I'm not sure how the EU/not EU thing will affect you, so I can't help you there.

How are grades calculated where you are? Do you use GPA or some other metric? Can you get a copy of your transcript, not for us, but for your own information on where you actually stand academically? That might help you figure out not only what your strengths and weaknesses are academically, but which subjects to pursue and schools to apply to.

(July 25, 2015 at 4:38 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote:  And yes, Romanians do seem to have it hard sometimes, among fellow Europeans. Maybe it's because of the whole gypsy stigma not rubbing off. But I don't think us Moldovians have the same Image-Problem exactly, even though we share a curious history, a culture and a language with the Romanians*. For one, nobody seems to know about us existing in the first place. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes the woman I spoke to said that people had a difficult time differentiating between Romanians and the Roma.

I was thinking about this a bit more, and if you study in Germany then the racism actually works for you because the Germans really value their own qualifications over those of other countries. There is a real difficulty in getting qualifications outside of Germany actually recognised, but then they value qualifications over experience in Germany. So if you study in Germany you will actually have an advantage over someone from a richer country that hasn't.

(July 25, 2015 at 1:02 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: The plan is to go and work for a year so I can get myself through college, and, if I'm going to some place like Germany or Austria, to also learn the language at the same time. 

Our public Universities (Austria) don't charge for attending. I think there's a limit on how many foreign students may attend though. It varies from from faculty to faculty, so it would be helpful to know what kind of education you had in mind.

(July 25, 2015 at 5:49 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: I'm not sure how the EU/not EU thing will affect you, so I can't help you there.

How are grades calculated where you are?  Do you use GPA or some other metric?  Can you get a copy of your transcript, not for us, but for your own information on where you actually stand academically?  That might help you figure out not only what your strengths and weaknesses are academically, but which subjects to pursue and schools to apply to.

As far as I know, whether I hold European citizenship or not, is immensely important to how feasible it is to work abroad[and maybe even to study]. Seeing how I might have to work for a while, to save enough in order to support myself while studying, this is kind of important - I am merely aknowledging that I have it, though, so there's no problem there.

This is exactly why I didn't include anything but vague information about my grades. I don't have that information readily available in front of me, as yet. Thanks for the tip though, I'll get on calculating my GPA as soon as I possibly can. But concerning what my strenghts and weaknesses are, I definitely don't need my own grades to tell me that - at least I don't, I'm sure others might [have]be[en] in different situations[/different systems of educations]. I will definitely not decide on which schools to apply to or what subjects to pursue based on what I did great in school at. This is redundant info, for that specific purpose.

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(July 25, 2015 at 6:06 pm)abaris Wrote:

(July 25, 2015 at 1:02 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: The plan is to go and work for a year so I can get myself through college, and, if I'm going to some place like Germany or Austria, to also learn the language at the same time. 

Our public Universities (Austria) don't charge for attending. I think there's a limit on how many foreign students may attend though. It varies from from faculty to faculty, so it would be helpful to know what kind of education you had in mind.

Hey, thanks! I've got relatives living&working over there. I might go and work there for a year, actually, and also intensively learn the language - even if I decide on Germany, in the end. But I may even still consider Austria over Germany for school, I'm not sure yet. I did live in Austria for a very short while, but I never even visited Germany. I actually even went to school there.

Literature/Philosophy, Law/Economics, Neuroscience/Computer Science. Any of these would be fine, I guess. That's in order of personal preference.

(July 25, 2015 at 6:07 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: Literature/Philosophy, Law/Economics, Neuroscience/Computer Science. Any of these would be fine, I guess. That's in order of personal preference.

I think, it would be best if you look up the particular university and faculty on the web. Their pages are multilingual. I'm not really sure about access restrictions. I left university 25 years ago. We weren't even in the EU back then and the Iron curtian had just fallen, so a lot of things have probably changed.

(July 25, 2015 at 6:01 pm)I_am_not_mafia Wrote:

(July 25, 2015 at 4:38 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote:  And yes, Romanians do seem to have it hard sometimes, among fellow Europeans. Maybe it's because of the whole gypsy stigma not rubbing off. But I don't think us Moldovians have the same Image-Problem exactly, even though we share a curious history, a culture and a language with the Romanians*. For one, nobody seems to know about us existing in the first place. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes the woman I spoke to said that people had a difficult time differentiating between Romanians and the Roma.

I was thinking about this a bit more, and if you study in Germany then the racism actually works for you because the Germans really value their own qualifications over those of other countries. There is a real difficulty in getting qualifications outside of Germany actually recognised, but then they value qualifications over experience in Germany. So if you study in Germany you will actually have an advantage over someone from a richer country that hasn't.

Well, as I said, I wouldn't exactly face the same problems though-I don't think-, since I could always fall back on my [actual] Moldovian citizenship. I could easily pretend I'm Romanian in everyday rapports, though, seeing how I can easily nail the accent and am able to speak the language 'correctly'- something a lot of my compatriots might/do have a problem with, what with all the aforementioned Russian influence and all. This is because I lived in Bucharest[capital of Romania] for a while, when I was 3-6 years old, and kept visiting relatives from over there during the summers. Anyway, I didn't really understand how this particular strand of quasi-racism/xenophobia might end up in my favour. Mind explaining the connection between that and the current german zeitgeist again?

