Study Abroad

One Way to Move Abroad is to go to University

One of the easiest ways to go abroad besides getting a tourist visa to some place is to apply to a university in another country. Student visas often entitle you to work a certain amount of hours per week while in school, and may allow you to get a visa to stay and work when you are done. Tuition will probably be cheaper abroad. Most tuitions are lower than tuition is in the USA and some countries are tuition free. While many people come to study in the USA from abroad, fewer Americans go to other countries to study. One can see this in the table of data from Open Doors for 2024. Most Americans study abroad through a university program for a semester or even a year, but some go and apply for universities on their own. I have had many friends who have done a semester or year abroad or an exchange program in high school, and my daughter has friends who spend this past summer in intensive language programs in China and France. Another went with her girlfriend who did an intensive language program in Italy. Summer seems to be a popular time to go abroad and can give you a taste of whether you like the country.

Studying abroad can have other long-term advantages. You learn to understand another culture from the inside, and get along with people who might be different from you. You also start to build connections and friendships. It will be easier to get a job and stay because you are gradually learning how to negotiate life there and have a degree from one of their academic institutions. In this way you can choose to stay there, or go back to the USA when you are done. You are also more primed for jobs that take advantage of your English and the language of the country you studied in, if that is different. It certainly is beneficial in the international world. You might find yourself living in a country that is not the US or the country you studied in as well, but you will be more flexible about adapting and learning the new culture. Every person who goes abroad is a sort of ambassador for their home country.

A former colleague of mine, whose husband is from Spain, had all 3 daughter go study in Spain. They had learned Spanish at home. Her oldest daughter had studied German in school, but did not get into a German University straight from high school so they chose Spain for her. Then, the other 2 followed. A friend’s son is on exchange for a semester in Paris right now, through a program his university has, which has a campus in Paris. He told his mom his French, which he had not studied before, is good enough to order food in a restaurant now. My daughter has a friend who applied for German university through their transitional Studienkolleg program, but did not pass the entrance exam of the Studienkolleg in a very popular city, and the business program she was applying for was hard to get into because they were not taking many students. Her friend is now studying at the Anglo-American University in Prague, and has chosen international studies as her major. Her former high school Humanities teacher’s daughter is studying in Switzerland at Franklin University, which is a Swiss and American College. Both of these Universities charge tuition and their programs are in English. There are many of these private Universities at least in Europe and I assume other continents as well. Students in these programs get to experience studying in another country with many of the supports that they would get in a US University, such as dorms, counselors, and social gatherings to help develop community. They will get help learning the language of the home country, travel more easily in Europe from their locations, and can integrate themselves into another culture. Of course, they are not free but most offer some form of financial aid.

Two of my friend’s have son’s studying full time as regular students in other countries. One is in Toronto, Canada, the other is studying Mechanical design at The University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. According to his mom he does not really need Dutch because his program is in English and the Netherlands has a high number of people who speak English. In fact, he lives with Dutch family friends who speak English. Another advantage of studying abroad is that there are many countries with tuition free universities for international students. Germany is attractive to students around the world for a variety of reasons. Free tuition and excellent education being strong reasons. According to Study in Germany, most plan to stay after they complete their studies. Americans do not make up a sizeable portion of the students from abroad in Germany. It was the fifth most popular destination for students in 2021/22 according to Statistica.

I am most familiar with studying abroad in Germany because my daughter is studying here. She is a dual citizen who speaks, reads and writes German fluently. She was helped in this by attending German Immersion programs after school with other Heritage language speaking children. She also took a course for the C1 test. Our daughter was part of the impetus for our buying a home in Germany, although she attends university in a different city and does not live in our home. She was headed for university here since she was a child, long before we decided get a home here too. Public Universities in Germany are free for all who are admitted including international students in most of the German states and all states are free for citizens. One does have to pay a small semester fee, and have money for room and board. The costs of these things vary from state to state, but fees tend to be around the same level. Her semester fee in University this fall was 299 €. That fee includes a transportation pass, learning materials and discounts in many businesses around the country with the Student ID. One is supposed to speak the language at a C1 level entering as an undergraduate, but many graduate programs are offered in English. You will need to know German to get around while living here. In large cities it is easier to use English to get things done.

