anyway
It is not only in Germany. Whatever where the major is being studied you have to learn it by yourself. The question is, whether the lectures, university attendance are supposed to help you to become a professional and master of your field or you just sitting in your room and doing it all by yourself. I think the right choose is obvious.
One recommendation for german universities in general. Forget anything regarding: "Top university", or "best university in the country" for that discipline. It simply does not work like that. The "ranking" system for universities has always been utterly useless. And if you want to study in germany, I would highly recommend to NOT study in Munich. Yes, both universities (TUM and LMU) have a great reputation, but it still depends on the field you want to study, but the worst thing about Munich right now are simply the living costs. Munich is currently by far the most expensive area to live for students in germany. It is a beatiful city, but there are many other beautiful cities in germany with excellent universities that are way more affordable.
@@maxyoko Can you give me an example please. I am german and studied in germany as well (finished a few years ago), we have been generally told and share the sentiment, for a Bachelors degree it is essentially irrelevant where you study as long as the discipline can be studied. For masters, you go where the specialisation is offered so it solely depends on topic. Other than that essentially any university will do and employers (in germany) don't care too much about where you studied. Since all german universities are public, the general ivy league bullshit simply doesn't exist here. If a university is hard to get into this is only due to too many applicants. This also increases the difficulty of exams, as students have to be filtered out to reduce numbers. Otherwise the university will not be able to give all students the opportunity to write their Bachelor/Master thesis. In economics, this is usually the case for example.
@@Widur42 For example if you wanna get into very prestigious consulting firms or investment banking, they usually look at the grades, the university you graduated from and if it's an "Exzellenz Uni" like LMU, TUM, etc. But you are right, in general, rankings don't matter, luckily we don't have the Ivy League bullshit here. Much more important might be the ranking specific to the field. Taking a look at the CHE rankings is quite beneficial because different from these fancy international rankings, they try to distinguish between the fields of study
@@maxyoko Choosing universities by ranking is not a good idea because the ranking for a specific field is generally based on the research output, i.e. the publications. Unless you do a PhD, the research output does not matter to you because you will not study even close to cutting edge research (even in your master thesis you most likely won't). Only a very small fraction of the ranking is determined by the teaching quality, which is the thing most important for students. Interestingly, extremely reptuable researchers are usually given some leeway when it comes to their teaching quality (because their research is much more valuable as it boosts the universities reputation and ranking) and so higher ranking universities can actually have worse teaching then lower ranking ones (I have heard this from some people at prestiguous unis and also experienced it myself). And when it comes to "Exzellenz Uni", you are partly right, some consulting firms look at that (but really nobody else does) but even there it is only really relevanz if the Exzellenz status was given for the field that you are actually studying there. And by the way, if someones goal when studying is to later work for a consulting firm specifically, they should honestly be ashamed of themselves. Consulting firms should be a last resort. There is a reason why those firms can throw so much money at you and its usually because they work mostly in finance related topics (even those that claim they don't). Several of my former study colleagues work at such firms because they market themselves very aggressively and the projects usually do not turn out what they are claimed to be beforehand.
@@Widur42 Interesting points you make, thank you. I was just highlighting that there are exceptions because it's good to know a different perspective. But as you said, I also think that in GENERAL, rankings don't matter. I think we have the same opinion here :)
Another interesting observation. At least during my time it was like that: If you fail an exam, you can have another try. If you fail that, you have an oral examination with professor (s). If you fail that. You get expelled and here is the kicker: You are not allowed to study the subject at any university in Germany. So if you studied mechanical engineering in Munich and failed like described above, you are not allowed to study mechanical engineering anywhere else e.g. at TU Berlin or so. So better do not fail your first two tries otherwise the pressure is really high😂
You have to mention that working a part time job in germany as a "Werksstudent" alongside your studies, takes a lot of time and is not well paid. Especially in expensive cities it is difficult to get the whole thing financially organised. Edit: For me personally, a simple degree programme was nothing, it didn't feel right and it was just very one-sided and very theoretical. I am now dedicating myself to my dual study programme, where I can gain practical work experience directly.
I studied Wirtschaftsmathematik and I had exactly 2 presentations - one for the seminar for the bachelor thesis, and one for the bachelor thesis itself. That's it.
I studied law in my country, and now I study data science in Germany. Since I had to write at least 10 exams in like 10 days in my previous studies, now writing 5 exams in three weeks is a great luxury to me. However the problem is, as one of the professors told me, they don't expect us to answer all the questions, so it doesn't matter how well you know all the topics, in the exam you never have enough time to answer all the questions.
Habe Sommer 23 ein Fernstudium (Bau-Ing) angefangen. In meinem Beruf bin ich auf 32h runter gegangen und habe mein Bachelor auf 8 Semester ausgelegt. Trotzdem ist es bisher echt sehr Zeit und Nerven aufwändig. Suche an sich immer noch nach einem besseren Lernsystem, dass nicht so viel Zeit frisst.
I study electrical engineering at the RWTH Aachen. It is basically survival of the fittest 😂 The written exams are ridiculous difficult and sometimes 3h long. I remember a for ET1 (1. Semester) a task… a NAND transistor circuit, which switch from true to false and I must calculate the electron-loch-pairs in one transistor junction.
Ha, ha... we had survival of the fittest also. TUB, 80ties last century. After some exams I feared to use my bicycle..to get home . .I went home by foot in a park, former fortifications. And it took me 3 days to get the stuff out of my brain to prepare for the next exam. I did not use alcohol... a lot did! Because of months of lecture free time the Profs made it extra hard. Or the University of Applied Science was for the bright guys and TU for the stupid. Who knows. 😂
@@ZelltisExx Agree! The Old Redbricks still torture the bright guys and the relaxed FH guys become the leaders! The TU guys perfectly learn that they know that they know nothing !
Well a lot of the electrical Engineering students in Aachen are very stupid. They come to the practical exercises and have not read the manual. Had to teach them how to use a multimeter or a calculator.
@@gene9230 Not reading the manual has less to do with stupidity and more with laziness. Basically, most engineering courses at all universities have one thing in common: no NC. Due to the lack of admission restrictions, they are overcrowded in the first semesters. A widespread measure is „Aussieben“ by high degree of difficulty.
Great and realistic video. I was surprised that you mentioned the university for dual studies at the end because usually nobody knows about us. Good luck on your studies :)
I have to hard disagree with a lot of exams being oral / having a lot of presentations. That part ENTIRELY depends on your uni, as I am studying computer Science aswell, but except for 3-4 exceptions 90% of all my Modules have a written exam at the end of them.
That's what terrified me. I'm currently applying for master in Germany and I just found this channel. Most of his videos about the German education system scared me and are even making me rethink if I should. I'm very introverted so presentations always terrified me. Everytime I had to present during my bachelor degree, I had to literally prepare myself mentally and I always had anxiety issues because of the thought of me having to speak in front of a bunch of people. All my presentations have always been terrible because I think anybody can feel that I'm not comfortable at all. During my bachelor degree, we would only have 1 presentation in a subject per semester and in most subjects, there wasn't any presentations. So the thought of having multiple presentations in every subject is my definition of hell. I'm literally having a panic attack just thinking about it.
@@lawtraf8008 Normally ,you can write the university and ask which module requires which form of examination.Some universities have even uploaded the so called Modulhandbuch :It is a small mini book containing all the requirements for completing the respective module. In general, the more stem related your subject is, the fewer oral exams there are.
I studied in Germany and I’m still studying in Austria, and for me it’s MUCH HARDER in Austria. I still study in Regelstudienzeit because I get Bafög and that means I have around 10+ exams every semester. In Germany I had around 4 in my first two semesters. Only plus is that I have the ability to kinda plan them because there are at least 3 exam dates for lectures (for seminars there’s only 1 date + I often have to write papers as well). Open book exams were basically only available to students during Covid.
They will find a way to make any exam type difficult! Usually they're most concerned with having an easy time grading and constructing an "elegant" problem - not whether the exam is particularly fair on the students. Unfortunately this is the "boring stuff they are forced to do" to many professors and they'd actually like to do their research. If the content is easy, you'll be at risk of running out of time instead. They even managed to make a multiple choice exam super difficult: - 6 choices - Answers were the last steps of calculation results - so many things you could do wrong - Couldn't discount any answers even if they seemed out of range - Wrong choices were the results you got when you made common mistakes
I faintly remember our physics professor once saying "If your calculation is off by a factor of 2, 5, e or some power of 10 it will be considered correct." And I recall an oral exam about the professor's area of expertise that wasn't even covered in the lectures at that time.
These videos are literally so perfectly timed and the fact that we get such quality research content for free is amazing. I am at like 10 seconds and I can tell this video will be top notch! Keep it up Max!
I used to study business administration in Austria, and one of the most difficult exam in the Bachelor program is economics maths. One of the hardest parts of the exam is the fact that students are not allowed to use calculators. I passed it after my second try but I studied a year for this exam. I was glad when I moved to Germany since I feel like exams at my current Uni are not as difficult.
I finished my bachelors at the Technical University of Munich and I'm doing my masters in condensed matter physics. My tip is always, if you treat your studies like a job and try to find interest in the teached topics, you cannot fail. Also, exercises and literature recommendations are way better than lectures for deep understanding of a topic.
Hi i want to apply in this university for my masters. I am an indian student... Can you give me some information regarding admission in this university? As i have a 3 yr bachelor degree in bcom hnrs
Please remember that this video covers one specific degree at one specific university. Other courses of study at german universities are organized in completely different ways. I study veterinary medicine in Germany and I can tell you that most of the stuff he so blandly generalizes for "universities in Germany" doesn't apply for my course of studies at all. Don't rely on this video for your specific field of interest.
I remember some international students complaining that the exam questions were not handed out in a catalogue prior to the exam. I don't know if there is a a big difference from german exam style to other universities world wide, but they emphasize a lot on your ability to apply knowledge to an unknown problem rather than perform immaculate on some well known examples.
Giving a bit of context from the other side of the table, my impression is that the "filtering" described is not necessarily on purpose, as you implied. Having worked with the staff of several departments of mathematics and being involved with people who give introductory courses, my couple of cents are: 1. Generally, mathematics professors are aware that their courses are considered hard by, say, students of computer scientists or engineers. However, they are not designed to sort people out. The professors are usually given lists by the receiving department (computer science or engineering, for instance) on what to do in their introductory courses. And for each and every fringe topic, there usually is someone who says "I need that content for my optional masters course in the 8 semester, they _need_ to know that". 2. Admission free programs by definition still have room for further students. Why? Because that is the legal requirement to introduce admission restrictions: You can only do so if you can prove that you could not squeeze another student in, otherwise that student could sue the university - and universities are one hell of afraid of getting sued. 3. The fact that so many students drop out in the beginning enters is generally speaking, a comparably fair thing: Better to be aware that the subject is not for you in the first than in the third year.
Just writing this cheat sheet gives you most understanding of the topics you need if you do it properly and think of how to structure and assemble all the information you learned.
My math teacher at school always recomended writing a cheat sheet exactly for that reason. Of course he also mentioned NOT to bring to the actual exam.
