EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: DL8RI on October 21, 2013, 09:37:43 am
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Hi,
after this Professor-Poll-Thing I have a little Question. How much are the differences in that what an EE has done until graduation.
It is quite difficult to get this kind of Information out of Wikipedia because it's written by people in the country for people there.
So I thought: Make a thread, here are EEs from the whole world :D
I will start with Germany:
To get enrolled at a University you have to have the Abitur, that means 12 Years (formerly 13) of school:
We have an 3-Branch-School-System: First 4 years of elementry School (starting at the age of 6-7). Then it splits into three branches: Hauptschule (9 Years), Realschule (10 Years), Gymnasium (12/13 Years)
There's also some stuff in between but that's rather complicated.
After we have the Abitur we can enroll into an University, but hold on: There are two types!
We have the Universität (University) and Fachhochschule (they call themselves "'University of applied science"). The Uni usually is viewed as the higher degree than the FH, but I don't think so. Of course FH is easier, but they have a different target of education. But let's save this Point for later.
The style is very different:
At the Uni you sit with ~500 other EE-Students in a big lecture-hall an listen to the Professor. Some try to make it somewhat interactive but with 500 students... well, forget it! ;)
Most of the work (exercises and so on) is done by PHDs or older students. At Uni we have a quite little number of professors. At my university (~1700 EE-students, one of the 4 largest in germany with respect to EE) we have around 25 (+some Junior-Prof), but over 100 PHDs. Some groups have 15 or more PHDs and one Prof. And these PHDs do most of the lecture-work (including examination) besides research. Most of the time the students have to learn for their own at home or wherever, attending the lecture and exercises isn't even close to sufficient.
The first 4 Semesters it's basic EE-stuff, Math, Physics and so on. Usually the exams have a fail-rate of about 60-70% (some are up to over 80%), but you have 3 "shots" per exam.
After the Basic-Lectures you start to spechialize in your 5th Semester: Energy, Computer, Communication, whatever. At your 6th/7th semester you write your Bachelor-Thesis and are BSc. But it's a clear target to get to the Master... in your Master-Study (4 semester) you specialize further, the lectures get smaller (my smallest were 3 people) and you specialize in your field... if e.g. you did choose communication you can do RF-Hardware, Signal-Processing, Information-Theory and so on. In this field you write your Master-Thesis. most people do their Thesis at the University in a research-Project.
That is more or less equivalent to the old (10 Semester) Diplom Ingenieur, therefore the trend to the MSc. the Bsc. is just a more or less arbitrary cut in between. Although the 10 semesters are "wanted" by politics no one does them, the Average are about 12.
The FH is a big contrast, no PHDs (FHs are not allowed to) but many professors. Each year is divided into several groups who attent the same Lecture (Math 1) but with a different professor and in smaller groups (30 or so). You have a lot more "hands-on" lectures and practical stuff and less formal basics. Normally you write your Thesis in a company. After 7 Semesters you get your Bachelor (BEng.) which is more or less the old Diplom Ingenieur(FH). Many start in the company, they did their BEng. at. My knowledge is rather limited here, but I think more people do the BEng in the 7 semesters that ware wanted.
Thats it. Quite complicated isn't it? :D
It would be nice if someone could explain the system from overseas. I always get confused about high-school (in German this word translates to Hochschule -> University), College and so on.
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This explains the program at the Technical University of Denmark far better than I would be able to:
http://shb.dtu.dk/Default.aspx?documentid=3110&Language=en-GB&lg=&version=2013/2014 (http://shb.dtu.dk/Default.aspx?documentid=3110&Language=en-GB&lg=&version=2013/2014)
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Well, in the US, you have 12 years of basic schooling (typically at government-funded public schools, though private schools exist). The exact divisions depend on where you live and the local school district, but for me, it was: Grades 1-5 are "elementary" school, grades 6-8 are "middle school" or "junior high", and 9-12 are "high school". You typically graduate from high school at age 18. You are eligible for a driver's license at age 16, for reference. You are legally allowed to drop out of high school at age 16, I believe, if you don't want to do anything with your life. My high school had about 1200 students at the time I was there.
