Antony’s Personal Opinion

I have talked to many people about education, and surprisingly many of them don’t know that we can study in Germany for free. Yes, it’s true…. public universities in Germany are tuition free. The good thing is that it is free for international students too. It’s even cheaper than tuition fee in Chinese universities, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, many Chinese students are studying in Germany nowadays. When I was studying in Germany five years ago, 1/4 of my classmates were Chinese.

Do we need to speak German to study there? Short answer is no. Many universities are offering English-instructed Bachelor and Master programmes in English. We can learn German while studying there (just like me). Just for your information, Germany has actually its own degree, called Diplom. Originally they didn’t have Bachelor and Master Degrees. The Diplom degree is the combination of Bachelor and Master. They introduced Bachelor and Master a few years ago to attract more international students.

Although German public universities are tuition free now, the situation will change next year. I heard that some public universities will start to charge tuition fee. Fortunately, it applies only to certain conditions. You can find more information about it at DAAD’s site. What is DAAD? DAAD (Der Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst) is an organization that helps students, teachers, researchers and scientists, especially from developing countries, to study and do research in Germany.

Why isn’t Germany popular as destination country to study? I don’t know either. The first country that pops in many of my friends is the United States. May be because the US is the only super power country in the world now. I have written a blog about American Dream too, because many people are dreaming about America.

A few days ago, I read an interesting article from Jeremy Rifkin that compares American Dream and European Dream. Jeremy is an American who is also the author of “European Dream” book. What’s this article all about?

Jeremy starts with the fact that America has been a refuge for every human being who has ever dreamed of a better life (including myself about 5-6 years ago). Unfortunately, he says that America is no longer a great country. He compares many facts between United States and European Union. EU itself has been growing as another superpower “states” in Europe.

I won’t repeat all Jeremy’s comparison here; you can read it yourself from the link above. One thing that I feel just right after moving to North America is vacation days. I was used to have 6 weeks vacation per year in Europe, and now I have only half of it in North America (3 weeks). Perhaps Jeremy is right saying that Americans “live to work” while European “work to live”.

Honestly, I agree with most of Jeremy’s facts about American vs. European dream. It is a very interesting article anyway because a lot of people, at least in my home country, are still thinking that the States is their dream land (just like what Jeremy has mentioned). Many of my friends in the high school and university are now working and living in the States. They didn’t consider European at all (may be language is one of the problems).

Let’s see what is going to happen in the future… is EU really becoming a dream country for people who wants a better life?