👍 in my process engineering studies in the first 3 semesters we had exams with 40 to 60% not passing the exam. Thermodynamics I & II (by the dekan) and technical mechanics (who became the Dekan later). We called it Rausprüfen 😅 After 3 semesters we reduced down from a bit less than 60 to 26 and all of the remaining students eventually made the Bachelors (which was the first cohort after the Diploma era). All of the successful people learned together in (usually one big) group in empty lecture halls. Most people would really start learning for exams about 12 to 4 before exams depending on topic. Also exams follow each other like 1 to 2 a week.
6:40 Also we were allowed formula sheets for most of the exams. Usually 1 to 3 sheets, which we prepared as the class together. Sometimes the professor would have a look at them, to basic stuff wouldn't be allowed.
@@NoctLightCloud it's only a k.o. if you fail 3 times, then you are out in the entire state, e.g. Bavaria, and can't studio in this specific field anymore. You either have to move to a different field (E.G. from process engineering to mechanical engineering) or go to a different state if you'd want to continue the same field.
Reading through the comments i am so glad that the physics department in cologne abolished exam limitation. No way would i have passed some of these exams if I knew I have only 2 or 3 tries, I only needed more than 3 tries for one course anyway but this would have been enough to get exmatriculated. We have no real presentation as exams, only written brutal ones and oral for lab courses (sometimes also brutal with the most malicious questions way outside the scope of the lab projects).
Hey, ich studiere gerade auch Physik in Köln, ich bin im ersten Semester, und bin auch sehr froh, dass die Prüfungsordnung so ist, wie sie ist. Das Studium ist ja auch wirklich so schon Schwer genug. Mich würde es interessieren wie du denn so durch dein Studium gekommen bist? Also für mich persönlich ist es Inhaltlich gerade so Machbar, aber es kommt ja auch sehr auf die Dozenten an... Mental finde ich es schon heftig Teilweise, gerade im ersten Semester wird man einfach ins kalte Wasser geworfen, und soll direkt um die Wette schwimmen. Muss man nicht auch total aufpassen, dass man nicht völlig ausbrennt? Ging es dir damals auch so?
@@ente6363 Ich kann dir versichern fast jeder fühlt sich überwältig im ersten Semester. Aus meinem Jahrgang hat z.B. fast niemand die Regelstudienzeit einhalten können, da man sich sonst Mental und körperlich kaputt gemacht hätte. Am Ende meines ersten Semesters habe ich erste Burnout Symptome bei mir bemerkt und danach entschieden den "Studienverlaufsplan" zu ignorieren. Er gibt einem nur grob eine Idee welche Reihenfolge sinnvoll ist, aber man sollte nicht auf die Idee kommen das dieser auch umsetzbar ist. Der Studiengang ist leider auf 6 Semester begrenzt und schon der beste Kompromiss dem man finden konnte, aber es ist keine Schande Module zu schieben oder durch Klausuren zu fallen. Ich persönlich habe viele Module erst im zwei Versuch geschafft. Was übrigens auch helfen kann ist Menschen im Foyer ansprechen. An den Tische am Glaskasten zwischen Bibliothek und CIP sitzen viele "Veteranen" und oft auch Fachschaftler die gerne Tipps und Tricks geben (da kann man auch mich finden sobald meine Bachelorarbeit fertig ist). Noch zu erwähnen ist, es wird später "einfacher". Sobald die Grundlagen sitzen kann man darauf aufbauen und man gewöhnt sich an das hohe Arbeitspensum irgendwann.
Danke dir für deine Schnelle Antwort! Ja ehrlich gesagt war mir das auch schon bewusst, dass darauf niemand so wirklich vorbereitet ist, aber ich frage immer mal wieder nach, nicht das man was falsch macht. Mir geht es ähnlich wie dir, ich bin auch fast völlig ohne mathematische Vorkenntnisse an die Uni gekommen, und muss ca. 3 Stunden täglich Pendeln, da kommt man schon an seine Grenzen. Deswegen werde ich vermutlich das Praktikum im zweiten Semester schieben. Danke für den Tipp mit dem Foyer, die Fachschafft ist mir schon zum größten Teil bekannt, und auch sonst habe ich gut Anschluss finden können.
I find it funny that you had so many presentations, actually your study experience is pretty opposite of what I consider a typical German student experience. At my university and degree there where literally zero presentations in the normal lectures. There are some subject that you can choose and in them I had one presentation as a final exam. Other presentations were only about a thesis. The very typical situation at my university is that you have lectures and exercises, but nobody checks anything and then the final exam is the only thing that gets graded. There are sometimes courses that are different, but this were 95% of my courses. Because of this we did not have much to do during the lecture period, the most stressful time would actually be during the non lecture/ exam period. Since most people study the most in the exam period (and the exams where during that whole period over multiple weeks) we had no free time. In a whole semester I would usually have like 3 actually free weeks, which still were between the different exams. This is why most people would go on vacation and work during the lecture period.
I studied in Austria and at that time I only needed to do 3 presentations for projects I had done. Because of circumstance (they lost the documentation and I had to present it at the Diplomprüfung again) I needed to do one of them 3 times. One presentation was especially feared. There was the professor and some of his assistants together with 20-30 students. You talked about your project showed a diagram of an electronic circuit (of your work) and it was discussed. The professor saw every little wrong detail and asked about that. And you knew that nearly everyone in the audience knew more about the topic than you ! In my area the last test was rather easy (for most). You chose 3 subjects which you had done a test before. You could talk with the three examiners and mostly they gave you a hint what area would be questioned. And most important: you studied all that before and you chose subjects you were comfortable with. So it was very rarely that anyone failed. For oral exams it was very common to sit in these tests as guest (if allowed) to get a feeling what would be questioned. On written tests a lot of former tests could be found for the same reason. You wouldn't get the same tests, but you could prepare for the type of questions. We had one test where they were very secret about the actual test. What we did in the excercises was rather simple and the real test was completely different. For that reason more than 80% (even very good students) failed and they repeated the test. We didn't have cheat sheets but some open book tests. We even had a few tests where you were allowed to look at the first half of the questions and then decide if you want to take the test or better return to study without loosing one opportunity 🙂.
you forgot the third kind of exam (which you especially deal with in later semesters). Papers, scientific writing and what not will especially trip people up who have not had much experience with it, especially so if you are new to german and the paper must be written in german.
Oh. There are different systems at universities and universities of applied sciences. I'm currently studying at a university of applied sciences and we do not have retake exams. So if you fail an exam you have to wait a whole semester to try again. Thats why in my studies I have other students who study for 8 semesters because they had to retake 4-5 exams during their study time. Before you start to study check out what your university or university of apl. sciences has worked out. When you do your masters it's very typical to have more scientific papers that you write as an exam than written exams. In technical fields you can also have modules in your masters where you have projects. It really depends on where and what you are studying. And think about the fact that every university bitches around when you come there as a new student from another university and want to simply start your masters degree or want to complete your bachelors degree. Then you have to retake some modules because the modules are not all the same in the bachelors based on the information taught there. That's such a huge bullshit in our education system. That your degree is not the same everywhere (which it should be by design of the bologna process).
One thing that shocked me was the lectures go so fast and if you didn't get it, the professor will not help you as much. I had to teach myself calculus with youtube 🤣🤣. Fortunately i got a 1.0 on my midterms. Finals are coming!
For german unis, you need to give presentation in german or English, or is it upto the professor? Suppose the course medium is German* and what about the questions that comes in the papers? Are they in german or English?
@@AbdullahAli-rw4yi my program is entirely in english. But it depends on the program. You need to check the actual curriculum of your program. Some of them, though in english, have subjects that are in german in the later semesters
@@secretnobody6460 Im coming to study physics there do you have any advice? Actually im scared a bit that can't handle it besides i habe to work part time job
@@amir-dr9br go for it man. All of us international students feel the same. But you gotta do time management especially if you work. You need to study by your own as well. Get a head start. Study your 1st semester subjects even before you come here. Study hard now even if you are not here yet.
the thing with 3 attempts is more spread amongst the universities of [... for example applied science] and retaking exams before the next semester starts is usually only a thing within Computer Science and some other Math-based courses
As someone who finished Computer Science at a very known university (especially well known for it's Math department) in Germany, my biggest advice if you don't want to suffer: choose a "Fachhochschule" instead of a "real" university. It's much easier - ESPECIALLY the math. At the end of the day, you get the exact same diploma.
I agree but the main reason in my opinion is that lecturers at „Fachhochschule“ have way better didactic skills. Most often than not you meet lecturers at University which never wanted to teach anyway but rather do scientific studies. This shows heavily in their teachings and the organization of the lectures. To me it is big negative point about most universities.
Dipl.-Ing. and Dipl.-Ing. (FH) were not the same degree. Another reason why the Bachelor/Master reforms were dumb - the execution of the Bologna process watered down the previously distinct profiles between university (Universität) and college (Fachhochschule). And colleges were allowed to call themselves "university of applied blablabla" which is another marketing gag to appear like a full university. And of course it was fun to poke the other guys. "Was heißt FH nochmal? FASThochschule." xD ;) jk
From my experience the cheat sheet is useless 90% of the time. It can be helpful in physics or math to look up huge formulas tho. Usually you havent got the time to look everything up when you write down plain text
You should mention that exams, especially in math in university during the first year, are designed to fail you, due to limited space in the masters program. Failure rates of 80 % are not uncommon, and the amount of point you need to pass depends on the average score of the class, to 20 % pass, the rest fails
This is not correct and depends fully on the size of university. And from my experience, first exams are purposefully made harder to give students a chance to see if they want to continue a difficult subject or not. If you can make that hard exam you will be fine for the rest. This is quite sensible albeit seemingly harsh on first glance.
When I studied chemistry there had been one professor and his scripts had been 'special'. There had been mistakes in it and you only would have found out if you had attended the lecture. And yes... we were allowed to take the WHOLE script into the final written exam. That did not automatically mean that many students succeeded. 😉
Just wand to add that you can’t compare a university with a university of applied sciences. The system is completely different, the most people go to normal universities. I did my bachelors degree at a university and now my masters degree at a university of applied sciences.
In automotive engineering at HM we had only about 5-6 presentations in 7 semesters lol. Most of them came in the later semesters and only if you chose a subject that ends with project work and no exam. And also we had some rare cases where we could even bring your iPad or laptop, but usually time is way too short to look things up (same for bringing the entire script). It only helps for maybe 3-4 little questions you forgot the answer to
i study elektrotecnik in Fachhochschule Frankfurt,the professor is actually chill and let me present in english,you can ask them to give you exams in english if your german is not too advanced yeah tests are brutal,120 minutes for 8 big question from a to h ,that's a lot
Hey max Can you make a detailed video about the differences, pros,cons, ways to teaching, ways of examinations, student life, between classic universities and universities of applied science.
