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Comment by kello | Hacker News Reader

Over here in Germany they have well-established apprenticeship programs for many more jobs than in the US. There are apprenticeships for software developers, for bankers, for "Bürokauffrau/Bürokaufmanm" (office clerks/administrators), for media work, for all sorts of medical jobs, and so on. You name it, and there is probably an "Ausbildung" (apprenticeship) for it here. The apprenticeship programs are still somewhat not as "prestigious" as going to university, but they will get you in the door at a company for that job.

Many people even combine the two, opting to do an apprenticeship and follow it up with studies, or vice-versa, or do both at the same time.

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I wish we would try to bring the german apprenticeship program back to its former glory. It's such a shame that we started expecting university degrees for more and more jobs just to appear more compatible with the international job market.

The german apprenticeship program was a fantastic (and unique) feature of the german economy. Not every job needs a bachelors degree. Quite the opposite actually. Many positions that hire fresh university graduates could fill the position much better with well trained people who already have lots of hands on experience. Instead we have tons of people with bachelors degrees that basically need to be trained from scratch because the education they got was waaayy too theoretical.

Unfortunately the apprenticeship program is now far less prestigious than a bachelors degree (which is also heavily reflected in pay). So anyone who can go to university won't choose an apprenticeship.

Such a wasted opportunity.

And there's even the combination of apprenticeship and university with the "Duale Hochschule". You spend alternating 3 months working for a company and 3 months studying at university. After 3 years, you earned a bachelor's degree and have 18 months of work experience.

This.

I wonder why the US doesn't seem to have such a system. The process is quite easy: The company pays the tuition fees and selects a person that satisfies their requirements (not necessarily good grades). The person works for the company and studies while being paid consistently a low but fair salary. About three years later the company can decide if they want to keep the employee who just earned a bachelors degree.

There a few down-sides (studying is harder and it is not available for all study paths), but in general there are many up-sides:

- no debt

- selection based on more than grades

- nobody cares how much you parents can pay

- deeper experience than internships

- combination of practical experience and academic degree

To add some anecdotal evidence: AFAIK, the current CEO of SAP started his career with a similar program.

Same here in Switzerland. Apprenticeships are called “Erstausbildung” (First education) now. It’s regarded as a stepping stone.

Software developers also don’t make that much in Germany. You also need to get past the apprenticeship gatekeepers. No thanks.

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