Why study in IT in Germany?

Why study in IT in Germany?

Reading Habr, I learned many stories of various specialists moving to Europe. When it comes to Germany, it is usually a Bluecard move. But I decided to tell you about my experience of moving to study in Germany.



Residence of Würzburg

Why study?

The idea to move to Germany arose a long time ago, so even in Odessa I entered the German Technical Faculty. After a couple of times I went to language courses and an exchange semester in Germany, my desire to move to permanent residence was fixed. But there are just a huge number of options to move to Germany, for example, for work, Au-pair, FSJ, Ausbildung. Study is not the cheapest of them. Why exactly she, after all, after graduating from a university in Odessa, and even with knowledge of German, after a couple of years of work, it was possible to get a job in Germany and stay there?

Knowing English is good for Germany, but the German labor market with knowledge of only English is 5-10 percent open, so I decided to take up German at the university. Plus there was a desire to change my specialty and get a German education with the opportunity to integrate into the German environment.



Well, the economic expediency of such a move also played an important role. After all, I am moving with a girl, and we plan, having received German diplomas, to find a job. When you move alone or with your family, and your other half cannot work due to the fact that the diploma is not recognized, then one good salary may be enough for life, but we wanted more.



But how can a student from Ukraine afford to study in Germany? And if it can, how should he go there?

What do you need to enter Germany?

Higher education in Germany is "free" for everyone and even for foreigners. About why "free" in quotes, a little later.



Anyone who matches the level of German applicants can apply. And since Germans usually go to school for 12 classes, you can apply from the CIS in three cases:

1. If you have completed a year at a local university, then you have the right to enter German for the same specialty;
2. If you have a bachelor's degree, then you can apply for any specialty;
3. After school, you can enter a German college (Studienkolleg), which prepares you for a university, and then you pass exams and, based on the results of these exams, enter a German university.

I followed the second scheme. My first education was mechanical engineering. But by the end of my studies in Odessa, I was more interested in IT. However, I had zero knowledge! Full. I didn't even know what Hello World means in the IT circle.



And with such a set, I decide to enter computer science in Germany! A couple of months before moving, I signed up for Javarush and passed the first 10 levels, which saved me while studying in Germany.

So what is needed besides education?

Germany is a bureaucracy from start to finish, so we need documents, but surprisingly not many.





As a result, I entered 9 of the 11 universities to which I sent applications. To do this, I needed: an average diploma score of 1.7 (yes, in Germany 1.0 is the best mark, and 6.0 is the worst) and passed TestDaF at 5, 5, 4, 4.



Of course, I aspired to the best technical German university, but it is located in Munich and, having received an invitation from there, the girl and I looked at housing prices and decided to choose a more budget option. It turned out to be the University of Würzburg, where Roentgen worked. In Bavaria, this is one of the best universities in IT and economics, where the girl entered.





University of Würzburg

How expensive is it to go to study at a German university?

Although, as I said, education in Germany is free, this does not mean that it is cheap to study there.

• Yes, there is no tuition fee (exception - Baden-Württemberg);
• But there is a semester fee, which varies from 90 to 400 Euro per semester. It also includes a ticket for all types of transport in your city and surroundings. In my case, it is 140 € per semester;
• You also need a livelihood.

And everything seems to be sweet and good, but there is one "but" - the need to confirm the funds on the blocked account. For a year, this amount is an impressive 10,236 euros. This is your money, which is blocked in a German bank and paid to you throughout the year in order to know that you always have funds and you will not run to ask for help from the German state. Or so that you can pay a fine for something.



This amount can be replaced by a guarantee of a German or an EU citizen who works in Germany. If you have one, then you only have personal expenses.

Accommodation and relocation

Entering a university is half the battle, but the most interesting thing is just beginning. What housing options does a student have?



From 180-350 Euros for a hostel, where you will have your own kitchen + shower room with all amenities.



From 300-1000 Euro for one room. It all depends on the type of apartment and where it is located. If this is the east of Germany and the outskirts, then you can find it for 300 Euros (Warmmiete - that is, with all utilities), and if Munich - then you already need to count on 1000 Euros.



I knew how hard it is to get a hostel and how hard it is to rent an apartment in Germany. After all, this is not Ukraine, and here you have to run after the owner in order to persuade him to rent your home. Things are much more complicated when you are an international student without work and are looking for housing from home. When a developer moves to BlueCard, it is easier for him, because the company will find housing. Here, entering a university does not guarantee getting a hostel. In Munich, a student can wait for a place for 5 semesters, while the study lasts 6 semesters.



So, that's why I applied to the hostel after receiving the admission, but I didn't hope for anything and started looking for apartments on specialized German resources. If immobilienscout24.de had very expensive options, then wg-gesuchtI found my happiness. More precisely, they found me. I left an ad about looking for housing, and a lovely German woman wrote to me, who offered a 3-room apartment for half the market price, as we are, in her words, "a very nice couple." Even though I thought it was a scam, everything turned out to be perfect.



Stop, the attentive reader will say! You yourself said that housing prices are wild, and you, a student in Bavaria (the most developed land in Germany), are considering three rubles? Students live well in Ukraine.