It seems that a lot of things were watered down. When i studied engineering (Diplom) we had one presentation in the Hauptstudium and it counted for a half point or so and zero oral tests. We had 2 chances for tests and 2 times a third chance. And no, presentations are not important if you work in the engineering field or CS. Whoever told you that lied to you. The reason why you have so many presentations is to make it easier for the students. The same for oral tests, when i studied only when you did not pass a test you could take a oral test to convince the prof you just had a bad day but you where graded a 4.
Munich University of Applied Sciences is an exception compared to other universities. Preliminary work, presentations, or similar tasks are considered prerequisites at other universities, not part of the final grade. After completing all preliminary tasks and midterm exams as a defense, you gain access to the written exam, which is then graded 100% on its own. (50% fail there normaly, in my uni 75%)
The 1 ects to 30h workload is only an estimate. Best is, ask people who already took the course how the workload is. Ive had classes with 3 ects which took me just 30h overall. But also had classes where a 3 ects class took me almost double the amounts of expected time. Reading 30 pages a week for that class only.
The load during lecture time is 50 to 60 hours. Because these credit points are supposed to even out to 1 point 1 hour per week. As there are lecture free times you have to up it during lecture time which is about 8 month in Germany.
I believe that the type of class can already give you some hints regarding how appropriate those estimates are. Projects or presentations usually require more time for preparation and implementation than "classical" lectures that end with an exam. Imo the ECTS that you receive after passing these course types do not always reflect this discrepancy
@@chaotischekreativitat9391 It's the opposite. Projects require no studying for exams while lectures are packaged with 3h lecture per week. 3h practice and then 50-60h studying for the exam. Projects usually don't require that much work and are nice and easy ects.
@@Nephale In this case it might depend on the field of study and individual preferences. I hold a master's degree in computer science and my projects (8 ECTS) and seminars (4 ECTS) both required more time than the lectures (6/8 ECTS) I took.
I study in Karlsruhe at KIT and its always a hard time 1-2 Months before the exams. The last weeks i spend whole day at the library and i need to work besides of that because Bafög is not enough for living
Math tends to be used to get rid of a lot of first semester students, tests tend to have 100 questions some with a-e + Graph. You will only have 100 minutes, choose well it is not possible to finish all questions in time. Usually 97% fail in the first try.
Don't worry too much, depending on the degree program you might have no presentations And if you do, they are gonna consider that you're not a native German speaker ^^
Alumnus from RWTH here. Only presentations I came across in bachelors computer science were two seminars and the bachelors final thesis presentation. Having so many presentations is definitely not the norm in German universities.
@@maxyoko It will be Electrical Engineering. Currently I study at University of São Paulo. Despite the difficulties, I enjoy really much studying german. Hope they consider I'm not Steve Kaufmann or anyone of those crazy polyglots 😂
Law student here, almost none of this is true for a law degree (that allows you to work as a lawyer, judge, state attorney/prosecutor) in Germany! Most public universities here do not offer LL.B.s/LL.M.s but studies on the basis of two state exams (like the bar exam). There are some Bachelors/Masters in subjects like business law but those do not enable you to even take the first state exam and are not organized like the "classic" law program. The Bologna system is not used and testing systems vary from uni to uni. Exams mostly are long written exams (between 2-3 hours) and/or papers between 15-30 pages, both usually between semesters. You are graded from 0 up to 18 points and pass with 4 points while 9 points are already a distinction. So you can imagine getting to those 14 points plus is very rare... The struggle with this is, if you want to change to the Bachelors/Masters program, your points will be converted into the Bologna grading system and although your 9 points are really good for a law grade, you will be stuck with a 2,7. The average achieved grade is more around 6 points, so not good at all if converted into an other grading system. Law is considered one of the hardest and toughest subjects here and objectively takes the longest to finish with a full degree (two state exams, if you are fast it takes 7 years, usually it's 8 years and honestly most people I know take even longer, myself included). Because of the different grading system and not using the Bologna system it is mostly a one-way-street, you just have to do it or just do something entirely different if you fail. The most fun part is: none of your achievements in uni count towards your final grade of the state exam. You are basically taking all those tests and do weeks on weeks of research for your papers for years and years just to be allowed to even partake in the first state exam (usually 6 written 5 hour long exams in a course of about 10 days and if you pass those, one oral exam up to 3,5 hours long with 3-5 other students half a year later). Your degree that you worked for at least 4 years depends on whether you have ONE good week or not. If you pass the first state exam you can take the second one after a two year "Referendariat", which is a legal traineeship at court and later at an administrative institution and/or law firm. You work and train there for 2-3 days a week, have the rest to study and get paid (also depends which Bundesland) around 1.000,00 to 1.700,00 € a month. It finishes with the second state exam which consists of 8 written exams, one oral exam and another oral exam, which is more like a presentation of a specific case that you have to prepare in advance. After the state exams you actually won't have a "proper" academic title given by a university, only a state certificate. Improper in the sense that it is not that comparable to LL.B./LL.M. The university only can award you the title of "Diplom-Jurist" or "magister iuris", a diploma of law.
A video about how to get into top universities in germany would be nice. The complete blueprint what you need to do in 9th 10th 11th and 12th grade, everything you need to know. A comprehensive video would be great!
Getting into any German university is the same, you just have to pass your Abitur (final school exam) or equivalent. There aren't any special admission criteria and they can't reject applicants. The only limitation is that some subjects (like medicine, for example) have a "numerus clausus". That means you get put on a waiting list based on your Abitur grade. Which makes it impractical to sign up for those unless you have a very good Abitur. The hardest part for foreign students is getting a scholarship, not getting accepted into the German university.
Honestly, I don't think it matters that much from a student's perspective whether you go to a top university or just an average one in Germany. All universities in Germany have high standards and the top universities are usually ranked by research rather than teaching.
@@AltIng9154 it is called " Höhere Mathematik" in Aachen and it is super easy compared to the other math lectures. In Braunschweig it seems to be called "Lineare Algebra für Elektrotechnik", the "für Elektrotechnik" ist the important part. Its not the same lecture as the mathematicians take.
When i sat down for the first time at my uni, our professor said to look to our right and our left and said that in one year noone will be sitting there :D he wasnt that wrong :D
I studied math and physics in Germany in Regelstudienzeit (10 semesters for Bachelor + Master) with my grades being mostly between 1,0 and 2,0 and it was pretty chill. Sure the 1-2 weeks before exams suck hard and the homeworks are hard as well but all together it's maybe uni from 8:00 - 12:00 and then in the afternoon 1-2 hours for homework. If you even go to the lectures. I was mostly 2 hours in uni and did 2 hours of Homework a day. So I had lots of free time and time to work ehrenamtlich as a trainer for kids.
Protip one guy gave me and going threw the same pain is to pick a university in germany where you can easily pass the courses and not to pick a university because it has a good reputation.
I am physics phd and do assist the teaching now for while. I can tell by experience, that the level of the first semester students worsended latetly. Its not a subjective thing, because we used the exact same exams as 10 yeaers ago. Result: Much worse results.
I studied dual and apart from 8-10hr study days during the week we had exam phases of like 11 exams in 9 days, yeah was fun. And there is no postponing one. If you fail something twice youre out lol
U should go more in depth about the differences between hochschule and university. hochschule is more practical afair, including things as projects and hand ins. my personal experience at university is: 'just attend the exams and pass.' basically free degree
I studied at on of the top ranked engineering university 20 years ago. 1000 people started with me and only 300 got their degree.... After 4 semesters already 60% dropped out.
But you know although education in Germany is very different as you said and fairly demanding, it's not treated that way in an international environment. After all it's all bachelor and master and a degree from Philippines, India, Germany and so on are treated the same by HR departments and hiring managers. They would most often if at all go for graduates from well-known universities.
I find that if you already have an German school background, it should not be that difficult to adapt to the German universities. Especially if you have done the Abitur. You should have already experience in doing oral/presentation exams. But if you have other school backgrounds (Japanese in my case) you can/will struggle. The focus of the education is simply different in Germany. The contrast to Japan is stark. In Japan there is only one correct answer, and you are expected to give that answer. For example; Using different grammar in an English exam that expected is a wrong answer. However in Germany, as long as you understand the essence of the lessons and apply it correctly (and the teacher can understand it) you will be given points. (Though there is some expected structure in your essays) I am thankful that I switched to a German school in Japan to do the Abitur. I never understood why German exams have a reputation of being brutal. I study CS in Heidelberg and none of the exams I took so far are inherently "brutal" or "evil". The only thing is that it is a different format to get used to.
If you fail your exam three times, you will be out of university without possibility to study your subject in ANY other university in Germany... Yeah, I will write math exam in february. It is my last opportunity
Many people are happy that you can bring a cheat sheet, or worse, the entire book with you to the exam. Do NOT be happy, as those are the hardest exams! Because you bring the book, the professor can easily assume you have all the knowledge present, so you need to understand the topics completely (100%) to even stand a chance at answering those questions! Open book exams are BY FAR the hardest!
absolutely haha
Fun heat transfer question from an exam: assume a bread has a round shape. Properties are , , , etc. The bread is room temperature. This bread is placed in an hot air oven without a fan. The oven is set to degrees. How long does it take to bake a bread, if the core temperature of the bread needs to be above 180 degrees for ten minutes? Now do the same but this time with a fan that blows air at m/s. Good luck!
Those were killing!
I think it depends on the person and circumstances - if you understood the material well in class/during the exercise but feel like you have not a lot of time to study, they might be better. Same as oral or written exams - neither is truly easier than the other.
Dont agree
Their method to compensate for that is just adding more exercises. If you need to consult your books too much you wont be able to finish enough of the exercises. You'll be running out of time.
I study physics in Heidelberg, and unfortunately our exams are always just a week after the semester finishes. It's totally normal that 80% fail since you only have one. week (if you're lucky) to fully concentrate on learning for the five exams you will write in three days.
Fachhochschulisierung an einer Traditionsuniversität? ..😀Dann erreicht ihr ja bald das Niveau der bright brains. An der FH hat das doch Tradition seit dem Krieg. Nur die geistig Eingeschränkten an den Unis benötigten Monate für die Prüfungen. 😂🤣😀😉
I study Physics in Mainz an it is the same way here. Maybe that's just the way of the physics exams. But I also like it since I have a lot of freetime or time to do internships. Also you are supposed to study during the semester and we get plenty of help by having to do weekly assignments. Yes this is quite a lot but it helps
@@natsudragneel2640 yeah, I mean, it's just how it is and I can live with that. I just enjoy exam season because you can revise more deeply (during the semester I tend to skip things if I have no time) and I would probably take the most of it when I'd have more time in the end to think about the stuff on a deeper level 😅
@@flaviadeluce8141 yeah you are right, at least maybe 2 weeks more would be nice. This semester I am lucky and my first exam is on the 21st so I have some time and can still enjoy Fastnacht a bit😁
I study Biosciences in Heidelberg, also very hard. The way it's structured also doesn't make it easier, especially if you want to finish in the standard period of study.
According to the "Statistisches Budnesamt" (Federal Statistical Office) in Germany only about 1/3 of students manage their degree in Regelstudienzeit(Standard period of study of 6 Semesters).
