Thank you for your reply! This is definitely a route I could take, Europe Bachelors + US Masters. I think I’m settled on the idea of going to Germany for school now, as you’ve said, taking out loans is just not worth it when I have a path like this. Thanks again!
Thank you! I have to admit, I didn’t have a financially sound plan to education in the states, and thanks for pointing that out.
Got it! Thanks for your perspective!
DHBW Stuttgart is solid. It’ll be a very different experience than the US/Canadian experience tends to be—like I said upthread, German universities and their students tend to be intensely preprofessional in a way we don’t come close to here—but it’s a good place to learn. Also, I feel like Stuttgart is an underappreciated gem of a place—and there’s no accident that Porsche and Festo and Daimler and Bosch and Ritter and Märklin and Stihl and [insert whole bunches of others here] have their headquarters in or very near Stuttgart. Frankfurt and Munich and Berlin and Hamburg get all the attention, but Stuttgarters get things done.
(Also, Schwäbisch is my favorite variety of German, no question, and Swabian food is amazing.)
The German option looks great!
It’s a very well-respected Hochschule. It certainly wouldn’t be the same as attending a US college, especially in terms of student life, but you would get an excellent education, it’s large enough, well-known enough that there wouldn’t JUST be local commuters, and located in a great city.
I checked and they have an agreement with Cal Poly SLO (a superb tech school in California), and the 3rd Spring semester can be spent there followed by June-November in a co-op which could be there since you’re a US citizen. It looks like that last co-op leads to a job in most cases so whether it’s in Germany or the US would be a choice you have time to make.
Just a minor clarification. Cal Poly has a great reputation in the engineering, computer science, and the tech realm in general. But, those majors account for about 25% of all majors. Purdue is similar. Neither is a tech school per se like MIT, Caltech and CMU.
OP is interested in Informatics. The tech mention wasn’t meant to restrict the definition of Cal Poly SLO but to show adequation between OPs academic interest and a US option even if they choose Duales Studium in Stuttgart.
Hey there, thank you for mentioning this opportunity! Unfortunately upon some further research, I have found out that the exchange program for Cal Poly SLO is only for students that study business, since I study Business Informatics, only California State University, Fullerton, California State University San Marcos, Colorado State University Pueblo, Hawai’i Pacific University, and San Diego State University are available for my exchange. I hope that this could change in 2 years time, or maybe I could appeal to the study director about it.
Thank you for the assurance! Now I’m excited to get to know the city!
If you have a chance to go to SDSU, you will love it!
SDSU is excellent too. ![]()
Or indeed you could see if they could fit you into the program (although as I’m sure you know German rules aren’t very flexible..)
Haha! Got it! Thanks!
Yep, I have already experienced that during my application process ![]()