Sharantana

Hi, I am a Spanish student who studied for one year in Austria. I know it is not Germany or Switzerland but there they also speak in German. I was not asked about GRE or TOEFL. They asked me about a kind of signed document from somebody who could tell if I am able to attend to classes in German/English languages and undertand. About the classes in German, I lived different situations. German is not an easy language, so they know. I had like a 30% of classes in English and the rest were in German. Some of the professors let me write the tests in English, and some of them forced me to write in German (I passed them anyway, but I had a B1 German level). There are plenty of oral exams where they will not ask you to speak in German, so do not worry about that. Everybody speaks English in Center-Europe. About having failed any exam in your home university, do not worry. In Europe people fail exams, re-take them and pass, and just the passing mark counts. In some universities you have 6 opportunities or even more (in my home univeristy in Madrid which is one of the tops in Europe you "can fail as many times you want"). About your GPA, in Europe passing exams in general is not as easy as in American Universities. Somebody can have a 7.9/10 and he/she can be the best of the promotion. So, a GPA over 7 will be good enough. There are plenty of places in universities and there is not this kind of competition to get a place. About tuitions, for example in Austria you just pay 15€/20$ for each semester as students unions's fee and that is all. Some professors write their own class notes and offer them for free so normally you do not need to spend too much money in books. In Germany I guess you need to pay like 300€ euros per semester for university. That is really cheap too. Switzerland probably is way more expensive. I like to go there for winter vacations because my sister works there and normally a plain lunch costs like 30-40 franches (same as $) so I can say the cost of living is one of the most expensive of Europe. I would suggest you to apply to Technical Univerties in Germany like the one in Munich, which is the best of the country and is pretty well connected to BMW and other very important international technology companies. Also, I would recommend you my Austrian University, TUGraz, in a beautiful city close to Viena. It is very easy to travel from there and really cheap. Even renting cars is absurdly cheap. And the cost of living in such a student city is really really low (7€ an awesome lunch with huge beer). About work in these countries, I must say there is plenty for engineers. The Center-Europe technology industry is in very good health and they do not have enough technology students so they look for internationals to fill all the positions they need. I hope I helpt you, at leats a little. Sorry for my English, I am still trying to improve it.