Interesting, that's actually not that many
@@maxyoko about 1/4 even need additional 3 or more semester so about 4-5 years in total
The first thing our professors told us when I started studying „forget about the Regelstudienzeit, you wont make it most likely“
Oh, that improved quite a bit. I started out in 2002 when they transitioned from Magister to the Bologna system of Bachelor Master. Only a third managed to get a degree at all, the rest dropped out. From my starting semester in Japanese Studies, only 4 out of over 35 managed to get it done in the six semesters scheduled.
They basically took the 9 Semester Magister plan and crammed all of the language stuff in the Bachelor's six semester. That meant that the Bachelor was quite brutal, but the Master was way easier. Good times and the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
@@mephisto8101 Physics in cologne is exactly this to this day. We have a 6 semester bachelor with content which filled closer to 9 semester and a master with 4 semester but actually 5 to 6 would be more close to reality. There is even a record of the fastest master student ever, it took him 4 semesters and 3 months which means no one ever completed the masters in time Regelstudienzeit.
In my experience (studied Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) the recommendation to not skip lectures is true, but even more important are the tutorials! There you learn to apply the math you learned in the lecture correctly. Doing dozens of practice exams is also really good for math based classes. Once you start having to look up formulas, you are loosing the time needed to actually solve the questions.
One EE professor in fact told the students "you won't have time to do solve all questions in an exam. You have to also learn to pick your battles in order to pass."
Two things to add here from my experience:
1. In some universities, if you fail an exam, you have to write it in the next semester, this is especially true, if the class is offered in both winter and summer semester.
2. In my program (CS at an University) I only had to do a few presentations for some seminars. 80% of my exams were written exams.
Although in some exercise groups you will have to present your results weekly, but that's not really a presentation.
Sounds like Electrical Engineering at a German redbrick, right?😊CS has become a separated subject?
Thanks for sharing :)
At my University you sometimes even have to wait a full year to retake an exam if the course is only offered once a year. Very annoying😅
@@Anna-sn7zb Yes!
I'm so happy that at my alma mater for the main lectures there were only two dates per semester. I failed my first math exam, but could retake it 6 weeks later and therefore could finish in "Regelstudienzeit".
One thing I never see being talked about concerning universities: there's no official vacation (only ~2 weeks for christmas/new years).
Yes, you do have a "lecture free" time, but you're still expected to study for exams, finish projects, etc. That means, for a bachelor's degree you'll be hustling for 3 years (probably more). If you do a master's degree 2 more years. (not even speaking about phd)
For me, I did a bachelor's degree in 3 years and a subsequent master's degree in another 3 years (not 2, thanks to Covid). I handed in my master's thesis with severe burnout. I have observed too many foreign students struggling with this as well.
Adding to that, depending on the university, there may be rules where you can fail an exam only 1 or 2 times before being exmatriculated. You fail too often, they kick you out and you can't apply to that field of study anymore anywhere in Germany. Doesn't matter whether that happens in the 1st semester or the last. I was on my last try for a module in the 6th semester in my bachelor. The toll this takes on your mental health is immense. For foreign students it's even worse, since their visa depends on their study program most of the time. You fail too often, they kick you out, you need to go home again.
As it seems, it does not change much. Holidays were unknown at my old TU 40 years ago. Only lessons free time. Endless exams ... terrible! The FH guys were boasting they did 6+ exams in 2 weeks or so. We stupid TU guys needed months!😊😊😊
Really appreciate you sharing your insights ^^
Yes... our old Profs , peace their ashes, had the perverse idea we had to do horror exams. I think it was absolutely madness. I am quite sure that guys much more talented than me, did not stand the pressure. I was a Second Chance guy, Zweiter Bildungsweg, that means a little older and somehow mature . I had no Plan B, that means I only wanted to survive! And I did. The aim was to reduce our heads. 180 should survive 2 years. If there were 300 guys, 400 guys... and months of lecture free time leads to terror exams. Logic! The exams were designed to make mistakes. Even multiple choice meant not one right solution . It could mean 2 right and 3 wrong solutions. One mistake meant zero points! Madnes! By the way we had 4 girls! 360 to 400 boys?
First Semester linear algebra. Failed my first try. Retook the exam with 29 other people. I was one of 3 people who passed. All of us barely. Smh
I think it depends on the university and course. This is probably not true for STEM but from my experience there might be no holidays but in Germany it is easier to just take a week off because there are not that many courses where attendance is mandatory. But like I said probably only true for business oriented studies like mine and not in science and IT.
Leidensfähigkeit gehört bei Ingenieuren dazu. Im Studium lernt man Leidensfähigkeit und danach ist man fit für das Berufsleben. If you got the sense... you finished your first exam!😊
Ja total haha
Natürlich nur wenn man bereit ist für die Sache zu leiden
@@maxyoko If you don't want to suffer you won't become a German Ingenieur. We can make gold out of rubbish and shit!🤣😂😉😊
Bist du der Ansicht, dass sich die Leidensfähigkeit im Studium später auch positiv auf die Entlohnung auswirkt?
@@beko-xi8uz Ein Ingenieur geht seinem Hobby nach und freut sich jeden Monat, dass er dafür auch noch bezahlt wird.😉
Hier, kann ein Lied davon singen. Ist so aber man wird mit 85k Jahresgehalt belohnt (nach 4 Jahren Berufserfahrung)
as a chemistry student, who has studied abroad in Australia and got their BS and MS in germany. The difficulty between unis in germany seems to me to be pretty much the same, but at least in AUS it was much lower, even though I attended a top uni over there. i didnt have to study for exams and managed to pass with good grades. the work load in labs is also much lower and the general subject specific knowledge of the students is much more superficial in AUS. As a second year student from germany I attended thrid year couses in the honors program. the only advantage is that you have a more multidisciplinary knowledge imo.
as what makes german uni much harder aside from the course material is that in germany classes typically only have one exams that counts for 100% of the grade and cannot be retaken.
What do You mean can't be retaken?
Don't they have 3 chances to pass the exams? So if I don't do well, it can't be taken twice?
@@AbdullahAli-rw4yi You have 3 chances to pass the exam. But if you pass it, even with the lowest passing grade (4.0) you can't retake it.
@@ohnenamen0992This is true for most places, but at some places you can retake one or two times even with a previous pass.
Nahhhhh…. You can write all the exams twice and if you fail you have only 2 “third chance” … it’s not possible to write all the exams 3 times….
Hochschule Esslingen Engineering …. 1 Credit 30 Hours ? Haha no Chance …
@@R1zzl4k We had only one third chance. We called it Joker. 😂
As a master student in Tuebingen University, I cannot agree more with the brutality of the exam, especially Maths. But surprisingly, some student still got really good or even the maximum grade. It is good to be in the same class with highly talented people
Haha yes, there is always that one person who casually cracks 1,0
It's worth noting that the first semesters at German universities are made intense on purpose. University admission is very liberal, almost anybody can get into almost any course. But that means the institutes need some way to filter out people who aren't serious, or who've picked the wrong subject. One way they do this is by making you _really_ pour yourself into your chosen subject at the start. That way they (and you) can find out quickly if you're in the right place. My Master's degree was a lot more relaxed than my Bachelor's overall.
I agree, my first semesters where rly hard, but now in my Master its way more relaxed.
While I agree that the first two semesters (on average) appear „more difficult“ than later ones - or the Master -, the reason is not „weeding out“. It is that the first two semesters are filled with the foundational topics (for example, Maths in many areas), with often not much direkt motivating application („you need to learn the basics before you get to the interesting stuff“). Adapting to the learning speed (depth of topics, extend of topics, time management, …) is also a challenge for many freshmen, because it is very different from the comparatively slow speed at school.
When you make it past the first semesters, and get into the interesting stuff and applications - which require you to have mastered the foundational stuff before -, and even in the Master, you have a better chance of picking the courses you want to take (=higher motivation), and are less forced to focus on learning foundational stuff (=again, better motivation), and see better progress (= you guess what I mean here). That is also why the Master may appear to be „easier“ than the Bachelor.
I agree as an Abiturient
Yeah but you can feel f*d over when they give you 5 easy but time consuming tasks and one that is also time consuming but really challenging and then they expect you to have learned proper resource and time management in school (wich let’s be honest here, you don’t. I showed up to Abi without learning more than 4 or 5 hours in total and made it just fine).
It’s not a failure of the universities themselves but of the Sekundarstufe not properly preparing you for actual academic and scientific work. I wish I learned how to write and research scientifically for more than less than half a year, one time a week, before having to hand in a paper with only one attempt to get it right.
in Physics as well as Business, here in Austria we regularly had 80% fail rates. That was in 2012~2015. Nowadays, theyre considering to lower the threshold because there are less students at universities now, and the unis need to attract enough students to retain the number of offered courses/the current curriculum. I'm working at a uni and doing some statistical analyses regarding my uni-specific metrics, and I have access to the students numbers (enrollment and stuff). Also, I'd be careful to call Munich the highest ranked uni in Germany, as rankings are very skewed and pose disadvantages to less standardized unis/unis that don't focus on accumulating funding.
Lowering the threshold means lowering the quality of our physicists and engineers, which is bad for the quality of our products and for the marketing power of these professionals, and we need as Europe to compete in a fierce international landscape. Not a smart move from universities in my opinion, as new graduates are already often less prepared than older ones. Fachhochschule is there for the people who don't have the interest/willingness/capability to succeed in standard university.
6:57 You can bring a cheat sheet to a German university that just blows my mind. As I'm from an Asian developing country, our education system relies on memorizing stuff.
Open book exams are BY FAR the hardest!
Can I use my phone in the exam hall????
Coming from someone who’s currently studying for a masters in Electrical Engineering, getting a 1.0-1.3 in an exam is very difficult. A 1.7-2.3 is good, 2.7-3.3 is decent. Most exams that you take have a pass rate of 40-60%, and that’s a pass with a 4.0 grade. Typically in an exam where 100 students sat for, anywhere between 40-60 people would fail outright,5.0. Maybe 1 person would get 1.0, sometimes the highest grade would be 1.3 or even 1.7. Maybe 10-15 people would get between 2.0 and 2.7. The rest would between 3.0-4.0. Sometimes, you might just be lucky and the lecturer can be in a good mood and make the exam easy and then you’d observe a much greater pass rate.
Also, as mentioned in the video, the exams are set in such a manner that requires deep understanding of the material.
Strange, I am also studying EI (Elektro- und Informationstechnik) masters at TUM. I have completed all my credits except for the masters thesis and I observed different statistics. Rarely do more than 20% fail and often times there were >10% 1.0s. Maybe I got lucky with the exams or someting. Of course this statistic is a little bit biased as people who do their EI masters at TUM are probably not representing the average university student and people are free to choose their subject of interest, but still it somehow feels easier to me than my bachelors degree.