In most cases, high school is a general education, though you have some amount of choice in what classes you take. For example, I took 3 programming classes, a logic systems class, calculus 1, and 2 physics classes. Other people took none of those. You still have a lot of general requirements, such as English, foreign language, chemistry, history, etc... I was at a pretty good high school--not all have these technical classes. Some people also dual-enroll in a technical institute while in high-school, which offers training in things like machining, welding, mechanic work, etc...
After high school, there are basically 2 education options. One is the community college, which offers associates degrees (2 years) and some basic bachelor degrees (4 years). They are usually cheaper than full universities, and students often attend classes only part time. This is a popular option for adults who must work while getting their degree. Also, basic classes such as math can transfer as credit to a university, so that you get the basic classes for a lower cost. Many people do this, though I did not.
Technical schools, or trade schools, offer associates degrees in things like machining and being an electronics tech. Honestly, I don't know much about them, though I know several techs who come from them.
The full university is another option, and the one I am currently doing. Here, students typically are full-time students, though some have other jobs on the side. A bachelors degree is 4 years, though some take 4.5 or 5 years, depending on the student. Paid internships in industry are very common during the summer. A co-op is another internship option in which the student takes a semester or two off from school in order to do an extended internship. I have done both a summer internship and a full-year co-op. Neither of these is required at my school, but most students do them.
The course work varies very heavily, depending on where you go. Where I am, the 1st year is just general math, physics, chemistry, etc... The next two years are general EE stuff. The number of students in each class varies, but at my school range from 10-50. There is usually one professor for the class, and usually no graduate assistants. Lab exercises are run by graduate assistants. In the final year, you really start to specialize in your own "emphasis", which for me is EMC. These classes have between 5 and 20 students. After receiving your 4 year degree (BS), you can then go into industry or continue for the Master's Degree. An MS (Master's of Science) is an additional 3-4 semesters. You have the option of dual-enrolling in a Master's program while still finishing up your 4 year degree--this is what I am doing. When you are a graduate student, you can either do a with-thesis or a without-thesis program. I am doing the thesis option, which is what most do.
Most university labs, at least at my school, will pay their graduate students' tuition, as well as a small salary. The salary is enough to live on while completing the degree. In turn, you work in the lab doing research for a professor (or company, in the case of my EMC lab) as well as working on your thesis. If you get lucky, the lab work and the thesis overlap, so you do not have to split your time between as many things. Graduate students typically take 2 classes per semester if they are doing the thesis option--3 otherwise.
There are also opportunities for undergraduate students (those seeking a 4 year degree) to work in the research labs as assistants. This is a good way to get exposed to the lab's research before becoming a graduate student. The pay for undergraduate research is between $7 and $10 per hour, depending on the resources of the lab.
The PhD is essentially just an extension of the Master's degree, except that it takes an additional 4-6 years (closer to 4, usually, though it depends on your research). There is also a DE degree, which is the Doctorate of Engineering. It is similar to the PhD, but with more emphasis on industry instead of theory. At least that's the idea. I don't know anybody who has one of these.
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To DL8RI, I've heard before that children in Germany are split into different tracks from a young age based off of some sort of performance testing. Can you confirm this, and if so I want to know to what degree this affects a kid's education. Also, what is the meaning of the German school names? Do those literally mean "Real School" and "Gymnasium"?
skipjackrc4 was pretty thorough in his description. I would like to add that in the US, the baseline educational standards are mainly set by each individual state. In addition, individual schools or school districts can add on extra requirements.
California is pretty low on the list of best school systems in the nation. In my High School, the required courses to graduate for math and science are dismal; only one math course is required, algebra I, and two sciences, a physical science (not physics) and a biological science.
Outside of the required core curriculum, students have the freedom to choose their course path starting in Junior High. This tends to naturally separate students into different groups. Ambitious college-bound kids, like I was, can take extra math and science courses. I took a math and science course each year and I finished with one year of calculus and two years of physics in my last years.
My college was closer to your Fachhochschule than a Universität. I went to a school in the California State University (CSU) system which doesn't offer any PhDs. Unlike colleges in the University of California (UC) system, we are not very research oriented so professors can devote their time to teaching courses and guiding students in the lab. I rarely had more than 30 students in any course and I never had any grad students teachers, which is prevalent in many big name schools.