Typically if you come from a country like the USA, that does not have an Abitur system (which requires a mixture of course credits and exit exams) in high school, they want one to transition into university by attending Studienkolleg, a one-year university transitional program that is treated as an Abitur equivalency. Generally one applies for the subject or subject tracks wants to study and there are either 4 or 5 tracks depending on the Studienkolleg of that particular state. The tracks are the G-course for Humanities and German Studies, S -course for languages, or the S and G courses are sometimes combined. There is also the T-course for mathematical, science or technical degrees, M-course for Medicine, Biological Sciences and Pharmaceutical Degrees, and W-course for Business, Economics and Social Science degrees.

Most German states have only one Studienkolleg and everyone who is conditionally admitted into a university in the state, gets invited to take an entrance exam at that state’s Studienkolleg. Three of the German states don’t have Studienkolleg but may have their own program, and do accept credentials from Studienkollegs in other States. If they accept you and then you pass the entrance exam you are in Studienkolleg, and if you pass the end of the year exams you can go to German university but your GPA may determine which programs you can get into and which universities. For example in Berlin, if you want to study psychology, you need a perfect 1.0 GPA. However, they may accept a lower one from foreign students. Other universities also accept a lower GPA for their psychology program.

To be invited to Studienkolleg one generally has to apply to universities first or to a processing platform called Uni-assist that will clear you and then send your approved applications on to universities you have selected. The university will tell you which way to go, and some universities can be applied to either way. On Uni-assist one has to pay a fee for each program applied for. It was 70€ for the first one, and 30€ for each additional one. One can apply for hardship to have the fee waived. If you apply directly to a university there is no application fee. So, to get invited to Studienkolleg it is wise to either apply to several universities in a state that has a Studienkolleg, which is most, but not all, or to apply to not a very popular university in that state because then you have less competition to be accepted for a Studienkolleg entrance exam. Once a university decides they want you, they will send you an invitation to the entrance exam of their Studienkolleg. You need to show up and take it in person. Each Studienkolleg has their own exams. The people with the highest scores up to the number of people they accept will be admitted. One you pass the entrance exam you will be able to attend Studienkolleg in all the states where you passed the test. You will pick the place you most want to study and let them know by the deadline. After you complete Studienkolleg you will then apply to the university again or elsewhere and get into the programs where your final GPA meets the standards. They will average your GPA of high school and Studienkolleg, with each counting for 50%.

To apply for University in most cases the university wants your unweighted GPA on a scale of 1-4, your official transcripts, and your German language certificate. For Studienkolleg it could be as low as B1 or B2, but C1 and C2 are the levels for entering University. There are many ways to get that credential. Some people go to Germany for a year and study the language at a language school. Some universities might also require an essay of intent or a resume (called a Lebenslauf in German) using the German format. You will also need to apply for a student visa if you are not a German citzen. My daughter did not need either of these extra things for most of the programs she applied to. What she did need was a letter stating that she was a native speaker of English so she would not need to prove that with a language test. She wrote that herself. She also needed a letter from her school saying that even though her transcripts included the scoring of honors classes, these scores were not included in her GPA. She then also needed her school to calculate her GPA on their scale of 1-4, since her school’s scale was different. My husband actually did that for the school, and then they gave her a letter with that information as well. She applied to several universities, some in the same state, so she just needed one entrance exam for all of them. Luckily, her first chosen Studienkolleg was the first one to have her entrance exam, and she got her acceptance the day before she would have had to go to the next entrance tests. Her chosen tracks were G and S combined. This program takes in the most students, which made it easier to get in. Of course, they also invite more students to the entrance exam so there are more people to compete against. She took the entrance exam in August. It had sections for language, and then social science economics questions which required some data and statistical math. She was notified of her acceptance a week later, which was less than a week before classes started.

We had to quickly scramble to find her housing because there are not a lot of dorms in Germany. We had been looking for a month before, but all of the places we considered were gone. Also, we had looked at places where she could live with a friend, who did not get accepted, so that meant we had to reconsider where she would live. Typically students live in shared houses or apartments called WG (Wohngemeinschaft in German), which means communal living. Most of the ones advertising spaces were for people ages 18-32. However, when we applied they were not interested in living with someone so young. So, we found a family that was renting out a part of their apartment that they had used for in-laws, which had a separate entrance. It is very unusual for students to live in dorms, and they are all booked long before my daughter even had her final transcripts to complete her application. Finding housing is complex in Germany and I do not know how people without contacts do so. We found her place through an ad that the family she now rents from had placed at the school where their older children went. A friend of mine sends her son there too, so she found the ad, and really helped us settle our daughter into their city.