@@drakey6617 I am doing masters in cs and most exams have a fail rate of 20~35% and no definitely no more than 2 people get 1.0. The exams are usually attended by 100 students (more or less). Strangely from what I have heard in my program, is that very small classes (by German standards I guess) have very very low failure rate and a high incidence of 1.0s or high grades in general
I study prehistoric archaology (humanities/ cultural science) in vienna, austria. 5 to 8 exams within 10-14 days at the end of the semester do occur regularly in my schedule, plus 2-3 presentations each semester to train working with scientific literature, public speaking and presenting archaeological topics to an auditorium. I couldn't do it if I wasn't preparing good and structured learning material during the semester as well as intense, but short learning sessions along the way.
In 7 semesters, I only failed one single exam, typically I land an A or B grade.
If you know your learning type and adapt a strategy that works to make progress happen, you're invincible.
Anything is possible.
I am also a Student in Munich. I study teaching and although I wrote a bachelor thesis, the University of Munich won’t recognize it as one, since I have not „collected enough credit points“ even though I studied 3 subjects.
Our finals are super tough. One of my subjects is German and I’m supposed to know everything - there no guidelines in what I am supposed to know or not. I just have to look at the former state exams and figure out myself what is necessary.
I have been studying for 6-7 years now. If I fail, I will only be able to do the exam a year later. And even if I pass it was only my 1st state exam - which does not count as a real graduation certificate. However, If my grades were good enough (which they are not) I could do a phd (mind you, I neither have a bachelor or master). I wish I would have just studied something else, seriously
Again, very nice video!
They way how you are graded might differ between disciplines (science and technology: usually a lot of written exams; social science: small seminars in which you have to do presentations).
The following is more or less true for the engineering disciplines: A big difference to the American system is that at German Universities (note; not the Universities of applied science!) you are more on your own. Lectures can really be hard to grasp during the lecture. You nee some time to work it out after the lecture. For this, the University usually offers class-room like exercise groups. Sometimes the participation in these exercises is a prerequisite to be admitted to the exam for this topic. At the end of a semester you then have exams, often as written exams. If you fail a course, you have write it again before the next semester of even next year. If you fail three times, then you are out. With the universities of applied sciences it is different. The lectures are usually easier to follow and the teaching is more class room like. However, exams are usually done at the end of the semester.
A big, big differences for some international students is the very direct and "negatively oriented" German feedback culture. There is no sugarcoating of the students performance. Feedback is mostly given on the parts that are wrong. Es ist gut (it is good) or es ist okay (it is okay) is a high German praise. Don't let yourself frustrated by this and keep asking for feedback. It helps.
On time management: Remember, that for learning in the end only the output (meaning what you have learned) counts. This depends on many factors but usually extensive repetition with different approaches helps. Start early, don't try to learn to much in a day. Do something that is fun and get enough sleep. There are some good youtubers like Benjamin Keep (excellent science-based content) or Justing Sing that have a lot of content on this.
Thanks for sharing 🫶
You are so true! A German instructor misunderstood the Japanese "hai"... it is not really yes. He asked the Japanese guy again and again. Did you get it? The Japanese always said "hai". At least the German instructor got angry... because he could see, the Japanese guy got nothing but said "hai " again and again. I said to the colleagues: I guess all the Japanese are gone tomorrow. I was partly right. 3 were gone 2 remained. I asked them, why they were still here and the other 3 were gone. Answer: We are not from Osaka.😉
In Österreich ist es nicht anders. Sommerferien sind die einzige Verschnaufpause die man hat. Im Ingenieurwesen hab ich 5 Jahre nur Sommerferien gehabt, weil man auch in den Weihnachtsferien was machen muss. Das Auslandssemester hat mir gezeigt, wie anders es im Ausland ist. Da ist das Studium richtig angenehm.
Ihr habt Sommerferien? Das letzte mal als ich Freizeit hatte war vor dem Studium, bei uns heißt das "Vorlesungsfreie Zeit", bedeutet Klausurzeit, Laborkurse und was sonst so alles nicht unter Vorlesung zählt und falls man doch frei haben sollte muss man für gewöhnlich arbeiten, weil kein Student in einer Studentenstadt vom Bafög leben gleichzeitig Essen und Wohnen kann
@@Satori_kun Als ich in Österreich studiert habe, gab es fast nichts in den Ferien. Ich hatte eine Werkstattübung, die in den Semesterferien abgehalten wurde, sonst nichts. Alles andere war in der normalen Zeit. Manchmal war es in den Ferien sogar schwer, für Arbeiten in die Räume reinzukommen, da alles ausgestorben und abgesperrt war. Lernen ist ein anderes Thema.
Sommerjobs waren recht üblich. Nebenjobs eher weniger. Vor allem nicht in studienfremden Bereichen. Ich hatte einige Programmierjobs nebenher. In meiner Firma sind fast immer einige Studenten als Nebenjob. Ein guter Teil der am längsten angestellten Kollegen sind Studenten, die hier angefangen haben und dann ihr Studium nicht mehr fertig gemacht haben, da es wegen Vollzeitjob nicht mehr ging.
I searched a lot on UA-cam for a channel that explained very honestly what teaching is like in Germany, and this channel is the best of all... congratulations on the excellent work... I love your videos... the content is very good...
Appreciate your feedback 🫶
I did the Bachelor at a FH and Master on the University. Not a Full time Job. Do a Job during the study, will help you to organise your time. Also you will meet people outside the Campus. Most of my points were in exams.
I like that in Germany the differences between universitys are neglible. I would even say, the "famous" universitys are worse for students. Sure they score high in the academia department and many ppl go there. They can offer you expensive cutting edge research. However if you just focus on what is taught you are usually better off in cheaper universitys. My Professors in Trier are easily approachable and I talked with all of them in private at one point during my Bachelor's. Now I'm in my Master's and we have a lot of students who joined from different universitys. The RWTH Aachen is also very famous in the computer department and I met someone who did his Bachelor's there. He said it was fun in regard that he was able to work with interesting hardware (especially robotics), but the quality of the lessons wasn't as good as here. The Professors mainly wanted to do their research and saw teaching students as an annoying thing to do on the side. Also there were way more ppl, so the individual contact was very bad. So even if you go to just a small university: If you go for a degree in something usefull, you shouldn't be able to get it for free and should have extensible knowledge.
The reason I am mentioning this is because I had a friend who studied abroad in the USA (I think in Detroit). The things he was able to get away with for his bachelor's in computer science were laughable. Things like "Fairytales" and "Story Telling" were actually courses he could get credits for. It seems to me that the education is more of a business model there selling degrees, rather than education.
Really informative video! 😊
Could you please delve into more detail on the following topics:
1. Time Management
2. Study Strategies & Note-Taking
Additionally, it would be great if you could share the methods or techniques you personally follow.
Really appreciate your comment ^^
Definitely noted your points down, I'll see what I can do
I deliberately chose not to pursue a traditional university education at that time, as I found the instruction at the college, with its practical connections to the business world, to be more engaging. Here, we are afforded equal opportunities, and as computer scientists, we have a vast array of job prospects on the horizon.
I found German exams pretty easy actually, a lot easier than Russian ones. I was studying computer science and economics.
y do you say it easy in what aspest and what do you study
I study social sciences. Most Students failed the law exams. Some of them are open book exams, but there´s no time to have more than a glance at best.
In social sciences one can often choose the topics to engage with, which can be a very hard choise and require a lot to stick to.
Decisionmaking, Planning, structuring and delivering on time is the challenge. Most students take a few semesters more, honestly I think it´s the right way to go, as good deeper or special topics are much more likely to yield recognition and reputation it´s also more engaging, fun and the wisdom or concepts will more likely stick for a lifetime rather than just for the exam and be forgotten.
If you have to do presentations differ depending on your subject or university. Im currently in the bachelors degree electrical engineering at RWTH and i've never did a presentation. We just do exams. But id rather do presentations, because you have in your own hands how much time you want to put in it. In exams you have 90min and random topics. And our prof never tell us what topics are more important. You have to figure that out by yourself, for example throught old previous exams.
yeah, its because he attends a FH and not a uni. in big courses there is no time for presentations
it really depends on your subject, there are also many Universitäten where you need to do presentations, especially at the master's level
You can do presentations in Seminars. It is the most important course for networking for your future field of research. Talk to the profs of your field of interest ask for Seminars, Praktika places or HiWi-jobs to get a food footing for your research before you have to decide your thesis.
That is why German engineer are considered some of the best in the world. Because we have to learn to think for ourselfs or we will fail our studies. It is expected that you can solve problems of your own. I always took what notes I was allowed o bring, but once I had written and understood them I rarelly referenced the at exams. No time and after doing practices exams, I know most of the formulars anyway
It is not only in Germany. Whatever where the major is being studied you have to learn it by yourself. The question is, whether the lectures, university attendance are supposed to help you to become a professional and master of your field or you just sitting in your room and doing it all by yourself. I think the right choose is obvious.
One recommendation for german universities in general. Forget anything regarding: "Top university", or "best university in the country" for that discipline. It simply does not work like that. The "ranking" system for universities has always been utterly useless. And if you want to study in germany, I would highly recommend to NOT study in Munich. Yes, both universities (TUM and LMU) have a great reputation, but it still depends on the field you want to study, but the worst thing about Munich right now are simply the living costs. Munich is currently by far the most expensive area to live for students in germany. It is a beatiful city, but there are many other beautiful cities in germany with excellent universities that are way more affordable.
Well said :)
In some fields, rankings are important tho
@@maxyoko Can you give me an example please. I am german and studied in germany as well (finished a few years ago), we have been generally told and share the sentiment, for a Bachelors degree it is essentially irrelevant where you study as long as the discipline can be studied. For masters, you go where the specialisation is offered so it solely depends on topic. Other than that essentially any university will do and employers (in germany) don't care too much about where you studied. Since all german universities are public, the general ivy league bullshit simply doesn't exist here. If a university is hard to get into this is only due to too many applicants. This also increases the difficulty of exams, as students have to be filtered out to reduce numbers. Otherwise the university will not be able to give all students the opportunity to write their Bachelor/Master thesis. In economics, this is usually the case for example.
@@Widur42 For example if you wanna get into very prestigious consulting firms or investment banking, they usually look at the grades, the university you graduated from and if it's an "Exzellenz Uni" like LMU, TUM, etc.
But you are right, in general, rankings don't matter, luckily we don't have the Ivy League bullshit here.
Much more important might be the ranking specific to the field. Taking a look at the CHE rankings is quite beneficial because different from these fancy international rankings, they try to distinguish between the fields of study
@@maxyoko Choosing universities by ranking is not a good idea because the ranking for a specific field is generally based on the research output, i.e. the publications. Unless you do a PhD, the research output does not matter to you because you will not study even close to cutting edge research (even in your master thesis you most likely won't). Only a very small fraction of the ranking is determined by the teaching quality, which is the thing most important for students. Interestingly, extremely reptuable researchers are usually given some leeway when it comes to their teaching quality (because their research is much more valuable as it boosts the universities reputation and ranking) and so higher ranking universities can actually have worse teaching then lower ranking ones (I have heard this from some people at prestiguous unis and also experienced it myself). And when it comes to "Exzellenz Uni", you are partly right, some consulting firms look at that (but really nobody else does) but even there it is only really relevanz if the Exzellenz status was given for the field that you are actually studying there. And by the way, if someones goal when studying is to later work for a consulting firm specifically, they should honestly be ashamed of themselves. Consulting firms should be a last resort. There is a reason why those firms can throw so much money at you and its usually because they work mostly in finance related topics (even those that claim they don't). Several of my former study colleagues work at such firms because they market themselves very aggressively and the projects usually do not turn out what they are claimed to be beforehand.