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My college was closer to your Fachhochschule than a Universität. I went to a school in the California State University (CSU) system which doesn't offer any PhDs. Unlike colleges in the University of California (UC) system, we are not very research oriented so professors can devote their time to teaching courses and guiding students in the lab. I rarely had more than 30 students in any course and I never had any grad students teachers, which is prevalent in many big name schools.
I've always wondered if this isn't a better approach to the undergraduate level (more student-teacher interaction vs. large auditorium associated with research oriented universities). Not assuming this would eliminate or even reduce the amount of self-study, just allow for a closer evaluation of whether or not a student's understanding is correct (improved quality of graduate based on their understanding of material covered), and perhaps build more confidence in the student (make them more eager to learn & take the initiative on projects once employed in the field). :-//
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My college was closer to your Fachhochschule than a Universität. I went to a school in the California State University (CSU) system which doesn't offer any PhDs. Unlike colleges in the University of California (UC) system, we are not very research oriented so professors can devote their time to teaching courses and guiding students in the lab. I rarely had more than 30 students in any course and I never had any grad students teachers, which is prevalent in many big name schools.
I've always wondered if this isn't a better approach to the undergraduate level (more student-teacher interaction vs. large auditorium associated with research oriented universities). Not assuming this would eliminate or even reduce the amount of self-study, just allow for a closer evaluation of whether or not a student's understanding is correct (improved quality of graduate based on their understanding of material covered), and perhaps build more confidence in the student (make them more eager to learn & take the initiative on projects once employed in the field). :-//
At the undergraduate level, I think it is absolutely a better approach.
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Here is how it goes for Israel.
Basic schooling is split into four different systems; Secular, arab, religious and ultra-orthodox. With the exception of the ultra-orthodox system, which is “forever”, the rest are the standard 12 years. First six years are elementary school (Yesodi), then there are three years if middle school (Hativat Benaim) and three years of high school (Tichon). The middle school and high school are usually in the same school, you just don’t have to do the high school. All schools teach the same core program, again with the exception of the ultra-orthodox. The arab system does the program in Arabic while the religious system has extra bible and other Jewish related studies. Beside the core program each school has its own set of elective subject students can choose from. During high school there are matriculation tests (Bagruts) in each subject, once a student completes the tests in the core subjects he/she is eligible for a certificate of matriculation (Teodat Bagrut).
There used to be a system that combined high school with the German concept of Fachshule, which was an extra two years. People who completed those schools got a Technician or B.Tech (Handesa’i) like certificate, along with their matriculation. That system is now gone. There are talks of restarting it, but it’s a politically controversial issue so could take a while.
After high school there’s the Army service; 3 years for the guys, a year and 9 months for the ladies. Usually totally unrelated to what you did or learned before the service and what you’ll do after.
The higher education system is split into two: Universities and Colleges (Michlalot).
To get accepted into any high education institution you need a matriculation certificate and do a Psychometric exam, which a sort of IQ test, supposed to “predict” your ability to successfully complete a higher degree. Each institution, and each department within an institution, has a different threshold for the grades that grant admission.
The Universities:
All five of them are state owned and only three of them hand engineering degrees. Since the universities are state owned and subsidized, tuition is relatively cheap (~ US$2400/year). Most companies have a preference for hiring university graduated with the big ones (Intel, Microsoft, HP, etc…) exclusively hiring from universities. The trick is to get accepted to a university as admission grades are very high, especially for EE and medical school.
A B.Sc. degree is generally 4 years, though some do an extra semester or two due to the intensity of the studies. First two years are mainly physics and maths with some elementary EE courses. From the 6th semester you start to specialize in two or three of the fields the university has to offer. During the last year you do a final engineering project, either for some university research or as part of a collaboration with the industry (mostly military/security related companies). Lectures are usually done by PhDs, but also occasionally by PhD students or specialists from the industry. Exercises are by M.Sc. and PhD students with the rare 4th year B.Sc. student.
In a university you can study all the way to a PhD and there are direct to M.Sc. and PhD programs for excelling B.Sc. students. Most will do a B.Sc. and rush to the industry. Many even start working in the industry during their studies and so their final project is done in the company they work at.