Nevermind. I think you meant it would just be less of a problem over there, than anywhere else. If that's the case, I got it, and no need to respond to that. Thanks.

Still, I don't think any of this would matter. I'm not exactly the type to make a fuss over my own cultural heritage or nationalistic feelings. I'm more of a secular humanist than anything else, really - but I guess one might argue that's because I don't really have anything to be head over heels proud about, in that sense. I don't think it would come up much though, if only I didn't let it. But who knows, really. There's all types of situations [and employers].

(July 25, 2015 at 6:07 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: Literature/Philosophy, Law/Economics, Neuroscience/Computer Science. Any of these would be fine, I guess. That's in order of personal preference.

In terms of subject, Literature/Philosophy won't get you a job, Philosophy certainly won't. There's a joke that philosophy teaches you to be philosophical enough to cope with your job in McDonalds. Literature will at least demonstrate proficiency with the language and maybe you can become a certified translator. Translation work is licensed in Germany. We had to get out birth and degree certificates translated and have an official translator present when we got married. This is required even when one of you is a native speaker and the other is only slightly less than fluent.

If you choose Law then remember that each country has their own legal system, so you would basically be deciding which country you are going to be living the rest of your life at the age of 19.

Economics will probably give you some useful transferable skills but you'd have to ask someone with an economics degree for their opinion.

Neuroscience although interesting won't actually give you a job, unless you carry on and do some postgraduate work and eventually do a PhD. And then you'll have to be lucky to do something worthwhile with all your qualifications. It's not just down to hard work and talent.

Computer science will definitely get you work though in software engineering because of the skills shortage. I call software engineering a black hole of careers because once you slip past the event horizon you just end up in that career for the rest of your life. It sucks in the natural scientists as well. Software engineering is known to pay very well in Germany if you are a fluent German speaker and a man. If you studied Neuroscience, you'd probably end up working as a software engineer.

(July 25, 2015 at 6:32 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: Anyway, I didn't really understand how this particular strand of quasi-racism/xenophobia might end up in my favour. Mind explaining the connection between that and the current german zeitgeist again?

I meant because you'd have a German qualification which would count for a lot in Germany.

Here is a website with some rankings and information for European Universities.

I looked at the University of Bucharest and Johannes Kepler University Linz, and they seem pretty cool. (Bucharest for the literature/philosophy side, and JKL for the sciences side.

I lean towards the sciences, and Kepler is a personal hero of mine...

(July 25, 2015 at 6:41 pm)I_am_not_mafia Wrote:

(July 25, 2015 at 6:07 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: Literature/Philosophy, Law/Economics, Neuroscience/Computer Science. Any of these would be fine, I guess. That's in order of personal preference.

In terms of subject, Literature/Philosophy won't get you a job, Philosophy certainly won't. There's a joke that philosophy teaches you to be philosophical enough to cope with your job in McDonalds. Literature will at least demonstrate proficiency with the language and maybe you can become a certified translator. Translation work is licensed in Germany. We had to get out birth and degree certificates translated and have an official translator present when we got married. This is required even when one of you is a native speaker and the other is only slightly less than fluent.

If you choose Law then remember that each country has their own legal system, so you would basically be deciding which country you are going to be living the rest of your life at the age of 19.

Economics will probably give you some useful transferable skills but you'd have to ask someone with an economics degree for their opinion.

Neuroscience although interesting won't actually give you a job, unless you carry on and do some postgraduate work and eventually do a PhD. And then you'll have to be lucky to do something worthwhile with all your qualifications. It's not just down to hard work and talent.

Computer science will definitely get you work though in software engineering because of the skills shortage. I call software engineering a black hole of careers because once you slip past the event horizon you just end up in that career for the rest of your life. It sucks in the natural scientists as well. Software engineering is known to pay very well in Germany if you are a fluent German speaker and a man. If you studied Neuroscience, you'd probably end up working as a software engineer.

I know about how little work I'd get as a non-published diletante of philosophy/literature. I was only being honest. These are the areas I love most - I know how huge of a risk I would take if I were to decide going with them, though. I am definitely not looking to become a translator, or anything along those lines, except maybe for the occasional freelancing(who knows?).

I know, albeit vaguely, about the [inter]national particularities[ and differences] when talking about law and how knowledge of them might be paramount and relates to where you actually studied it. I'll have to consult my brother more on this, who is currently earning his keep as a law consultant for a transnational American-based NGO, right here, in Moldova - he might lose the job in the immediate future though[or at the very least be downgraded and start being underpayed], so he's not exactly the poster boy for making a case against what you just said, but still, I'll have to ask him about this, since he's the law expert in the family.

I don't have that much of an interest in Economics, but it's there just in case.

I am only interested in neuroscience/computer science for... basically what you do, I guess. LOL. I'm not sure those are what I need[or want] though. I might be wrong about that. But I'm sure I'll find out once I decide on the country/university.*

*Let me note that when it comes to this I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. So please forgive me if I don't make any sense at all.