@@Widur42 Interesting points you make, thank you. I was just highlighting that there are exceptions because it's good to know a different perspective. But as you said, I also think that in GENERAL, rankings don't matter. I think we have the same opinion here :)
Another interesting observation. At least during my time it was like that:
If you fail an exam, you can have another try. If you fail that, you have an oral examination with professor (s). If you fail that. You get expelled and here is the kicker: You are not allowed to study the subject at any university in Germany. So if you studied mechanical engineering in Munich and failed like described above, you are not allowed to study mechanical engineering anywhere else e.g. at TU Berlin or so.
So better do not fail your first two tries otherwise the pressure is really high😂
that means the person gat to take another course then or what we the person lera do as regards to that
You have to mention that working a part time job in germany as a "Werksstudent" alongside your studies, takes a lot of time and is not well paid. Especially in expensive cities it is difficult to get the whole thing financially organised.
Edit: For me personally, a simple degree programme was nothing, it didn't feel right and it was just very one-sided and very theoretical. I am now dedicating myself to my dual study programme, where I can gain practical work experience directly.
I studied Wirtschaftsmathematik and I had exactly 2 presentations - one for the seminar for the bachelor thesis, and one for the bachelor thesis itself. That's it.
Very informative and insightful to education system thankyou this way I'll be ready for what's coming when I'll come to Germany😄
Glad to hear that!
Be aware science and Engineering at TU is for adults. If you need some guidance choose Fachhochschule. You can do your Master at Uni later on!
I studied law in my country, and now I study data science in Germany.
Since I had to write at least 10 exams in like 10 days in my previous studies, now writing 5 exams in three weeks is a great luxury to me. However the problem is, as one of the professors told me, they don't expect us to answer all the questions, so it doesn't matter how well you know all the topics, in the exam you never have enough time to answer all the questions.
10 in 10 day is crazy 👀
Yeah very common for us law students
Habe Sommer 23 ein Fernstudium (Bau-Ing) angefangen. In meinem Beruf bin ich auf 32h runter gegangen und habe mein Bachelor auf 8 Semester ausgelegt. Trotzdem ist es bisher echt sehr Zeit und Nerven aufwändig. Suche an sich immer noch nach einem besseren Lernsystem, dass nicht so viel Zeit frisst.
I study electrical engineering at the RWTH Aachen. It is basically survival of the fittest 😂 The written exams are ridiculous difficult and sometimes 3h long. I remember a for ET1 (1. Semester) a task… a NAND transistor circuit, which switch from true to false and I must calculate the electron-loch-pairs in one transistor junction.
Ha, ha... we had survival of the fittest also. TUB, 80ties last century. After some exams I feared to use my bicycle..to get home . .I went home by foot in a park, former fortifications. And it took me 3 days to get the stuff out of my brain to prepare for the next exam. I did not use alcohol... a lot did! Because of months of lecture free time the Profs made it extra hard. Or the University of Applied Science was for the bright guys and TU for the stupid. Who knows. 😂
Any MINT at RWTH is hard man... I feel for you 😂
@@ZelltisExx Agree! The Old Redbricks still torture the bright guys and the relaxed FH guys become the leaders! The TU guys perfectly learn that they know that they know nothing !
Well a lot of the electrical Engineering students in Aachen are very stupid.
They come to the practical exercises and have not read the manual.
Had to teach them how to use a multimeter or a calculator.
@@gene9230 Not reading the manual has less to do with stupidity and more with laziness. Basically, most engineering courses at all universities have one thing in common: no NC. Due to the lack of admission restrictions, they are overcrowded in the first semesters. A widespread measure is „Aussieben“ by high degree of difficulty.
Great and realistic video. I was surprised that you mentioned the university for dual studies at the end because usually nobody knows about us. Good luck on your studies :)
Appreciate your feedback ^^
I have to hard disagree with a lot of exams being oral / having a lot of presentations. That part ENTIRELY depends on your uni, as I am studying computer Science aswell, but except for 3-4 exceptions 90% of all my Modules have a written exam at the end of them.
In my whole bachelor I only gave a graded presentation once lol, which accounted to 3/180 of total Ects
Agree 10 Ects so far in form of Oral exam rest written.
That's what terrified me. I'm currently applying for master in Germany and I just found this channel. Most of his videos about the German education system scared me and are even making me rethink if I should. I'm very introverted so presentations always terrified me. Everytime I had to present during my bachelor degree, I had to literally prepare myself mentally and I always had anxiety issues because of the thought of me having to speak in front of a bunch of people. All my presentations have always been terrible because I think anybody can feel that I'm not comfortable at all. During my bachelor degree, we would only have 1 presentation in a subject per semester and in most subjects, there wasn't any presentations. So the thought of having multiple presentations in every subject is my definition of hell. I'm literally having a panic attack just thinking about it.
@@lawtraf8008 Normally ,you can write the university and ask which module requires which form of examination.Some universities have even uploaded the so called Modulhandbuch :It is a small mini book containing all the requirements for completing the respective module.
In general, the more stem related your subject is, the fewer oral exams there are.
I studied in Germany and I’m still studying in Austria, and for me it’s MUCH HARDER in Austria. I still study in Regelstudienzeit because I get Bafög and that means I have around 10+ exams every semester. In Germany I had around 4 in my first two semesters. Only plus is that I have the ability to kinda plan them because there are at least 3 exam dates for lectures (for seminars there’s only 1 date + I often have to write papers as well). Open book exams were basically only available to students during Covid.
They will find a way to make any exam type difficult!
Usually they're most concerned with having an easy time grading and constructing an "elegant" problem - not whether the exam is particularly fair on the students. Unfortunately this is the "boring stuff they are forced to do" to many professors and they'd actually like to do their research. If the content is easy, you'll be at risk of running out of time instead.
They even managed to make a multiple choice exam super difficult:
- 6 choices
- Answers were the last steps of calculation results - so many things you could do wrong
- Couldn't discount any answers even if they seemed out of range
- Wrong choices were the results you got when you made common mistakes
watching a video about exams in germany the night before having an exam at the german uni
Wish you the best!
I faintly remember our physics professor once saying "If your calculation is off by a factor of 2, 5, e or some power of 10 it will be considered correct." And I recall an oral exam about the professor's area of expertise that wasn't even covered in the lectures at that time.
Holy shit your editor is really good at his job.
Thanks, I edit them myself :)
These videos are literally so perfectly timed and the fact that we get such quality research content for free is amazing. I am at like 10 seconds and I can tell this video will be top notch! Keep it up Max!
Very happy to hear that.
Looking forward to posting every Saturday ^^
I used to study business administration in Austria, and one of the most difficult exam in the Bachelor program is economics maths. One of the hardest parts of the exam is the fact that students are not allowed to use calculators.
I passed it after my second try but I studied a year for this exam. I was glad when I moved to Germany since I feel like exams at my current Uni are not as difficult.
I finished my bachelors at the Technical University of Munich and I'm doing my masters in condensed matter physics.
My tip is always, if you treat your studies like a job and try to find interest in the teached topics, you cannot fail. Also, exercises and literature recommendations are way better than lectures for deep understanding of a topic.
Why is everyone in the comments doing physics? May I ask how you found your bachelor's and your experience overall? Thanks.
how difficult is the exam for first time
Hi i want to apply in this university for my masters. I am an indian student... Can you give me some information regarding admission in this university? As i have a 3 yr bachelor degree in bcom hnrs
Please remember that this video covers one specific degree at one specific university. Other courses of study at german universities are organized in completely different ways. I study veterinary medicine in Germany and I can tell you that most of the stuff he so blandly generalizes for "universities in Germany" doesn't apply for my course of studies at all. Don't rely on this video for your specific field of interest.
I remember some international students complaining that the exam questions were not handed out in a catalogue prior to the exam. I don't know if there is a a big difference from german exam style to other universities world wide, but they emphasize a lot on your ability to apply knowledge to an unknown problem rather than perform immaculate on some well known examples.
Giving a bit of context from the other side of the table, my impression is that the "filtering" described is not necessarily on purpose, as you implied. Having worked with the staff of several departments of mathematics and being involved with people who give introductory courses, my couple of cents are:
1. Generally, mathematics professors are aware that their courses are considered hard by, say, students of computer scientists or engineers. However, they are not designed to sort people out. The professors are usually given lists by the receiving department (computer science or engineering, for instance) on what to do in their introductory courses. And for each and every fringe topic, there usually is someone who says "I need that content for my optional masters course in the 8 semester, they _need_ to know that".
2. Admission free programs by definition still have room for further students. Why? Because that is the legal requirement to introduce admission restrictions: You can only do so if you can prove that you could not squeeze another student in, otherwise that student could sue the university - and universities are one hell of afraid of getting sued.
3. The fact that so many students drop out in the beginning enters is generally speaking, a comparably fair thing: Better to be aware that the subject is not for you in the first than in the third year.
Just writing this cheat sheet gives you most understanding of the topics you need if you do it properly and think of how to structure and assemble all the information you learned.
My math teacher at school always recomended writing a cheat sheet exactly for that reason. Of course he also mentioned NOT to bring to the actual exam.
👍 in my process engineering studies in the first 3 semesters we had exams with 40 to 60% not passing the exam. Thermodynamics I & II (by the dekan) and technical mechanics (who became the Dekan later).
We called it Rausprüfen 😅
After 3 semesters we reduced down from a bit less than 60 to 26 and all of the remaining students eventually made the Bachelors (which was the first cohort after the Diploma era).
All of the successful people learned together in (usually one big) group in empty lecture halls. Most people would really start learning for exams about 12 to 4 before exams depending on topic. Also exams follow each other like 1 to 2 a week.
6:40 Also we were allowed formula sheets for most of the exams. Usually 1 to 3 sheets, which we prepared as the class together. Sometimes the professor would have a look at them, to basic stuff wouldn't be allowed.
we call such exams "k.o. Prüfungen"
@@NoctLightCloud it's only a k.o. if you fail 3 times, then you are out in the entire state, e.g. Bavaria, and can't studio in this specific field anymore.
You either have to move to a different field (E.G. from process engineering to mechanical engineering) or go to a different state if you'd want to continue the same field.
40 to 60% failing? I wish we had those numbers in Clausthal
If you can understand and speak German fluently then you CAN PASS THE EXAM. It's always better if you understand the question with your own language.
Reading through the comments i am so glad that the physics department in cologne abolished exam limitation. No way would i have passed some of these exams if I knew I have only 2 or 3 tries, I only needed more than 3 tries for one course anyway but this would have been enough to get exmatriculated.
We have no real presentation as exams, only written brutal ones and oral for lab courses (sometimes also brutal with the most malicious questions way outside the scope of the lab projects).
