Hey, everybody!
I never had a goal to study abroad, but having studied at a Russian university for 4 years and gone to Germany for an exchange semester, I realized that it would be more interesting to study at a master's degree abroad. In Germany, most universities did not require large tuition fees and the choice of programs was much more than in Moscow. So I started to collect information about what was needed to study abroad.
Why Germany?
German was my first language at university, so I knew it at a fairly high level and did not have to start from scratch to get a language certificate. In order to understand what programs I could be accepted to with the knowledge and documents I had, I went to the exhibition of German education in Moscow
There were not many universities at the exhibition, their list can be found at the link above. Most of the representatives of universities just gave an advertising brochure and told them to look at everything on the university's website when asked about documents and admission conditions. However, some representatives of the programs at once said that for admission to the university it is necessary to have work experience or some test, which I did not pass. One university said that I would be accepted anyway and the diploma I was supposed to receive in July (deadlines for applications were mostly in May-June) could be completed after the deadline. Personally, the exhibition showed me exactly where I wouldn't apply, which narrowed down the scope of the programs under consideration.
Documents for 4 universities.
As a result, I sent the documents to 4 universities: Stuttgart, Bamberg, Weimar and Ilmenau. My parents really wanted me to study in Stuttgart. First of all, they had never heard of Bamberg and Ilmenau. Second, studying in the big city meant getting a good job after university. In addition, many of our acquaintances told us that life and study would certainly be better in West Germany, which is better developed economically.
In my third year I decided to apply for a scholarship for student exchange. When a person who was applying for a scholarship learned that I wanted to study in Jena (which is located in the east of Germany), I started to tell them that everything was destroyed and underdeveloped there, and that I wouldn't be taught anything good at university. The Germans themselves do not share this idea. As for me, my experience shows that there are a lot of strong programmes and universities in East Germany. I found a job at the university after several months of study, so there was no problem with that.
Of the four universities, I wanted to study in Weimar. In this city, the university specializes in creative specialties, the city itself is very pleasant and I found the Media Management program very interesting.
The universities to which I sent documents, I chose directly from the programs and sifted out those where the curriculum seemed uninteresting. However, I was not sure of myself, because in Weimar for admission to the program it was necessary to write an essay of at least 3 A4 pages. I didn't know what criteria would be used to evaluate it and whether I would be able to write it at a good level, given that German is not my native language. I sent the documents to the university on June 15, then until early July the university was silent. In July, I received an e-mail saying that I needed to send a scanned diploma. I did not send a copy of my diploma to all universities at once. It was a mandatory item, but I received the results of the state exams and diploma after the deadlines. All the universities agreed that I would just send in my current grades. I learned about this in advance from them by e-mail. The rest of the documents I certified at a private notary public.
In 2 universities I was refused...
All the universities were silent for a long time, but Stuttgart and Bamberg were the first to send me the rejection by e-mail. Stuttgart did not explain the reason, but the university had a very large competition. My German acquaintances said that the reason was probably an incomplete package of documents. In my case, there was no diploma, and we took those people who already had a diploma and had bonus certificates. I was told from Bamberg that the subjects I studied in Moscow were not enough to be accepted. The problem was that a certain number of credits had to be collected in order to enter the program. (ECTS points) In my diploma, the study load was just in hours, I didn't know very well how to convert hours into credits, and I was sure that there were enough points.
On the Internet, information about how to convert academic hours into credits is rather contradictory. The calculation formula depends on the university and the country in which the person is studying. (Calculation systems in Kazakhstan and Ukraine, for example, may differ from Russian ones) 1 credit may be equal to 20 - 37 credits, i.e. the difference is quite large. On the website of the Higher School of Economics I found the following form of recalculation: "...to determine the total number of hours of study of the main part of the educational program, per 1 credit (ECTS), using the following formula: b = a/e, where a is the number of hours of the main part of the educational program; e is the amount of credits earned by the student per year.
One year of study in a bachelor's degree is equal to 60 credits (it is a kind of standard for modern programs). In order to calculate the weight of one loan, you need to divide the number of academic hours per year by 60. Usually, the diploma contains the final amount of credits earned, which can be used to calculate them.
As a result, I was taken to Weimar and Ilmenau, which I was very happy to do. I learned about it by e-mail. Both universities were supposed to send me an official invitation, but there was another problem. To apply for a visa, you have to sign up very early, more than a month in advance, which I did. At the time I had to go to submit my application, I only received the original invitation from Ilmenau, but the student visa is for a specific university. When you get it, the name of the university is written on it. After discussing what I should do, the embassy agreed that the university should send an invitation to the embassy's website. This was enough because the letter would have come from the official address of the university.
At the end of September I came to Weimar and started studying there, but from the very beginning I realized that I had made a wrong choice. The program was new, so the teachers experimented and did not follow a specific curriculum. Some might like it, but for me the wording was, "I don't know what you're going to learn, we'll find out during the discussion" seemed strange. There were too many experiments at this university for me and I felt like I wouldn't learn anything new. All we did was discuss who was teaching what and what they were saying. Learning seemed too simple and meaningless to me. This led me to go from Weimar to Ilmenau for a lecture to see how they taught there. The professors were fine with me attending their classes. In the end, I liked Ilmenau and in November I moved there officially. I found out all the formalities beforehand. The training part was in agreement. They told me that a month of missed classes wasn't that much and I could catch up.
Study visa.
Strange as it may seem, there were no problems with the visa, and it was reworked in Germany for the university in Ilmenau. The university itself was not against it, because I had an invitation from the very beginning. When I was studying in Weimar, it seemed to me that I would not be able to transfer from one university to another because of formalities and visa problems, but I even managed to find a room in a dormitory a month after the start of classes.
Some of my fellow students also moved from other universities here, so these cases are not uncommon. Although in Russia you get a temporary visa that says the name of the university you will study at, when you arrive in Germany you need to reschedule your time at the embassy to get a German national visa. It is in the period when you have not received a long-term visa that you can transfer to another university without additional difficulties. As I was told at the university, problems can arise if you have studied at the university for more than a year. But I think each case is individual. You just need to talk to the university in advance and write an e-mail to the embassy. Now I have been studying at Ilmenau for a year now on the Media Economy Program and I am very satisfied with my choice.