CS Master's Degrees - US vs. EU Programs?

Monty asks: "I'm currently exploring my options and I've been wondering, is it worthwhile to seek education overseas--specifically the EU? Edsgar Dijkstra was of the opinion, though controversial, that American and European CS programs were fundamentally different (see his later writings in the E.W. Dijkstra Archives). What makes the EU interesting, in that light, is that it seems to have more openly embraced things like functional programming. So, if I want to focus my study on something of a more functional nature, are schools in the EU a better choice? What are the implications of returning to North America for employment with a foreign degree? Do they have to be accredited as proof of validity or are they usually recognized by themselves here in the US?"

Comments

A few points

[timur]

One thing to keep in mind is that European universities consider their 4-year degree to be equivalent to a Bachelor's AND a Master's from our Universities.

I was a student at a German university for a semester. I had received a BS from an American university and wanted to continue my education in Germany. Four universities accepted me (that was the easy part). However, three of them would only give me 2 year's credit for my 4-year degree, making me a Junior in college. The 4th university would only give me 3 semesters' credit, making me a Sophomore!

But that was the least of my problems. Once I got there, I was like a fish out of water. I thought my German was good, but it wasn't anywhere near good enough. I had an impossible time following the classes. Combined with a bunch of other personal problems (e.g. my landlady was a bitch!), I dropped out after a couple months.

One of the reasons why I got into all those universities so easily was because the idea of an American coming to Germany to study Comp Sci was unheard of, so of course they had to let me try.

Frankly, I don't think European universities are better than American universities for any of the computer fields. Sure, there are American universities that are worse than the average German university, but so what?

If you're going to study in Europe, don't do it because you think the schools are better, but that's just stupid. Do it because you want to study in Europe.

misinformation and doubt

[den_erpel]

I've seen a lot of comments which are mainly outdated and ill informed.

First off, indeed, some European countries did not have a Anglo-Saxon Ms/Bs system in the past. I believe some countries adherred to a more German system, where you had the 'candidatures' (after 2 years) and the 'licenses' (after 2 or 3 years; 2 for 'normal' studies, e.g. history, archeology, ... and 3 for engineering and some medicin studies). The candidatures are not really accepted as a final degree, but a way to the licenses (hardly anybody stopped studying after a candidature). These are the broad lines.

One of the formost problems with this was the diversity of the degrees. You typically had 'universities' and 'high schools (=/= american high-schools). For some long term degrees (4/5 years) the degree of a high-school did not get accepted abroad (including some engineering degrees), while the university degrees were universally (pun) accepted.

Then there were the differences between countries... Over the last decade, countries started to simplify and reform their studies. If I remember correctly, Sweden had at some point over 100 different engineering degrees.

More recently (and which has been the cause for quite some protest), all the EU countries signed an agreement to take up the Master/Bachelor system (Bologna Accords). As far as I know, this system is currently being introduced (if you start now, you should be in this system) and is retro-active (if you graduated in the old system, you can call yourself Master).

Of course, there are still discussions going on (and I basically lost the thread by now) between lobbying groups (which are sometimes powerful and recruite off campus) that e.g. think that an engineer of a university should be an MSc while one from a high-school should be a 'simple' Master (and so on and so forth). [some weven wanted to have high-schools only deliver bachelor degrees while leaving masters to the universities]. I will not go into the ramafications of these discussions, it's enough to say that if some ppl had their way, it would be more chaos again.

I just hope the politicians get their act together and for once, take some rational decisions, once and for all making the higher education homogeneous. After all, if there would be an objective difference between degree X from school A and degree Y from university B, I assume recuiters would take up on this (as they already do now for some degrees that are offered on both universities and high-schools).

But in the discussion about degrees, all rationality seems to be gone out the window at some times... Some people seem to like protecting the education and degree with all kinds of laws, thus decoupling 'capabilities' from 'person' but linking 'capabilities' with 'degree/institution'.

As for your question, if you come to the EU for studies, pick a university with a good reputation. You can hardly miss. Another note that I want to add (from my limited experience with US degrees) is that the EU educations (also depending from institution to institution) put more weight on theory (mathematics).