Hey, ich studiere gerade auch Physik in Köln, ich bin im ersten Semester, und bin auch sehr froh, dass die Prüfungsordnung so ist, wie sie ist. Das Studium ist ja auch wirklich so schon Schwer genug. Mich würde es interessieren wie du denn so durch dein Studium gekommen bist?
Also für mich persönlich ist es Inhaltlich gerade so Machbar, aber es kommt ja auch sehr auf die Dozenten an... Mental finde ich es schon heftig Teilweise, gerade im ersten Semester wird man einfach ins kalte Wasser geworfen, und soll direkt um die Wette schwimmen. Muss man nicht auch total aufpassen, dass man nicht völlig ausbrennt? Ging es dir damals auch so?
@@ente6363 Ich kann dir versichern fast jeder fühlt sich überwältig im ersten Semester. Aus meinem Jahrgang hat z.B. fast niemand die Regelstudienzeit einhalten können, da man sich sonst Mental und körperlich kaputt gemacht hätte. Am Ende meines ersten Semesters habe ich erste Burnout Symptome bei mir bemerkt und danach entschieden den "Studienverlaufsplan" zu ignorieren. Er gibt einem nur grob eine Idee welche Reihenfolge sinnvoll ist, aber man sollte nicht auf die Idee kommen das dieser auch umsetzbar ist. Der Studiengang ist leider auf 6 Semester begrenzt und schon der beste Kompromiss dem man finden konnte, aber es ist keine Schande Module zu schieben oder durch Klausuren zu fallen. Ich persönlich habe viele Module erst im zwei Versuch geschafft. Was übrigens auch helfen kann ist Menschen im Foyer ansprechen. An den Tische am Glaskasten zwischen Bibliothek und CIP sitzen viele "Veteranen" und oft auch Fachschaftler die gerne Tipps und Tricks geben (da kann man auch mich finden sobald meine Bachelorarbeit fertig ist).
Noch zu erwähnen ist, es wird später "einfacher". Sobald die Grundlagen sitzen kann man darauf aufbauen und man gewöhnt sich an das hohe Arbeitspensum irgendwann.
Danke dir für deine Schnelle Antwort! Ja ehrlich gesagt war mir das auch schon bewusst, dass darauf niemand so wirklich vorbereitet ist, aber ich frage immer mal wieder nach, nicht das man was falsch macht. Mir geht es ähnlich wie dir, ich bin auch fast völlig ohne mathematische Vorkenntnisse an die Uni gekommen, und muss ca. 3 Stunden täglich Pendeln, da kommt man schon an seine Grenzen. Deswegen werde ich vermutlich das Praktikum im zweiten Semester schieben. Danke für den Tipp mit dem Foyer, die Fachschafft ist mir schon zum größten Teil bekannt, und auch sonst habe ich gut Anschluss finden können.
I find it funny that you had so many presentations, actually your study experience is pretty opposite of what I consider a typical German student experience. At my university and degree there where literally zero presentations in the normal lectures. There are some subject that you can choose and in them I had one presentation as a final exam. Other presentations were only about a thesis.
The very typical situation at my university is that you have lectures and exercises, but nobody checks anything and then the final exam is the only thing that gets graded. There are sometimes courses that are different, but this were 95% of my courses.
Because of this we did not have much to do during the lecture period, the most stressful time would actually be during the non lecture/ exam period. Since most people study the most in the exam period (and the exams where during that whole period over multiple weeks) we had no free time. In a whole semester I would usually have like 3 actually free weeks, which still were between the different exams. This is why most people would go on vacation and work during the lecture period.
I studied in Austria and at that time I only needed to do 3 presentations for projects I had done. Because of circumstance (they lost the documentation and I had to present it at the Diplomprüfung again) I needed to do one of them 3 times. One presentation was especially feared. There was the professor and some of his assistants together with 20-30 students. You talked about your project showed a diagram of an electronic circuit (of your work) and it was discussed. The professor saw every little wrong detail and asked about that. And you knew that nearly everyone in the audience knew more about the topic than you !
In my area the last test was rather easy (for most). You chose 3 subjects which you had done a test before. You could talk with the three examiners and mostly they gave you a hint what area would be questioned. And most important: you studied all that before and you chose subjects you were comfortable with. So it was very rarely that anyone failed.
For oral exams it was very common to sit in these tests as guest (if allowed) to get a feeling what would be questioned. On written tests a lot of former tests could be found for the same reason. You wouldn't get the same tests, but you could prepare for the type of questions. We had one test where they were very secret about the actual test. What we did in the excercises was rather simple and the real test was completely different. For that reason more than 80% (even very good students) failed and they repeated the test.
We didn't have cheat sheets but some open book tests. We even had a few tests where you were allowed to look at the first half of the questions and then decide if you want to take the test or better return to study without loosing one opportunity 🙂.
you forgot the third kind of exam (which you especially deal with in later semesters). Papers, scientific writing and what not will especially trip people up who have not had much experience with it, especially so if you are new to german and the paper must be written in german.
Oh. There are different systems at universities and universities of applied sciences. I'm currently studying at a university of applied sciences and we do not have retake exams. So if you fail an exam you have to wait a whole semester to try again. Thats why in my studies I have other students who study for 8 semesters because they had to retake 4-5 exams during their study time.
Before you start to study check out what your university or university of apl. sciences has worked out.
When you do your masters it's very typical to have more scientific papers that you write as an exam than written exams. In technical fields you can also have modules in your masters where you have projects. It really depends on where and what you are studying.
And think about the fact that every university bitches around when you come there as a new student from another university and want to simply start your masters degree or want to complete your bachelors degree. Then you have to retake some modules because the modules are not all the same in the bachelors based on the information taught there. That's such a huge bullshit in our education system. That your degree is not the same everywhere (which it should be by design of the bologna process).
Thanks lot,iam also doing Math and i can feel you
I have a second Prüfungszeitraum so we have a month to prep if we sacrifice our Summerholidays.
One thing that shocked me was the lectures go so fast and if you didn't get it, the professor will not help you as much. I had to teach myself calculus with youtube 🤣🤣. Fortunately i got a 1.0 on my midterms. Finals are coming!
For german unis, you need to give presentation in german or English, or is it upto the professor? Suppose the course medium is German* and what about the questions that comes in the papers? Are they in german or English?
@@AbdullahAli-rw4yi my program is entirely in english. But it depends on the program. You need to check the actual curriculum of your program. Some of them, though in english, have subjects that are in german in the later semesters
@@secretnobody6460 Im coming to study physics there do you have any advice? Actually im scared a bit that can't handle it besides i habe to work part time job
@@amir-dr9br go for it man. All of us international students feel the same. But you gotta do time management especially if you work. You need to study by your own as well. Get a head start. Study your 1st semester subjects even before you come here. Study hard now even if you are not here yet.
@@secretnobody6460 thanks a lot man, I appreciate you
TUM is officially the number one university, you say? Number one of the big brother award, that is!!!
Though my university scored perfectly too.
Bro, Godspeed and wish you lot of success!
I appreciate it!
the thing with 3 attempts is more spread amongst the universities of [... for example applied science] and retaking exams before the next semester starts is usually only a thing within Computer Science and some other Math-based courses
Thats why open book exams still have a big fail rate. It doesnt matter if you have your blue prints if you dont understand them (or the assignment)
As someone who finished Computer Science at a very known university (especially well known for it's Math department) in Germany, my biggest advice if you don't want to suffer: choose a "Fachhochschule" instead of a "real" university.
It's much easier - ESPECIALLY the math. At the end of the day, you get the exact same diploma.
Clausthal¿
Which uni was it? So you don't recommend studying there?
I agree but the main reason in my opinion is that lecturers at „Fachhochschule“ have way better didactic skills. Most often than not you meet lecturers at University which never wanted to teach anyway but rather do scientific studies. This shows heavily in their teachings and the organization of the lectures. To me it is big negative point about most universities.
Dipl.-Ing. and Dipl.-Ing. (FH) were not the same degree. Another reason why the Bachelor/Master reforms were dumb - the execution of the Bologna process watered down the previously distinct profiles between university (Universität) and college (Fachhochschule). And colleges were allowed to call themselves "university of applied blablabla" which is another marketing gag to appear like a full university.
And of course it was fun to poke the other guys. "Was heißt FH nochmal? FASThochschule." xD ;) jk
They are not the same degree... If you want to go into research especially, go uni.
From my experience the cheat sheet is useless 90% of the time. It can be helpful in physics or math to look up huge formulas tho. Usually you havent got the time to look everything up when you write down plain text
You should mention that exams, especially in math in university during the first year, are designed to fail you, due to limited space in the masters program. Failure rates of 80 % are not uncommon, and the amount of point you need to pass depends on the average score of the class, to 20 % pass, the rest fails
This is not correct and depends fully on the size of university.
And from my experience, first exams are purposefully made harder to give students a chance to see if they want to continue a difficult subject or not. If you can make that hard exam you will be fine for the rest. This is quite sensible albeit seemingly harsh on first glance.
@@k.k.7032 I would say in the first two semesters they're trying to discourage and weed out ppl that dont have the resilance to make it to the degree.
Medical exams can be quite different. They ask a lot of small details and multiple choice tests taken on the computer are pretty standard
When I studied chemistry there had been one professor and his scripts had been 'special'.
There had been mistakes in it and you only would have found out if you had attended the lecture.
And yes... we were allowed to take the WHOLE script into the final written exam. That did not automatically mean that many students succeeded. 😉
Just wand to add that you can’t compare a university with a university of applied sciences. The system is completely different, the most people go to normal universities. I did my bachelors degree at a university and now my masters degree at a university of applied sciences.
Yes, you can't treat them as the same kind of institution
The content in this video is applicable to both types :)
@@maxyoko That’s right :)
In automotive engineering at HM we had only about 5-6 presentations in 7 semesters lol. Most of them came in the later semesters and only if you chose a subject that ends with project work and no exam.
And also we had some rare cases where we could even bring your iPad or laptop, but usually time is way too short to look things up (same for bringing the entire script). It only helps for maybe 3-4 little questions you forgot the answer to
i study elektrotecnik in Fachhochschule Frankfurt,the professor is actually chill and let me present in english,you can ask them to give you exams in english if your german is not too advanced
yeah tests are brutal,120 minutes for 8 big question from a to h ,that's a lot
Hey! Were you studying in german taught programme? If so then it is great that they let you do take exams in english.
Hey max
Can you make a detailed video about the differences, pros,cons, ways to teaching, ways of examinations, student life, between classic universities and universities of applied science.
Hey, I'll definitely make a comparison of them in the future ^^
It seems that a lot of things were watered down. When i studied engineering (Diplom) we had one presentation in the Hauptstudium and it counted for a half point or so and zero oral tests. We had 2 chances for tests and 2 times a third chance. And no, presentations are not important if you work in the engineering field or CS. Whoever told you that lied to you. The reason why you have so many presentations is to make it easier for the students. The same for oral tests, when i studied only when you did not pass a test you could take a oral test to convince the prof you just had a bad day but you where graded a 4.
