The Apprentice Programmer (2013)
tobi.lutke.com
tobi.lutke.com
If you manage to get an apprenticeship at a good company like Siemens, you'll receive great education. They put a lot of effort into educating apprentices, and after three years you'll be able to get a reasonably well paid job quickly, either at the same company or at a different company.
But especially lots of smaller businesses don't have the time and resources to take proper care of their apprentices. Especially in the service industry, apprentices are just hired because they provide cheap labor. Apprentices at restaurants or supermarkets will often spend three years performing only the most menial work, and the "Berufschulen" (vocational schools) are extremely low quality. After spending 3 years in an apprenticeship like this, you'll have trouble finding a proper job, since employers would rather just hire a new cheap apprentice.
If you don't fit in, you're pretty much on your way to permanent welfare or min wage jobs in Germany unless you emigrate like I did.
The author just got lucky and fit in a bit better than I did.
And then there is also former Telekom CEO Obermann who dropped out of University to found his mobile phone business.
I am a Swiss software developer with the apprenticeship title and I tried to find work abroad (mainly asia). Problem: Around the world that dual education system is unknown or not well recognized and not even respected. Despite that most apprenticeship professionals form Germany, Switzerland and Austria are slightly "better" after finishing their education than most MD graduates!
In early 2014 the president of South Korea came to visit my vocational school in Bern, Switzerland because they may implement the dual education system according to the state news: https://www.news.admin.ch/message/index.html?lang=en&msg-id=...
The vocational schooling (as discussed in the article) consists of two parts; technical skills and general education. The latter part is divided into two groups: apprentices are required to either complete the mandatory program or invest some extra effort and earn a high school equivalency diploma (Berufsmaturität) at the same time. Students who fail theirs drop to the standard program and continue their apprenticeship.
Upon completion, those who chose to get a Berufsmatur hold the necessary certifications to get into any University of Applied Sciences in their field and pursue a Bachelor's or Master's degree. Access to general Universities is limited to those holding a "proper" Matura, but there even is a one-year program for people with a Berufsmatur to attain a full Matura. Universities again are (to some degree) required to offer part-time programs, so studying and working at the same time is possible.
Finally, students who finished an UAS BSc/MSc are generally admitted to standard Universities. Some terms (between half a semester and a full year of extra classes required) may apply, but there actually is a reasonable path from dropping out of "proper" high school to getting an MSc or possibly even a ScD/PhD.
Just like Tobi I consider myself a kinesthetic learner. School never really piqued my interest, so my performance was lackluster. I went for an apprenticeship instead, combined it with a Berufsmatur, later on with a BSc in Computer Science and as I am now finishing my MLaw in Cybercrime/Information Security, I am barely a year or two older than most of my peers but hold (including the apprenticeship) around a decade of professional experience. (Usually four instead of five days a week, so feel free to subtract a 20% dicsount.)
Also, I find the talking about how dropping out of school will sound strange to americans funny. I got the impression that dropping out and doing your own thing is more appreciated in the US than in germany where ever job offering requires a degree or two...
Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, has an internship program where engineering undergrads spend a semester working at a real company. The companies benefit from free labor, and the students benefit from real world experience and resume building. It's amazing to me that this system isn't more widely adopted. Some people claim the students should be paid a "fair salary" or some such arguments.
Anyway, the Germans must be doing something right. Germany is still the #3 or #4 industrial producer in the world (China has surpassed them in recent years) and their products are still very high quality. Apart from the obvious example of top notch automobiles, I'm mostly familiar with German stage equipment -- microphone stands, wireless systems, instrument cases, etc.--and I've found them to be just really good quality, designed to last, and very usable.
However, I wouldn't completely give up on finding the high school kids, since I was one of those kids. I started working for my dad's employer after my junior year of high school when I passed the AP computer science test. It really gave me a leg up in finding other internships and put me way ahead of my peers at university.
I hope someday to find a person like Jürgen.
I am 33 years old. I simply do not have the time to pursue a full degree, and I frankly had a mixed experience in college/uni and am not necessarily in a hurry to do it again.
At the same time though, I've a strong interest in some potentially academic subjects and I sometimes find myself doubting I can make a go of it purely on self-study, so I'm a little lost for where to go next or if I should even just dive into paid work.
How does this help job creation? Does the author mean the overhead of training interns?
Any delay happened because CS departments, at least in those days, came from either Math or EE departments, the latter in MIT's case. So people initially just got majors in the original field before a separate degree was broken out.
And in the case of MIT and perhaps other departments starting from EE (I get this impression about UCB going only by required undergraduate courses), there is no "pure" CS degree, since the department believes you can't entirely separate it from EE, and vice versa. So students have to do core courses in both (or now 2 ones that combine both), and the degrees are in both, with an emphasis in one or the other or neither. As of later, the latter course was preferred by most majors.
This might work for someone who does not mind this or who has a place to stay while earning less than 1k USD a month for years, but it certainly did not work for me and I choose min wage jobs and self learning instead. Self learners are considered unemployable in Germany, but it gets one a fair chance in the UK or Ireland.
Can you give some specifics?
Europe truely is the "old world", with London being the only place where startups have a somewhat realistic chance of getting funded on reasonable terms, however entry level developer salaries are still poverty level in London for the first 3 years or so, as there are more candidates than jobs, unlike in the US.
All the entry jobs are filled by H1b, and most the non entry jobs as well.
Worked as a consultant/contractor in the Bay Area for ~3 years and GTFO. I made over 100 but less than 150 with 15 years experience.
And standard java dev work seem to start about 50k or thats what the Guardian was offering
I started out on what some might call an apprenticeship technically a professional apprentice – ie the one you did after doing a trade apprenticeship and sittng half way between trade and a university degree – but none of us who where all bar one all working for elite organizations (mostly in the defence and rnd sector) would have said we where NOT! apprentices we where Junior members of the Mechanical engineers thank you very much.
How ever there are some major downsides to the Ultra rigid German school system you get pigenholed into one track or the other at an early age and its I understand very hard to break out an I believe until the EU put its foot down impossible.
The problem with this rigid streaming is you decide very early what kids are going to do in later life and as one German HN commenter said its funny how it is the “brown” skinned Germans who seem to make up most of the vocational schools - and you can see the same in the USA and the UK with Black Kids pigeonholed as vocational track.
For example a mate of mine works for one of the big 4 consultancies and he mentions some BME kids and he said its tragic that the schools aren’t prepping the kids to go into those professions.
You where also asuming the the system Germay has evolved would work in other countrys with aparently no undertsanding of how Industrial relations and socity has evolved.