The Colleges:
There are many of them and are mostly privately owned, with some being very partially subsidized by the state. Admission is easier but tuition can be higher and harder to get into the industry after graduating. Most companies will expect a collage graduate to show some relevant experience before considering him a candidate, which is a bit of a chicken and egg problem.
The programs are similar to universities with the duration and degree (for B.Sc.) being the same. Some colleges only hand B.Tech degrees while in some you can study up to a M.Sc. As far as I know no collage has yet to be certified to teach for a PhD, but that might have changed.
So, there you have it, if you got this far.
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Situation in Russia looks pretty much the same as described for Germany with only small differences. And the major difference is that state-owned universities are fully subsidized. So I was able to get an engineering diploma without paying anything, except for textbooks and other supplementary tools. And even textbooks were mostly available in the library, so I've only paid for stuff I wanted to keep for future references. Engineering diploma, just like mentioned Diplom Ingenieur, is equivalent to MSc. I was in the last "wave" that was using old names, now it is all BSc's and MSc's only.
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Hi,
thanks for all the replies :)
Just some comments:
To DL8RI, I've heard before that children in Germany are split into different tracks from a young age based off of some sort of performance testing. Can you confirm this, and if so I want to know to what degree this affects a kid's education. Also, what is the meaning of the German school names? Do those literally mean "Real School" and "Gymnasium"?
The first: Yes and No. After the 4 Years of elementary school the Teacher can give a recommendation if he/she thinks the pupil is suited for e.g. Gymnasium. I'm not sure how strict it is handled right now, but the schools can reject pupils who didn't get the recommendation. I never took any performance-test to enroll anywhere.
These recommendation-System is critisized by many people because the elementry school techer has an almost almighty position to change the fate of a 10 year old Kid. They state that it's to early to make such a hard decision. There are different concepts to reform the whole school-system.... right now it's quite a discussion here in Germany.
I want to know to what degree this affects a kid's education.
It is a very BIG thing. If you cannot go to Gymnasium you have no chance to go to an University.
We have a second branch here besides studies, it's called Berufsausbildung ("Job-education"). That means you have a Company which takes you as a trainee, you have to go to a special school (state-owned) for your subject. After this (several years) you have a certificate that you are whatever... from Hairdresser to Electrician. In Germany there are quite a lot of regulations around this, e.g. a Electrician has to be a "lerned" one (with this certificate) to work as one. This Certificate is quite respected and has a high weight.
For further Information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship#Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship#Germany)
There are possibilties to go to the gymnasium after having good grades in the Realschule and several other things where you can "upgrade" to go to Uni, but thats one big complain abut the System. Especially rather poor people are statistically rare in these programs.
Well the names... Gymnasium has the same roots as the "Gym" in english, the greek ????????? Gymnásion. It was used since the 16.-17. century because these schools made "beautiful minded" (=high educated) people. So says Wikipedia, I didn't know that either.
The Realschule means as you stated "real school" and it was founded to get not only humanistic knowledge like the Gymnasium but also "real" knowledge, e.g. Biology.
The third one the Hauptschule (=mainschool) was formerly called Volksschule (=people's school) was founded to educate the masses with the most fundamental common knowledge.
That's History, all three Schools teach more or less the same topics but with a different "intensity".
@ataradov
Situation in Russia looks pretty much the same as described for Germany with only small differences. And the major difference is that state-owned universities are fully subsidized.
In Germany the study-fees (500€/Semester) introduced in 2005/2006 have been banned again.
All you have to pay are the Semester-Fees of your University (the quite cheap Ticket for Train and Tram, a little support for people who cannot afford the fees and so on), that's roundabout 250€/Semester. The Ticket is really cool and if you were not a student you would have to pay maybe 1500€-2000€ for such a "wide range flatrate"-Ticket per year. The rest is payed by the State.
There are private Universities in Germany (with high fees), but they are not really well repected, small and many are bankrupt after a few years. The state-universities are the big players.
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Situation in Serbia is a bit similar to situation in Germany. Back in the years around second world war, the education system was completely based on German system and even today there are still some remains of it.