Munich University of Applied Sciences is an exception compared to other universities. Preliminary work, presentations, or similar tasks are considered prerequisites at other universities, not part of the final grade. After completing all preliminary tasks and midterm exams as a defense, you gain access to the written exam, which is then graded 100% on its own. (50% fail there normaly, in my uni 75%)
Can you make a video explaining the four types of university to choose from> and btw keep up the good work! your videos are amazing!
The 1 ects to 30h workload is only an estimate. Best is, ask people who already took the course how the workload is. Ive had classes with 3 ects which took me just 30h overall. But also had classes where a 3 ects class took me almost double the amounts of expected time. Reading 30 pages a week for that class only.
Also depends on the person, some are just more skilled than others in a field or the other way around
The load during lecture time is 50 to 60 hours. Because these credit points are supposed to even out to 1 point 1 hour per week. As there are lecture free times you have to up it during lecture time which is about 8 month in Germany.
I believe that the type of class can already give you some hints regarding how appropriate those estimates are. Projects or presentations usually require more time for preparation and implementation than "classical" lectures that end with an exam. Imo the ECTS that you receive after passing these course types do not always reflect this discrepancy
@@chaotischekreativitat9391 It's the opposite. Projects require no studying for exams while lectures are packaged with 3h lecture per week. 3h practice and then 50-60h studying for the exam.
Projects usually don't require that much work and are nice and easy ects.
@@Nephale In this case it might depend on the field of study and individual preferences. I hold a master's degree in computer science and my projects (8 ECTS) and seminars (4 ECTS) both required more time than the lectures (6/8 ECTS) I took.
I study in Karlsruhe at KIT and its always a hard time 1-2 Months before the exams. The last weeks i spend whole day at the library and i need to work besides of that because Bafög is not enough for living
Math tends to be used to get rid of a lot of first semester students, tests tend to have 100 questions some with a-e + Graph. You will only have 100 minutes, choose well it is not possible to finish all questions in time. Usually 97% fail in the first try.
I'm brazilian and I'm planning to study in Aachen. I already started to learn german, but those presentations kind of scared me now
Don't worry too much, depending on the degree program you might have no presentations
And if you do, they are gonna consider that you're not a native German speaker ^^
Check the actual teaching language of your courses. If you‘re doing master courses, they’re probably in English. Best wishes from Aachen.
Alumnus from RWTH here. Only presentations I came across in bachelors computer science were two seminars and the bachelors final thesis presentation. Having so many presentations is definitely not the norm in German universities.
@@maxyoko It will be Electrical Engineering. Currently I study at University of São Paulo. Despite the difficulties, I enjoy really much studying german. Hope they consider I'm not Steve Kaufmann or anyone of those crazy polyglots 😂
Law student here, almost none of this is true for a law degree (that allows you to work as a lawyer, judge, state attorney/prosecutor) in Germany!
Most public universities here do not offer LL.B.s/LL.M.s but studies on the basis of two state exams (like the bar exam). There are some Bachelors/Masters in subjects like business law but those do not enable you to even take the first state exam and are not organized like the "classic" law program.
The Bologna system is not used and testing systems vary from uni to uni. Exams mostly are long written exams (between 2-3 hours) and/or papers between 15-30 pages, both usually between semesters. You are graded from 0 up to 18 points and pass with 4 points while 9 points are already a distinction. So you can imagine getting to those 14 points plus is very rare... The struggle with this is, if you want to change to the Bachelors/Masters program, your points will be converted into the Bologna grading system and although your 9 points are really good for a law grade, you will be stuck with a 2,7. The average achieved grade is more around 6 points, so not good at all if converted into an other grading system. Law is considered one of the hardest and toughest subjects here and objectively takes the longest to finish with a full degree (two state exams, if you are fast it takes 7 years, usually it's 8 years and honestly most people I know take even longer, myself included). Because of the different grading system and not using the Bologna system it is mostly a one-way-street, you just have to do it or just do something entirely different if you fail.
The most fun part is: none of your achievements in uni count towards your final grade of the state exam. You are basically taking all those tests and do weeks on weeks of research for your papers for years and years just to be allowed to even partake in the first state exam (usually 6 written 5 hour long exams in a course of about 10 days and if you pass those, one oral exam up to 3,5 hours long with 3-5 other students half a year later). Your degree that you worked for at least 4 years depends on whether you have ONE good week or not.
If you pass the first state exam you can take the second one after a two year "Referendariat", which is a legal traineeship at court and later at an administrative institution and/or law firm. You work and train there for 2-3 days a week, have the rest to study and get paid (also depends which Bundesland) around 1.000,00 to 1.700,00 € a month. It finishes with the second state exam which consists of 8 written exams, one oral exam and another oral exam, which is more like a presentation of a specific case that you have to prepare in advance.
After the state exams you actually won't have a "proper" academic title given by a university, only a state certificate. Improper in the sense that it is not that comparable to LL.B./LL.M. The university only can award you the title of "Diplom-Jurist" or "magister iuris", a diploma of law.
Thanks for your detailed comment, really appreciate the effort 🫶
pretty accurate, its about the same when studying CS in Berlin
A video about how to get into top universities in germany would be nice. The complete blueprint what you need to do in 9th 10th 11th and 12th grade, everything you need to know. A comprehensive video would be great!
Getting into any German university is the same, you just have to pass your Abitur (final school exam) or equivalent. There aren't any special admission criteria and they can't reject applicants. The only limitation is that some subjects (like medicine, for example) have a "numerus clausus". That means you get put on a waiting list based on your Abitur grade. Which makes it impractical to sign up for those unless you have a very good Abitur. The hardest part for foreign students is getting a scholarship, not getting accepted into the German university.
Honestly, I don't think it matters that much from a student's perspective whether you go to a top university or just an average one in Germany. All universities in Germany have high standards and the top universities are usually ranked by research rather than teaching.
Wow this was very helpful, Thank you Max!
You're very welcome! 🫶
Very useful video ❤
Thanks 🫶
Math for electrical engineers in RWTH with failure rate over 70% is not uncommon.
It always was at our "redbricks" . TU Braunschweig the same! 5 exams in maths! 2 years maths.😊
yess Engineering is brutal in Germany
Math for electrical engineers is the easy math lecture.
Try taking linear algebra 1+2 instead.
@@gene9230 Don't know if it changed.... but I did not see any "Electrical Maths" doing 4 Semester maths and 5 exams.
@@AltIng9154 it is called " Höhere Mathematik" in Aachen and it is super easy compared to the other math lectures.
In Braunschweig it seems to be called "Lineare Algebra für Elektrotechnik", the "für Elektrotechnik" ist the important part. Its not the same lecture as the mathematicians take.
I am swiss and here we can only retake the exam you failed once, if you fail you are banned from ever studying in this field forever.
Damn only once 👀
sadly yes :D :(@@maxyoko
What university are you studying at?
Don't know if it changed... but in the "good old times" we had the same! Last chance Fachhochschule.
It's probably you can't study anything wich has the module you failed in, be part of the moduleplan.
When i sat down for the first time at my uni, our professor said to look to our right and our left and said that in one year noone will be sitting there :D he wasnt that wrong :D
Mine also did that😮. Which uni?
@@culturelab_germany FH Münster Bauing :D
German bachelor-level biophysics was hardcore. Theoretical physics, organic chemistry, biology and physical chemistry and labs all in a semester. 🤘
Uff yeah, I can imagine that 👀
Great video! Thank you👍😊
Thanks a lot 🫶
I studied math and physics in Germany in Regelstudienzeit (10 semesters for Bachelor + Master) with my grades being mostly between 1,0 and 2,0 and it was pretty chill.
Sure the 1-2 weeks before exams suck hard and the homeworks are hard as well but all together it's maybe uni from 8:00 - 12:00 and then in the afternoon 1-2 hours for homework. If you even go to the lectures. I was mostly 2 hours in uni and did 2 hours of Homework a day. So I had lots of free time and time to work ehrenamtlich as a trainer for kids.
Protip one guy gave me and going threw the same pain is to pick a university in germany where you can easily pass the courses and not to pick a university because it has a good reputation.
Your standard STEM classes in low tier german universities are harder than in most american Ivy leauge schools
And always remember, you can either listen or take notes. Both will never work at the same time.
Such an underrated point. Many students around the world don't know this concept.
I am physics phd and do assist the teaching now for while. I can tell by experience, that the level of the first semester students worsended latetly. Its not a subjective thing, because we used the exact same exams as 10 yeaers ago. Result: Much worse results.
The difficulty with universities in germany is not getting in but staying in
well said haha
Different in medicine tho
I studied dual and apart from 8-10hr study days during the week we had exam phases of like 11 exams in 9 days, yeah was fun. And there is no postponing one. If you fail something twice youre out lol
Uff that's crazy 👀
as someone in german high school this is very interesting
Glad you liked it ^^
U should go more in depth about the differences between hochschule and university.
hochschule is more practical afair, including things as projects and hand ins.
my personal experience at university is: 'just attend the exams and pass.'
basically free degree
yess these kind of videos are definitely coming in the future
LOL this is not true
@@morespamthanhamBro dunno bout ur experiences, but it's called university of APPLIED science for a reason :P
@@nindtendo so, what are you studying at a university not a FH that you can simply go there and pass. Math? Physics? Medicine? Jura?
@@gene9230 ComputerScience
afaik FH CS contains alot of projects, whereas uni CS 'only' covers theory through exams.
I studied at on of the top ranked engineering university 20 years ago. 1000 people started with me and only 300 got their degree.... After 4 semesters already 60% dropped out.
But you know although education in Germany is very different as you said and fairly demanding, it's not treated that way in an international environment. After all it's all bachelor and master and a degree from Philippines, India, Germany and so on are treated the same by HR departments and hiring managers. They would most often if at all go for graduates from well-known universities.
I find that if you already have an German school background, it should not be that difficult to adapt to the German universities.
Especially if you have done the Abitur. You should have already experience in doing oral/presentation exams.
But if you have other school backgrounds (Japanese in my case) you can/will struggle. The focus of the education is simply different in Germany.
The contrast to Japan is stark. In Japan there is only one correct answer, and you are expected to give that answer. For example; Using different grammar in an English exam that expected is a wrong answer. However in Germany, as long as you understand the essence of the lessons and apply it correctly (and the teacher can understand it) you will be given points. (Though there is some expected structure in your essays)
I am thankful that I switched to a German school in Japan to do the Abitur.
I never understood why German exams have a reputation of being brutal. I study CS in Heidelberg and none of the exams I took so far are inherently "brutal" or "evil". The only thing is that it is a different format to get used to.
Thanks for sharing your experience :)
Did you also graduate from DSTY?
Yes. Exactly during the covid craze.
You must have been an academic and extracurricular beast in high school to get into CS at Heidelberg.
If you fail your exam three times, you will be out of university without possibility to study your subject in ANY other university in Germany... Yeah, I will write math exam in february. It is my last opportunity
you can still go to private unis if youre rich
Wish you the best 🫶
@@maxyoko thank you