[Wild Fragaria]

I have some questions about the graduate program in Germany.  Since there are a few Germans (or anyone who isn't German) on HLP, maybe you  have the answers I am looking for.

What is the college (university) system (in Biology) like in Germany?  In the States, a Bachelor degree program takes 4 years (it's possible to make it 3 years if you work very hard and have a lot of AP exams from high school); 2 years for a Master degree program; 5 years for a PhD program (3 years for PhD if you already a Master degree in the field you wanted to study).

Do you know anyone who completes his or her PhD in just two years?

[aldo_14]

Dunno about Germany, but I believe in the UK it is possible to do a truncated PhD if you have already done significant work in the field (IIRC it's usually 1 year background research followed by 2 years disseratation work; the Uk MSc lasts 12 months and undergraduate degrees like mine last 3 years / 4 with honours)

Specifically for German, this might help; http://www.daad.de/deutschland/index.en.html

[Wild Fragaria]

Thanks aldo.  The link is useful.

[Wanderer]

I really don't know how much it affects the higher education in Germany, but there is sort of a whole EU wide major reform to the higher education going on known as the Bologna's process. Like standardizing credit systems and making the change from one university to another easier than it used to be. As all the universities will use the same credit system all the credits should be accepted everywhere within the EU. It should be ready at 2010.

Bologna process  and other site

I'm happy that i missed it (currently BSc, only one year from MSc), i would have lost most of my academic freedom with the reform. It seems to introduce nearly high school -like system for the BSc students and that is simply horrible (they don't have too much of a freedom when selecting courses). I did (currently) MSc/PhD level studies during my second year and it is not likely to be possible to do so in the future. I might also have missed my astrobiology lectures (very important for a biochemist )

[Wild Fragaria]

I don't see any good will come out from that program unless all the EU members have the same education standard.