Education up until university is consists of 3 cycles. During each cycle, same things are basically taught to children. The main difference is that the amount of information that the children need to learn increases during each cycle.
The first step towards education here is the kindergarten. Until few years ago, going to kindergarten was voluntary, but recently they made one year of kindergarten mandatory as a sort of preparation for school. It's usually called zeroth grade.
After that comes the "basic" school as we call it here, which provides the first two cycles. It's divided into two parts, each four years long. During the first four years, children usually have one teacher who teaches almost all subjects. Recently, they added foreign languages the curriculum starting with first year, so those are taught by separate teachers. Children learn the basics of mathematics such as addition and multiplication, reading, writing, some grammar, a bit about sciences and have music and drawn art as well. During this time, child goes through grades one to four. Children are grouped into classes (we call them "sections") which should have between 24 and 32 pupils. Their name usually consists of two numbers. First one is an ordinal number which represents the grade and the second is a regular number which represents class within grade. An example of a name would be fourth one. In some schools, letters are used instead of regular numbers, so you get for example fourth a or third b.
Children are graded in each subject with grades one, which represents insufficient amount of knowledge, to five which means "excellent". At the end of each "half-year"(in December and June) average grade is calculated for each subject which is taken as the final grade for the subject and then average grade for the half year is calculated based on the final grades. At the end of the year, those average grades are used to provide the average grade for the pupil during that year.
Back in the old days, after four years children could drop out of school or go to an eight-year school as we called them. Some types of 8-year schools were real schools and gymnasiums. Today, following four years are part of "basic" school and are mandatory. The main difference is that in grades five to eight, each subject is taught by a separate teacher and children have a homeroom teacher who coordinates their class. This is the start of the second cycle, so basically all subjects start over from beginning. Mathematics starts with basic axioms, then goes to addition, multiplication and so on. Sciences get introduced as separate subjects during these four years as well. Children learn biology, chemistry and physics.
The second cycle ends with matriculation. Children have exams from several subjects and the score on those exams are used to determine how their education continues. Up until few years ago, matriculation was not part of elementary school and instead there was an entrance exam for secondary schools. Children can also drop out after "basic" school if they believe that they don't need any more education, but few do so. Children make a wish-list with a number of specific schools on it and they get assigned to a school based on their score. The score consists of sum of average grades for years five to eight and of score from the exams. Average grades contribute to 60% of the final score and exams are worth 40%.
Third cycle starts with "middle school" as we call it. There are two basic types of middle schools: Schools which last for 3 years and schools which are 4 years long. Three year schools provide education about basic trades and they give us hair dressers, electricians, mechanics, various vehicle operators, different types of construction workers and similar simpler occupations.
The four-year schools are either gymnasiums or are technical schools and they produce various technicians, such as medical and pharmaceutical technicians, nurses and midwifes, lab technicians, mechanical engineering technicians, electrical engineering technicians and so on. Those who finish a gymnasium, do not receive a qualification. Completing a four-year middle school is a prerequisite for continuing education. Gymnasiums also have their own specializations (we call them "directions") so we have natural sciences and mathematics, mathematics, informatics, social-linguistic and linguistic specializations for gymnasium students (I hope I didn't miss any). Two most popular are natural sciences and mathematics and social-linguistic. Others are usually provided by specialized gymnasiums which only have that "direction".
In middle school, grade numbers reset and the third cycle starts. Curriculum has pretty much same fields as the one for grades five to eight, but now goes a bit deeper into details. Also subjects such as psychology, logic, sociology, and philosophy are added. Grading system is same as in elementary school.
At the end of middle school, children have a second matriculation, but currently its results don't affect chances of getting further education. Children are expected to write a "scientific" paper and to pass exams in several subjects.
Next step is going to a higher school or a high school. To get to one of such schools, children need to pass an entrance exam and have sufficient score. Score is formed by average grades from middle school, which provide 40% of the score, and score from the entrance exams which provides 60%. In general, it's more difficult for a student of technical school to pass the entrance exam for university. The situation also depends on the actual school. For example in medicine, it's almost unknown that someone who finished school for a medical technician became a doctor. On the other hand, some electrotechnical schools do prepare their students for university entrance exams.
