Talk:Fachhochschule

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This article is written from the viewpoint of someone who is biased towards the "Fachhochschule"s. A german university and a Fachhochschule are two very different things. A german university student has more freedoms, but also more responsibility than a Fachhochschulstudent. Also university-programs are often much harder than their equivalent Fachhochschul-programs. University-dropouts often excel at Fachhochschuls. A Fachhochschule is basically a normal school but teaches specialized subjects. A university is organized differently, it places the burden of selecting what to learn on the student.

The most important difference is that Universities and University-Professors usually do original research, while Fachhochschul-Professors usually do not.

It is not even certain that a University will recognize a Fachhochschul-Bachelor as the prerequisite for a University-Master program. A Fachhochschul-Diploma (equivalent to a Master degree) is often only recognized as a Vordiplom (roughly equivalent to a Bachelor's Degree).

---The comment above was written by someone clearly biased towards traditional universities.

I think a FH-Master and a Uni-Master CAN be the same after the Bologna process is finished, depending on the accreditation.

== After your changes this article seems to be very biased towads the classic universities. For example it is not true that univesities don't recognize an FH-Bachelor as prerequisite for a University-Master program. Even high quality universities like Cologne or Münster accept it.

== Nonetheless: Most people will still look at where you got your degree. Grades, qualifications etc. from a applied sciences university will be regarded as for what they are.

[edit] Admission to a Doctoral Program

I don't know how things are these days with all the changes brought by the Bologna process, but, the last time I checked, most if not all German universities still required Fachhochschule graduates to take a preliminary oral exam (a Promotionsvorprüfung or Promotionseignungsprüfung), normally in 2 or 3 subjects, before they could begin doctoral research work. Has that changed at all ? 161.24.19.82 18:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Literal translation

For interest (or further confusion), just what is the best way to literally translate the term? An online translation gives me "professional school" but that has the problem that "school" isn't always used for post 18 institutions.

Would "vocational college", "vocational university" or even "polytechnic" be the equivalent literal terms in English? Timrollpickering 13:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

In the eighties (when I finished my Fachhochschul degree) Fachhochschulen were generally referred to as technical colleges or polytechnics (in line with the British polytechnics which later became universities).

[edit] Some changes

I partially agree with the above-noted comment; this article is indeed slightly biased in favour of FHs. To avoid misunderstandings, I appreciate FHs as an important and valuable pillar of the German higher education system - especially in view of accessability of tertiary education and social upwards mobility. Nevertheless, one should try to avoid the impression that FHs and research universities are basically the same thing. I tried to add a more legal, i.e., neutral viewpoint to the article, but there's certainly still some work to do. For instance, there's no mention of differences in entry requirements, potential difficulties of FH graduates to be admitted to doctoral programmes, the very different research budgets of FHs and universities, etc. Fred Plotz (talk) 20:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)