Martin & Marseille

Cryptic title? Well, it's not correct, anyway. I will write a comparison, that's true, but it's extremely subjective.
First of all, I can't really compare the universities as such. I can only compare my personal experience in both of them. Which is, of course, heavily biased towards Karlsruhe because I spent more time there. In other words, this will be completely unreliable as a objective comparison.

First of all, let's have a look at the systems in general. In Germany, in order to study at a university, you need Abitur (what you get when you graduate from High School, usually at the age of 18-19). For an engineer, the formalities are simply. You can basically choose you university, fill in a form or two and you're in. A Master's equivalent degree (which used to be the Diplom, now we do a Master too) typically takes around 5 years to complete. Well, that's what the universities say. The guidelines for exams are really quite loose, and most students take longer to complete their degree. EE students at my uni finish on average after 11.5 semesters, while the official number of semesters you should need (We call it Regelstudienzeit) is 10. As I said, the rules are simple: You have to do a required number of exams, a diploma thesis and other stuff like 6 months of internship. You rarely have to turn up to lectures - if you can pass the exam without lectures, that's fine.
The first two years are pretty much the same for everyone (who decides to stick to the suggested curriculum) and consist of basics in mathematics, physics, logic, electronics and such lark. You may take up to 6 semesters to do all these exams, but you can also start taking other exams before you've finished. One important reason for this period is to reduce the number of students to a level which can be more easily coped with (not officially, of course). The number of students usually drops around 30-50% in my degree. Plus, if you've managed this phase you know you're clever enough to manage the rest. After that, you can start to diversify. The longer you study, the more freedom you get in choosing your subjects. Then, when you've done enough exams and you feel like it, you can do your diploma thesis which concludes your degree.

In France, the system is quite different. First of all, the universities as we have them here are not exactly the top of the educational system. The top notch comes from the Grandes Ecoles, and the Ecoles Centrales have quite good reputation. Getting into one of these is not that easy (except for Erasmus students). First of all, after you've done your bac (which is the equivalent to the Abitur, but French students are usually a year younger when they graduate), you can either go to uni or apply for the Classe Preparatoire (well, there are other options, but let's stick to these. Besides, I don't really know the system that well). If you want to go to a Ecole Centrale or likewise, you need Classe Prepa.
According to the people I asked, this must be the most horrible time in a students life. It usually goes on for 2 years and, like our Vordiplom (the first phase I talked about), teaches basics in maths, physics or whatever you need for your university (It depends on what you want to do after Classe Prepa, if you want to do economics you get other courses). I have no reason not to believe all the people who told me they had practically no free time, got bad marks no matter how good they were and so on.
Plus, it costs. You can't just sign up, you need to pay up, too. Obviously, you can't work the same time... so poor guys without scholarships will have a hard time here. But the thing is, if you pass, you really know some stuff. I had class with 12 other Prepa graduates, and most of them could do Fourier Transforms in their heads. Now, I personally believe that this is not exactly a skill worth having, but it does speed up lectures if basic mathematics can be considered understood.

The degree at Ecole Centrale takes three years. Practically everything is planned out for you, more like school than a German university - including sports and languages. The education is way more broad than that of a German engineer: There are courses for economics and even human resource management. Everything is taught, including programming. Most of these things are considered non-scientific in Germany, which means: students can teach themselves. So, this is a big difference: At Ecole Centrale, students are a lot more in classes, but they have less stuff to do at home than in Germany.
Before getting to year three, there are very little choices to be made: which languages you want to learn, which type of sport you'll do, little things like this.

Another reason this comparison is pretty subjective is the huge difference between degrees. In Germany, I am an EE student, with very little non-engineer subjects. After graduating, I'm supposed to know a little of all EE subjects and a great deal about one specific EE topic. Graduates from ECM (Ecole Centrale Marseille) are called Ingenieurs Generaliste - generalist engineer. The idea is, you know the basics of everything: computer science, chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering, programming, electronics, signal processing... and so on. In 3rd year, you can specialise and get 6 months of subject-specific courses - but also courses everyone has to take, management stuff and that lark. You are educating future leaders, not specialists. It probably compares better to our Wirtschaftsingenieur, a mix between economics and engineering.

What I miss in Germany's universities (and possibly had too much of in France's) is loyalty towards the Alma Mater. When the University of Karlsruhe was declared 'Elite', everyone took the mick out of it. When ECM went 'Centrale', everyone was proud like someone very proud. In France, the effect is that the university creates a huge network: former students of this (or other) Ecoles Centrales bond. If your degree says 'Ecole Centrale' on the top, people won't start having a look at your grades.

Extra-curricular activities are tightly integrated into the Ecole-life, too. Of course these are not compulsory, but the main principle is to create a tight group anyway, so most people show up to at least some of the clubs, parties, concerts, theatre performances and whatever else there is. German students usually do a lot of extra-curricular things too, but all the organisations are a lot more independent; many people often do things in clubs which have nothing to do with the university at all. Again, it's more individual here and less a sense of community. I could not decide which is better...

I live quite near to a patch of green called the Westpark. It's nothing special, an ordinary city park with a couple of lakes and lots of grass, not something I'd show friends who are around to Munich for a weekend. Mostly residents go there to relax and sit in the sun, as I do sometimes. And yet, I believe it may be used to show some typical German characteristics.