And here I do not quite agree! Firstly, we are moving together, and we are a very modest couple and would gladly live in a single room. But the problem is that the Germans needso that everyone has their own space. And they don't give a damn if you only need a 40 square, one bedroom apartment. They refuse you, and even the owners of a two-room apartment are reluctant to invite you to watch. Therefore, we indicated in the filter - more than 2 rooms.



Prices in our town for kopeck piece were in the region of 650-700 Euros without utilities per month, which is a little expensive for us, because we were traveling without a scholarship.



And this nice German woman from the USA offered us a three-ruble note in the best area for 500 Euros a month. At 250 Euros per person with utilities, internet and a stupid radio tax. Cheaper than a hostel in our city! I think this is a way of charity for them, because they could give it to a German couple for 900 Euros without problems, and for 750 Euros they would have their phone ripped off from offers.



When you enter a German apartment, you must pay Kaution (a deposit that will be returned to you if you do not break anything in the apartment). Usually it is the amount of rent multiplied by 3. We were charged 500 Euros and that, because I asked a fool myself.

Studying at a German university

timetable

The first thing you come across after you move, did all the important things with a bunch of papers, got registered, is that after the final enrollment (Immatrikulation) you receive data from your personal account in the university system. Next, you have to make your own schedule. No, not just scatter the right time, but pick items.



And all because the system is built in complete freedom. You have 180 ECTS credits to complete by the end of your studies. Each credit is the number of hours spent on the item. The norm is 30 ECTS per semester. Therefore, you have a plan for what items and when you are advised to take. But you can ignore it. If earlier I did not understand why I needed this freedom, because subjects from the "compulsory" area will have to be passed sooner or later, now, due to one missed practice, my schedule did not fit, and as a result I changed it for the next three semesters ...



Okay, so how, then, to monitor student progress? If everyone takes one subject per semester and studies for 500 years, what kind of university is it? Yes, everything is so, so the control here is very strict. Even busting. In my university, things are like this.

In the first two semesters, you have to get 15 ECTS points or you leave the university without the right to study this specialty in Germany! And then there is a control after the 3rd semester at 35 ECTS (because of the crown, they really gave us a plus semester). Well, if you passed both controls, then study calmly until 9 semesters.



But in other universities there is often a rule of 3 attempts to pass the exam. If not passed, then so far without the right to study this specialty.

Complexity

The study is very hard! I will say without exaggeration that homework, practice and lectures take up almost all of my free time, and even then it can be very difficult on the exam. They are not always fair and sometimes overly complicated. It is impossible to write off, and if you try, the deduction is immediately in place. It's interesting how in the first semester 400 people came to our specialty, and in the second semester no more than 200 of us attend! Yes, because of the schedule, we may not overlap, but statistics show that less than 70 people will graduate, so it is quite possible that many people dropped out in one semester. In this regard, the Germans have awareness, and they do not burst all over the place to get a tower, because it is so accepted. And during their studies, if they do not like it or they don’t pull, then they would rather leave it or change it before graduation.

Relevance of study

For me, this was one of the most important points, and I was not mistaken. If at the Odessa university we discussed the equipment of the 20th century, then here we are working with new technologies from the very beginning. I just announced Amazon drone delivery, we already had a similar project at our university, and we even have a startup company. We discuss new items and work with the latest software. By the way, which is very nice, all the software is given for the duration of the training. And so there is a lot of free software for students, but if we use paid versions, they will be presented to us.

Material

Since I study at the university and not at the Hochschule (Institute of Applied Sciences), my studies are more theoretical. Great emphasis on the mathematical part, algorithms, networks and the device of the processor, memory, VHDL and others. And this particular knowledge will not teach you how to program, but the approach here is that without this knowledge there will be no great developer career. But after the fundamental knowledge has been pushed into you, it's time to practice.



We have three great practices in 3 semesters. One is just Java programming practice. The second is a group project for the whole semester with a presentation, tech. documentation and mandatory Teamwork. And the third is the Hardware practice. These are either networks, or robots, or processors.

Language

It is almost impossible to enter a bachelor's program without knowing German, but nevertheless, subjects from the 4th semester begin in English. For example, last semester I took the Softwaretechnik subject (This is where all UML, SOLID, GRASP and Agile are). So we had two professors, and one of them was in English. That is, half the subject in German and half in English. Or here's a mathematics professor who did every third exercise in English. So knowledge of German is required and you should not forget English!



Personally, it is still sometimes difficult for me to understand something outright in assignments, but in general, over a year of my life, I realized here that it is possible to study.

General

In addition to the cool infrastructure of the campus itself, the dining room and other things, I like the active scientific and practical life of the university. There are constantly some events related to helping students, and various reports from local celebrities. They are also often campaigning to participate in local startups. Our university is the main employer of the city, because more than 28 thousand people from a population of 120 thousand study here. And therefore the university conducts an active advertising campaign: either trams in the city will be painted in its colors, then they will shoot ads or hold events, work fairs ...



This is the first part of the story about moving to study in Germany, and in the next part I will talk about how much a student developer earns and how things are going with working in Germany.



PS My channel in the telegram about studying and working in Germany.