Ask HN: German Universities for Masters in Computer Science | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: German Universities for Masters in Computer Science

6 pointshaidrali16 comments

I am BS computer science with two years of development experience in Java, Python and Ruby with multiple frameworks and platforms. I am planing to study Master's but i can't afford much so Pakistan and Germany are my options. Problem with Pakistani universities is that they really didn't focus on research also option of specialization in Information Retrial or Natural Language Processing is not there so don't want to be there. Would you recommend me to study Masters from German university keeping in mind i want to have specialization in Natural Language Processing or Information Retrial. Suggestion by universities name if any will be highly appreciated. If there is any other university/institute where NLP and IR specialization are offered in Masters please do comment.

Thank you so much for reading my post.

View on HN

The TU9 could be a starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TU9

In computer science, Karlsruhe, Aachen and the TU Munich (TU -- there are three universities in Munich) are the most prestigious, although I've always percepted alumni from those three as being somewhat snobbish.

When it comes to computational linguistics, Saarbrücken is probably the very best, but Stuttgart (my alma mater) is also really good.

Can you please tell me about tuition fee and avg living cost for a person in Germany. I came to know that most of the universities didn't have tuition fee Thanks

As long you want to study at a public university there are just tuition fees which have to be paid once per semester. How much you have to pay depends on the university, I'm currently studying in Osnabrück, Lower Saxony and here we pay around 280€. But the fees include a ticket for the local public transport and you get to eat a lot cheaper at the university restaurant.

Regarding living costs I would say I need around 500-600€ each month including rent. If you wanna study in one of the bigger cities you probably have to add another 200€ onto this.

@j29h Thank you for your reply it really give me an idea. Can you please tell me about accommodation and part time work also. 1- which type of accommodation is best university hostels or Portion ( in term of cost and living standard ) 2- How much can we earn with part time keeping in mind 2 year of experience as Software Development Engineer

Thank you so much

It's pretty hard to answer your specific questions.

1. I guess the living standard in dorms really depends on the city. And even where I live the standard is very diverse between the different dorms. Also the rent mainly depends on the city. I would suggest to get in touch with the university of your choice and ask those specific questions regarding the living situation there.

2. How much you can earn is also really specific. I guess you can expect a pretty good hourly fee as long as you can find a employer who speaks english. I have no idea how the market for english speaking programmers is. Your best shot is probably to work as a freelancer over the web.

Thank you so much

In case of Munich look for the 'computer linguistics' department http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/ueber_uns/index.html The http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/about_lmu/contact/int_office/i... department coordinates helping foreign students. The 'Fachschaft" is the student body if you want direct access to well connected students that currently study there https://fachschaft.cis.uni-muenchen.de/

For NLP and Information Retrieval, University Stuttgart and University of Saarland. And for part time software engineering jobs are also available with better hourly rate than any other HiWi (Student job). By the way, learning German (at least basics) will take you a long way.

A good information portal about this is PIGAS ( http://www.pigas.org ) p.s. shameless plug

Email me if you need help about this, I studied in RWTH Aachen and Heidelberg Universities.

RWTH Aachen may be a good choice. I had a colleague that studied there. http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/

Do you speak German? Otherwise I would recommend small post-soviet countries: Estonia, Slovakia...

At the moment no i don't but i have heard that medium of instruction is English at master level in Germany Is it right ?

Unless you go for programmes that explicitly are in English only, no, it's not certain. I'm a CS masters student right now and it's a wild mix: fully German, German but with English slides, fully English, ... If a student requests it many will switch to English (if no-one objects), but you can't rely on it. You probably could complete it without speaking much German, but don't expect to be able to take all classes. Might be problematic if you need more points in a category than there are english lectures for it.

A friend of mine studies computer science at the University of Paderborn (he, too, has a B.S. and is studying for his master degree). I know that at least some of his courses are in English.

From what I know, Paderborn is a good university for CS, but I don't know if they have any researchers working in your preferred areas.

EDIT: http://www.uni-paderborn.de/en/

Not sure. Never studied in Germany. Just make sure to speak some real foreigner students.

If you dont have local local languages, I would avoid large countries such as France, Italy, Germany or even Poland. Smaller post-soviet countries have sort 'self-esteem issue' and they will be probably friendlier to English-only speaker.

No it is not. But there are indeed few Masters programmes which are instructed in English. The University of Göttingen is a good example. http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/40954.html

Reply on news.ycombinator.com