Higher schools are meant in sense of higher than middle schools and are similar to fachhochschule. High schools are universities. Recently, we had some higher education reforms, so higher schools are now renamed to high schools of professional studies and universities are academic studies. Higher schools used to last two or three years, but as far as I know today they are all three years long. They can also have additional two year specialist studies. In electrical engineering schools, after those three years, students get title of professional electrical and computer engineer.
Universities can last for three or four years now. In the past, all technical studies lasted for five years. In three year schools, students get title of electrical and computer engineer, while in four year schools students get title of graduated electrical and computer engineer. Both can finish master studies and get title of graduated electrical and computer engineer - master. Theoretically, universities can offer further specialist studies which produce title of specialist electrical and computer engineer, but so far I haven't actually seen a university that offers such title. Another options after master studies is to go for doctorate and get title of Doctor of Sciences - Electrical and Computer engineering.
State electrical engineering schools are usually very difficult, but have a trend of decreasing difficulty. Weed-out exams are common and so is transferring exams from one year to another. Here in Belgrade, it was not uncommon to pass introduction into electrical engineering as one of last exams, even though it's an exam from the first year. It's common to fail a year and from some statistics I've read, the four year EE studies are seven years long on average. Most of the problematic subjects are concentrated in the first year. I myself transferred from state school to a private school because of some first-year exams.
There are private universities which provide electrical engineering diplomas, but so far I haven't heard of any which focus on traditional EE fields such as electronics or power engineering. Instead, many focus on "softer" fields such as telecommunications or computer engineering.
Private schools do have their own set of problems. It's usually easier to pass an exam in a private school without actually understanding the subject matter than it is in state schools, which leads to decreased reputation of private schools. Another problem is low interest among students. Many think that the piece of paper they get after they graduate will help them somehow and don't realize that it's actual knowledge that counts. Another problem is getting a license. Currently the Chamber of Engineers has a list of schools whose students can apply for license exams and there are several state schools on that list (but not all state schools) there are no private schools at all.
A little bit about financing: Legally both students of state and private schools have right to state financing, but currently state is only financing state schools. In private schools, tuition fees are in the several thousands of Euros per year range, while most of the state schools charge up to a thousand of Euros per year. State-financed students don't pay tuition fees and the amount of money that state pays to a school for each student can be different than the amount of money school charges from a student. This sometimes leads to absurd situation where schools get more money from state per state-financed student then they get from the self-financed students and at the same time they do their best to decrease number of state-financed students using difficult to pass exams. After that, they complain how they don't have enough money :)
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Couple things about USA community college options.
The concept of going to a Community College for around 2 years to get your general education requirements (English, history, etc.) out of the way at a lower cost is a good one for a few reasons. The first is the cost issue. You save a TON of money not paying university tuition for these classes and you might not have to move anywhere while you are taking those classes to save money on expensive college town rent. The second is the class size and the quality of education. At 4 year institutions just about every student has to take those gen ed requirements so the classes are often hundreds of students in a stadium style lecture hall. At the community college level those classes are much smaller, if I had to guess I'd say less than 50 students and more like 30 usually. You really aren't sacrificing anything, especially if you aren't going to be an English major. You get a lot more personal attention if you want it, which is nice in classes relevant to your major like basic math and physics which you can also take at the CC level. These are the classes that at the 4 year university level are run by teaching assistants and professors that probably would rather being doing research.
There are transfer agreements you can make with 4 year universities even before you start taking the community college classes where if you keep a certain GPA you are automatically accepted to the 4 year university. Using this kind of deal, you can actually get into a better school than you might have been able to get into straight out of high school. One of the problems with USA high schools is that they pretty much automatically graduate everyone these days so you have to have above a "straight A" 4.0 GPA (by taking AP classes) AND be a disabled female minority to get into the best schools straight out.
When you get those classes out of the way and transfer to a 4 year school you can focus on what they do best which is major specific upper division classes and research if that is your thing. Sure you might miss out on the first couple years of dorm partying and such craziness, but that isn't necessarily a terrible thing.
The high school guidance councilors (worst job ever??) probably don't push the community college option harder since it makes the high school look better when more kids go straight to 4 year schools, but it really is a good option.
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