Thank you for your series on German life for an immigrant. I have a few EU born and raised friends and they are astounded by the amount of misinformation we (in the US) get about EU life.
I have a Swiss friend (Basel), now in his early 80’s. We worked together in a Swiss pharmaceutical company here in the States and he was always amazed that a HS grad in the EU was often technically competent to compete with a US college grad for an entry level laboratory job. Is it your sense that is still valid?
It looks like my earlier reply to your comment got deleted somehow. Maybe I did it by accident when reading on my phone.
I am replying with a shorter version for posterity:
I don't feel super competent to comment on education in the EU (or even Germany) as a whole, based on my data set of two students finishing school here (one who attended international school).
But I think the general perception that people in the States have - that public education is more egalitarian there (U.S.) and that students are, essentially, tracked/weeded out of college-track opportunities very early here - is not accurate.
In my experience in the States, students are quietly steered into lower academic tracks that often mean they don't have the prerequisites to take college-track courses later and thus limits their opportunities after graduation..
And, at least in Berlin, students who do not get into Gymnasium, still have a path to the Abitur, either at an integrated secondary school that offers the Abitur after an extra year or in a separate program, like night schools.
Then there is the whole dual study/apprenticeship programs that are offered for a wider variety of careers compared to the U.S. and other countries.
Do you speak German at home
No, we speak English with each other when it is just us.
Thank you for your series on German life for an immigrant. I have a few EU born and raised friends and they are astounded by the amount of misinformation we (in the US) get about EU life.
I have a Swiss friend (Basel), now in his early 80’s. We worked together in a Swiss pharmaceutical company here in the States and he was always amazed that a HS grad in the EU was often technically competent to compete with a US college grad for an entry level laboratory job. Is it your sense that is still valid?
Thanks again,
Barry
It looks like my earlier reply to your comment got deleted somehow. Maybe I did it by accident when reading on my phone.
I am replying with a shorter version for posterity:
I don't feel super competent to comment on education in the EU (or even Germany) as a whole, based on my data set of two students finishing school here (one who attended international school).
But I think the general perception that people in the States have - that public education is more egalitarian there (U.S.) and that students are, essentially, tracked/weeded out of college-track opportunities very early here - is not accurate.
In my experience in the States, students are quietly steered into lower academic tracks that often mean they don't have the prerequisites to take college-track courses later and thus limits their opportunities after graduation..
And, at least in Berlin, students who do not get into Gymnasium, still have a path to the Abitur, either at an integrated secondary school that offers the Abitur after an extra year or in a separate program, like night schools.
Then there is the whole dual study/apprenticeship programs that are offered for a wider variety of careers compared to the U.S. and other countries.