RWTH Aachen vs TU Delft

[EnthuFresher]

Hey everyone,

I've been accepted at the RWTH Aachen (MSc. Combustion Engines) and TU Delft (MSc. Solid and Fluid Mechanics). Having a tough time choosing. Facts below.

RWTH Aachen:

I have been living in Germany for the last 5 months working at a university near Hannover on my Bachelor thesis. So I trust the German education system and have a great deal of faith in the practical oriented learning dictum of the Technical Universities. I also got a chance to visit the city of Aachen and it really is a charming and idyllic city to live in. Additionally, I can speak a good deal of (grammaticality bad but coherent) German and have no trouble getting around. The program I have chosen is part of one of RWTH's traditional strengths and hence there's nothing really bad to say about Aachen. Except perhaps that it does not find a very high international ranking (for reasons unknown to me).

TU Delft:

The research at TUD seems to be very fascinating. The number of papers published and citations received also seem to be more in comparison to Aachen. The city location, safety, comfort and costs of living are all comparable to Aachen. International rankings on most surveys put in at least 10-15 places ahead of RWTH. The one thing I have no clue of is the approach toward technology education. The standard-oriented rigor of Germany would be hard to mimic or better. But honestly, I have no clue on this front in the Netherlands and would appreciate some inputs.

In both cases, I have been offered no financial aid and hence will be paying through my own resources.

Delft costs almost double to that of Aachen. But is it worth it all the trouble then?

[Germany2012]

German universities are sometimes but rarely research castles. They are highly underfunded compared to the US.

According to those questionable rankings Germany is a development country when it is about masters in combustion engines.

It makes more sense to study the whole scientific circle in a region and they turn out much stronger.

I can imagine that TU Delft is less anonymous than RWTH Aachen.

RWTH Aachen, TU Munich, TU Dresden and KIT Karlsruhe are recommended as first choice in case you decide for Germany.

I don't know Delft but I guess they are very keen to satisfy you and very good.

http://www.dresden-concept.de

[Duna]

Hi!

I don't know about your field, but everything I heard from Aachen, and everyone I know who has studied there, always speaks highly of research and teaching quality. In Germany it is the most renowned technical university and graduates find jobs all over the world.

However, I never really heard of Delft (I suppose because I'm from Germany and not the Netherlands) but I think money should always be a criterion. In my case it wasn't as important for my decision as other factors were, such as research focus, but still an important issue. If it really costs double I'd definitely give it a good thought.

BUT: I suppose by now you've already made your decision anyways, so I hope you're happy with it, wherever it took you...

[neongolden]

I know this might be a little bit late as a response for the original post, but I wanted to answer maybe for future reference.

 

I cannot speak all that much about the quality of Aachen's research (Being German, I do know that at least in terms of reputation, Aachen's engineering department easily beats any other in Germany... including Munich and Karlsruhe) but I can say something about Aachen as a city:

 

For better or for worse, the city depens STRONGLY on the university, which makes for city- and nightlife that is almost exclusively male and somewhat nerdy. Also, keep in mind that at least in the engineering department, RWTH's policy is to not be super-selective with inital admissions, but to weed out bad seeds by assigning backbreaking amounts of work in the first 2-3 semesters.

[YepUrsi]

I think the best established are TU Munich and RWTH Aachen. However TU Dresden is getting better and better in the rankings these days. As neongolden said, I think Aachen is not too exciting as a city. I would probably go to Munich.

[MagnuzMaximuz]

Bump.

 

Would also love to hear more inputs, regardless of the city's social life. More like international outlook, pedagody and academic reps.