Interesting data! I made a similar calculation at the start of my studies, but in the opposite direction—I thought I had the cognitive capacity to study at a fairly rapid level, but ADHD and other projects often got in the way. So I picked a fairly tough university for my subjects (CS and mathematics in Bonn, though CS is “only” in the bottom half) and I’m happy with the result.
I’m not sure how different my experience would have been at other places—I think Germany has a much more homogeneous standard of education than the US—but my math modules definitely challenged me.
I made a similar calculation at the start of my studies, but in the opposite direction—I thought I had the cognitive capacity to study at a fairly rapid level, but ADHD and other projects often got in the way.
Yeah, I should probably have included that in the main post, but I didn’t feel like I could authoritatively say which universities are thought of as tough (maybe just ask around for that?), but as you said there is probably not that much of a difference in terms of curriculum.
Another consideration that I forgot to mention is some filtering going on. Munich for example is probably higher on the list because they are filtering students before they can enroll.
To be honest, part of my motivation to write this came after having some bad experiences with the bureaucracy at my university. I was wondering how much of the variation isn’t like actual curriculum, but all the organizational stuff around it (which was what had tripped up me at least), but I really don’t know any cheap way to get info about that.
Future me disagrees that there is nothing that I would do in hindsight (or when moving), If I was in this situation again, I’d try to ask students from different universities on my radar.
Interesting data! I made a similar calculation at the start of my studies, but in the opposite direction—I thought I had the cognitive capacity to study at a fairly rapid level, but ADHD and other projects often got in the way. So I picked a fairly tough university for my subjects (CS and mathematics in Bonn, though CS is “only” in the bottom half) and I’m happy with the result.
I’m not sure how different my experience would have been at other places—I think Germany has a much more homogeneous standard of education than the US—but my math modules definitely challenged me.
Yeah, I should probably have included that in the main post, but I didn’t feel like I could authoritatively say which universities are thought of as tough (maybe just ask around for that?), but as you said there is probably not that much of a difference in terms of curriculum.
Another consideration that I forgot to mention is some filtering going on. Munich for example is probably higher on the list because they are filtering students before they can enroll.
To be honest, part of my motivation to write this came after having some bad experiences with the bureaucracy at my university. I was wondering how much of the variation isn’t like actual curriculum, but all the organizational stuff around it (which was what had tripped up me at least), but I really don’t know any cheap way to get info about that.
Future me disagrees that there is nothing that I would do in hindsight (or when moving), If I was in this situation again, I’d try to ask students from different universities on my radar.