A lot of independence is expected of young adults in Germany. That fall, our daughter had to do paperwork for mandatory health and long term care insurance, personal liability insurance (which she has through us), mandatory registration of herself in her city, and registering herself officially into the Studienkolleg by the deadline, which was a couple of months into the semester. In European countries the need to register your home residence is common. She had to learn to juggle classes, studying, and managing a household. Fortunately her classes were about 13 minutes from her apartment by subway. That allowed her to go home when professors cancelled classes and back again for the next 90 minutes instructional block.

In Studienkolleg, my daughter was in a cohort of 16-20 young adults who had all their classes together. There were 4 sections of her track, and then 3, and only one of each for the other tracks. They had a fairly regular time schedule of 5 days a week from 8am to 1 pm. There were extra classes on some days for those who needed to study English. In the beginning, all of the Ukrainian and Russian students hung out together during the 15 minute breaks between each class, drawn by a shared language. As the semester went on people began to develop their friendship groups based more on shared values and knowing each other from the classes. My daughter made friends with people from the different countries that she was in class with. I know that Singapore, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Israel, Ukraine, Russia and Vietnam were home to some of these friends. One young man was from the US, and another young woman was German, but had attended high school in the US as her family had lived there during those years. This young woman was fortunate to be able to live at home with her family, which is pretty common in Germany. I have a nephew who is studying Physics at the same university that his father and my husband attended, and lives at home with his family who lives there. Many of my adult friends also lived at home while attending university. However, my husband who comes from a small farming community that has no university, went to university on the opposite end of his home state.

Last fall my daughter started Studienkolleg. This year my daughter is attending university in a BA program, which typically requires 3-years. She had to take final exams in Studienkolleg in the spring, and then got transitional grades in June, and her official grades by the beginning of July. The deadlines to apply for most universities is by September, but for some more in demand programs it is by mid-July. She reapplied to 4 of the universities from before and was accepted by all. She did not have much stress about it like one does in the US because she knew she had the GPA required of the universities for the programs she wanted. She accepted a place at her first choice university in the same city where she went to Studienkolleg. I am glad because she did not have to find new housing. Studying in the city where our house is was her backup. She is now in a combination bachelor program of two subjects, a major and a minor. She had to let them know officially and upon acceptance, had to turn in paperwork that made her acceptance official. That was her transcripts, proof of health insurance and citizenship, and a some official forms she filled out and signed. These had to be posted or delivered in person. That was at the end of August. She had orientation the week before classes started in the middle of October. All of the universities she applied to have their Winter semester (which in the US would be called Fall semester) starting in October. So, she was able to travel until then and visited us.

Now her semester has started. She is officially studying in a German university. There will be a 2 week holiday break in December to January. Her semester will end in mid February and the next one called Summer semester will start at the beginning of April and end 3 weeks into July. She is in the thick of things and facing new challenges, but has integrated herself into her city in Germany. She has different people in each lecture and discussion section so she is slowly getting to know people. She also has a research methods class which is to prepare them to write their Bachelors thesis and ultimately a doctorate, and a tutorial. There is a language center where she can study any language she wants and get the credit for it. There is also a sports program and she has joined a monthly English language book club. There is no shared dorm, so each person goes home from classes. Her home is 25 minutes from most of her classes which are in different buildings on the same campus, which is large. There is a 30 minute period between classes to get around.

While there are few dorms there are rooms one can rent in private housing that is designed for students. The city is building more of these. They are generally expensive and not necessarily near a campus. There are cafeterias for students around the city called Mensas. She goes to one in the part of campus where she has most of her classes and another one near her house on other days. A dinning card gets one meals at any one of them. Often my daughter will buy 2 different meals and take one home for dinner. She is a picky eater who finds the food good. One pays a student price for a specific meals, but other people can buy mensa cards and then eat at the Mensa for a higher price.

She also travels on her own on the trains around Germany and to visit her friends in Austria. With a Deutschland ticket one has unlimited travel on local transportation and regional trains and students pay a subsidized monthly price for this automatically so it is on ones phone and just updates each month for the rare case that one gets checked. She can go where she wants in the country, and for a not too large fee can visit neighbor countries as well. When she is done she can either choose to stay here or work in any other German or English speaking country or those of the languages she is studying. This is true of all of the young people we know who are studying in Europe.