[cameronperot]

I figure my experience is relevant here. I graduated college in 2014 with a degree in finance and went straight to work in the machine that is corporate America. I had a "good" job and life was fairly easy. However, after a year or so I eventually became bored with that lifestyle.

I've always been a self-learner with a desire for knowledge and a challenge. I started looking around to go back to uni, this time something STEM related. I figured why not study abroad as I like to travel and the price to go to uni overseas was much more attractive. I saved enough money while working to allow me to go back to uni comfortably.

I chose to study physics in Germany, and by far it has been the best decision I've ever made. I'm about 1/2 done with my studies now and I'm quite pleased. We take one experimental physics, one theoretical physics, and one math class per semester along with an elective. I'm learning some of the most fascinating stuff, math and physics are truly beautiful.

If you have any desire at all to learn math/physics, then I highly recommend going back to uni to do so. The best part about doing it today though is that there are endless resources online to teach yourself outside of the class (or even just for fun if you don't want to go back to uni). MIT has their OCW program which puts excellent lectures and materials out there for all to access (I've used their resources quite a bit, thanks MIT!). There's also tons of other stuff out there like Khan Academy, Susskind's lectures on YouTube, etc. that really make it easy to learn from the comfort of your home.

TL;DR: If you want to go study physics, go study physics.

[starlord]

I am glad it is working out great for you. In fact this scenario is more or less what I have in mind when I think about going back to college for higher studies. Never could let go of the first love of life (yeah it wasn't a girl, it was Physics :| )

I graduated a little earlier when MIT OCW was the only online resource of good quality, and did try to learn enough about a lot of things. Suffered slightly lower grades, but came as a well equipped generalist to pursue almost anything... But real world mechanics have left much to be desired frankly from the nice picture painted all through school and college of how life would be. And while this option is really enticing for me, the other comment on how writing generic grant proposals can be an equally soul-sucking exercise does bring in an element of doubt...

But thanks for sharing this. If you don't mind sharing, what university are you at or you would recommend for Physics/quantum-computing-related programs?

[cameronperot]

I study at Universität Leipzig, in their international physics studies program. It's a fairly rigorous program and you are expected to learn a lot on your own outside of class, which is actually how I prefer it. I can definitely recommend it if you are the kind of person who can learn yourself. I see the classes as more of a guide of what to study and you expand on that yourself outside of class.

I'm getting another bachelors as I didn't feel that my finance degree taught me enough to jump into a physics masters (and I was right, there's a lot to be learned in undergrad math and physics). In undergrad you won't necessarily get into specialized stuff like quantum computing, but you will take the basic experimental and theoretical QM courses that can help prepare for something like that in a masters program. So I'm not sure I can recommend anything on that yet.

MIT has a few excellent courses on quantum physics. They have two versions of their 8.04 taught by two different professors and I highly recommend both. Then they have their advanced quantum physics 8.05 out there as well, which I also highly recommend. If you have the discipline to do the problem sets then you will learn quite a bit.

[robertcarter]

Can you talk a little more about your experience studying in Germany? What is the application process like? If you went to school in the US how is the experience same/different? My wife is German and should we live there I would like to do some more college too

[cameronperot]

Sure! The whole process was a lot, but manageable.

First comes the application process. When you find a uni you're interested in studying at you'll have to send in the required paperwork (for me it was high school/college transcripts and diploma along with the application form) to an organization called uni-assist. All documents have to be authenticated (called an apostille), which for me entailed taking my notarized school records to the sec of state building in my state to have them stamped with an official seal certifying they are indeed legit.

After your documents are sent you wait for uni assist to classify them and say whether or not you have the minimum requirements to study at the uni and if you meet the requirements they forward your documents to the uni for admission evaluation.

If you're admitted now comes the fun part of trying to find a place to live and get everything sorted out for actually moving over there. As an American it was nice to be able to go to DE on my passport without needing a visa (can do so for 90 days), this simplified things a lot as some people from other countries might be required to obtain a visa beforehand which is just another hurdle to jump over. So as an American I was able to come here and get most other things sorted out first then go apply for my residence permit.

The residence permit requires several things:

1. You be enrolled in a German uni

2. You have health insurance

3. You have a minimum of x euros in what is called a Sperrkonto (blocked bank account, only y euros can be withdrawn per month, I think you have to have a little under 9k euros in there to show you can sustain yourself which will get you a 2 years residence permit)

4. You have a place to live registered with the city (Meldebestätigung I think it's called, this document is extremely important for opening a bank account, getting health insurance, etc.)

5. The correct forms filled out and maybe something else I'm forgetting

So the order I recommend doing things in is:

1. Find a temporary place to live first, check wg-gesucht.de so that you can get the Meldebestätigung

2. Go open a bank account (requires Meldebestätigung)

3. Get everything sorted with the uni, registration etc. and might even need the registration certificate to show for getting student health insurance

4. Get health insurance (requires Meldebestätigung and a bank account)

5. Finally after all that is done go to the Auslanderbehörde and get a residence permit

The uni should provide assistance for getting all of this done and I highly suggest taking advantage of that.

My first uni experience was in the US at a large state university. In my experience the German system is fairly different, but in a good way. My degree is only 3 years as opposed to 4 like in the US because I don't have to take any core classes like I did in the US (history, art, other topics that I found to be a tuition money grab). It's just math, physics, and some electives which are math/physics related or a German class.

The unis here are state funded and you only have to pay some administrative fees which for me is roughly 200 euros/semester - much better than the $4-5k that I paid in the US for tuition and such. Not having as much funding I see it as somewhat of a good thing since the uni can't waste money on useless stuff like a football team or other crap that doesn't belong at an academic institute (just my opinion). It feels more serious, but that could just because I'm older and I take it more seriously. Overall though I really like it and it has been a great experience.

[quadcore]

where in germany?

[cameronperot]

Leipzig