The one thing that marks the place as typical German is, of course, the signs that are all over the place. I've never come across so many signs in one place even anywhere in Germany - it makes me re-think my rules hypothesis. Here's some of my favourites.



These were the first signs to get my attention: 'Tobogganing forbidden' and 'Tobogganing slope (Use at your own peril)'. The reason this caught my interest was the realisation that here people are told things when things are allowed and when they're forbidden. Usually, you'd expect one at put signs up for the other - or not?

By the way, I tried getting the slope on the picture so you could get an idea of the danger the tobogganing here implies. Clearly, these signs are manifested spoilsports - all the interesting signs had the 'Verboten' signs up.



Definitely one of my favourites: 'Model (RC) boats are permitted here'. A sign of German liberalism? Probably not, the second sign already restricts the first: 'Additional rules for the lake in the Westpark. Only boats with reasonable speed are permitted. The use of racing boats, i.e. boats which have the purpose of going a maximum speed, is forbidden. Acoustic add-ons like sirens or music from cassette recorders or similar is forbidden.' A speed limit for model boats?



Of course we can't have that much fun all over the place. It struck me that 'Verboten' must take an important place in tourist guides for Germany. Still, we supply life-belts for a pond which is at best waist-high... I'm not quite sure what the empty signs are for, but I imagine they can be used to flexibly forbid something else. The green sign on the bottom right intrigued me, as well. It doesn't simply forbid people to feed the animals, but with a high biological precision it explains why (e.g.: 'The higher output of excrement of the animals will over-fertilise the water with nitrates and phosphates. This will lead to a negative change of the water quality...' and so on.).



Protecting nature is obviously quite important. Here we're stopped from walking across a wetland - although it looks more like a place no-one could be bothered to mow. I also like the one on the right 'Don't go on the ice or into the reeds - water birds and fish need their peace'.



The grill zone! Everyone understands this sign. There is, however, no sign anywhere saying barbecues are forbidden. I suppose they expect residents to read the Münchner Grüngartenverordnung or whatever, because obviously barbecues need to be explicitly allowed. Don't tell me other countries do it the same way.

The one on the right goes on for ages why we need to be careful concerning all the nature. I've seen signs like these elsewhere - but I get the impression that here, they're actually read.



'Dogs are only permitted on the paths, on a not too long leash.'. I'm surprised the length isn't specified. By the way: when I took this picture, I was standing slightly clumsily on the path, leaning against my bike. Another biker dashed around the corner and nearly ran into me. He started swearing 'Oh putain... quel con!'. I thought this quite an amusing thing to happen as I was working on my former Marseille blog, so I took this as a good sign. I had so much fun in France, I'll take a few 'cons' without being offended . It occurred to me that this guy might be the reason for the sign on the right, for which I had so far not found a use: 'Cyclists, go slowly! Dangerous curves! Take care of the pedestrians.' I tried getting some of the dangerous curves on the picture. This also was the only sign I could find with traces of vandalism, although some others were quite bent.


So, what does this mean? I don't really want to jump to conclusions, but one might interpret this as evidence that German's like their stuff well regulated. Perhaps - and this it not that unlikely - Bavaria is exceptionally German in this respect, although of course they'd never calls themselves German.

The French cuisine has a very high reputation in Germany, definitely so near the border but probably all over. It's justified, French people just have loads of good ideas to turn loads of stuff (including some slimy little animals with a low speed or green ones with an affinity for jumping) into really classy meals. Some things, like cheese or wine are also a very important export factor.
The French know this. I'd bet that most restaurants are genuine French ones (sounds obvious, but how many restaurants you've been to actually serve and specialise on German or [put in own nationality] food?). However, I found the reputation slightly overrated. I suppose your average French full-time mum can still do the most wonderful things if you get invited around. Among students, I mostly saw the same affection for food as amongst German ones.
French wine selection is incredible. A huge French supermarket will have several kilometres of wine shelves, a full range of prices, regions and tastes. This is fine as long as you don't want any foreign wines. Some people French always think their wine is the best - I say they don't know there is any other. Amongst the aforementioned infinite lengths of shelves I spotted a section 'Produits du monde' (Products of the world), about 70cm wide. 70% of these wines were French, too (well, I suppose France is a part of the world), but no German or even South American ones to be seen. If I had to stick with one sort of wines for the rest of my life it would probably be French, but the world of wine would not be the same without a good Chilean, Spanish or German one.
The cheese however is unrivalled. The reason we get good cheeses in Germany is because we generally quite happily import stuff from all over the world (including vocab), but the first time I went to a German supermarket the shopkeeper and several employees came running to see if I was fine lying in front of the cheese counter, crying.
Funny French cuisine hasn't managed to be more successful outernationally. How many French restaurants do you know outside France? Yes, they exist - but in Germany they're way down the list after Italian, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Spanish, Mexican, Indian and probably even German. Well, they brought us the Crêpe.
As I wrote earlier, French bakers have an important role in their country. So, is the average French baker better than the German? NO, he's not. True, your baguette, croissant and pain-au-chocolat isn't the same here, but even the big baking chains smell wonderfully of brezels and good German bread, of which the variety is incredible. The first thing I bought here was half a loaf of bread which cost more than your average Döner Kebap and which still isn't empty even though I had some of it every night, enjoying it immensely.