Expectations before moving to Germany

Hi Folks,

I've been reading the OZ/Germany thread with great interest, because I'm preparing to give a welcome talk at work to some folks visiting from Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia. It would really help me to know what their expectations are, so that I can be prepared for any questions they may have.

So, can I ask you folks from overseas, especially, OZ, NZ and Indonesia: what expectations did you have before moving to Germany? Were there any misconceptions, or was everything exactly as you expected?

I'm getting kind of nervous about this welcome talk , so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!!

Can't remember having too many expectations of Germany before I came here, well, outside of the obvious like: I will have to speak German most of the time, winter will be bloody cold, the bureaucracy will be frustrating to deal with, the beer will taste good and if I'm lucky it will snow at Christmas time. Pretty much all of that turned out to be true.

On the misconception side of things, I underestimated how hard it would be to get people willing to sign work papers for me (as a non-EU person). It was (and still is) frustrating to be constantly told 'hey we like you, you've got the right qualifications, your German is ok, but do you have a British or Irish passport or a German husband?' I knew before coming here that finding a job in Germany would not be easy (I was already well aware of the unemployment figures) but it can be frustrating to come so close to landing jobs only to be told in the end 'sorry wrong nationality'. If you are determined enough, you will eventually find someone willing to take a gamble on you but they don't come around often. If I were a less stubborn individual I would have gone home 2 years ago.

The only other misconception was that I would get to go skiing all the time!

I remember my expectations although they seem silly now. Firstly I thought I was moving to a warm country (ok I never was much good at geography), more importantly I thought I was coming somewhere full of boring, humourless, misurable ***ts who would come out with stuff like "for you Tommy, zee var is over", but the money was good so I took the plunge.

Needless to say within a couple of weeks I realised that I had been mislead all my life by the media. I found the people to be friendly and fun and the main thing that struck me was the cheap cost and high standard of living. It might be different for people from down under, but it beats living in Britain!

I based my initial opinion of German women upon a girl I knew in high school, he was fat and nerdy, and I thought most German women are like that. When I first went there myself, wawwaweewaa, German women are hot.

I bet you were suprised to find out that she was a he.

Before coming here, I was under the impression that the German health service was actually quite good. Along with the myth about public transport being ultra-punctual, it was not really the case atall to be honest.

don't diss the health system dude...it's heaven compared to the NHS...God give me back ze German healthsystem where I can actually get an appointment while I'm still sick.

Don't know re transport being on time...I always just went on a pot-luck basis...never bothered with timetables.

At least in this country you can just go along and be confident that a bus or a train will turn up soon.

@Kay: Beware the comparison, you may end up in therapy.

Well I'm a Kiwi and I have been here for 11 months, soon to be moving to Vancouver when my visa runs out in a months time. I'm not really sure what I expected really, I guess yummy food, lots of beer, you can drive fast, lots of crazy bureaucracy, beautiful old buildings, history popping up at every turn, angry people walking around with furrowed brows and lots of people who can speak English.

I get asked ALL the time, why the hell did I choose Germany as a country to work as an Au Pair. I guess it’s the whole romanticism of the fairytales we all hear as children, that planted Germany in my mind at such a young age. NZ is quite a young country, and no building in my home town is older than 100 years, so coming here was fantastic for me. I find the people are completely misjudged. Sure they don’t walk around smiling and asking ‘How are you’ all the time, like they do at home, but if you stop them and ask for help – they’ll usually bend over backwards to help you, well in my experience anyway. I’ve found they’re sticklers for rules, and are quick to tell you you’re wrong, but then are more than happy to turn around and break a few themselves.

My biggest surprises?? I guess how liberal the Germans are with nudity. How crazy everything was in world cup. How relaxed the police are. How difficult it was for me to make friends – not so easy when you look after kids all day. How many people I’ve met who have actually been to my tiny home town in NZ. How cheap it is to travel around.

I have truly loved my time here, and will be devastated when it is time to leave, in a few short weeks. Just when the weather is getting so good, and the beer gardens are calling me. But now it is time for my next adventure to begin, and start my life over in Canada.

I cannot really answer what my expectations were before I moved to Germany because I've always lived here... but I wanted to add:

The less high your expectations the less likely you will get disappointed. Maybe that could help them as well.

Regarding my expectations of moving to Germany, I didn't have any expectations but just wanted to get settled in as soon as possible then buy a fast german car. I must say by not speaking the language I felt a little daunted. But after living in Europe for over tens years my experiences have far exceeded my wildest imagination and dreams of making a life here.

Everyone said it´s expensive and very clean here. Not the case on both counts, as I now know. Germany seems to be cheaper than Britain these days and most towns certainly aren´t cleaner.

my sentiments exactly...lookin forward to my visit for the WHOLE month of November...

Totally disagree that most German towns are not cleaner than their British counterparts. Of course it depends on the financial situation of the city council, but my experience is that towns are very clean compared to other European countries icl. Britain. Especially deposit on one way plastic bottles, working recycling systems and a good environmental consciousness make sure that its much cleaner.

I did have one expectation that wasn't filled at all. It probably only applies to students.
Punctuality, a lot of Germans have it, anyone at the University doesn't.

cum tempore ... sine tempore

Academic Quarter (German: Akademisches Viertel) is used by German universities as the quarter between the per schema or program defined time for a lecture or lesson, and the actual minute it will start.

The quarter system dates back to the days when the ringing of the church bell was the general method of time keeping. When the bell rung full hour, you had 15 minutes to attend the lecture. Thus a lecture set out to 10 a clock, starts exactly 10:15.

Als Akademisches Viertel bezeichnet man die Viertelstunde, die eine Vorlesung an einer deutschen Hochschule später beginnt als im Vorlesungsverzeichnis angegeben. So fängt beispielsweise eine Vorlesung, die mit 9 Uhr oder 9 Uhr c.t. (lat.: cum tempore, mit Zeit) angegeben ist, tatsächlich erst um 9:15 Uhr an. Falls eine Veranstaltung pünktlich um 9:00 Uhr beginnen soll, wird die Uhrzeit üblicherweise mit 9 Uhr s.t. (lat.: sine tempore, ohne Zeit) angegeben. Die Angabe "c.t." kann im Vorlesungsverzeichnis auch weggelassen werden, da vorausgesetzt wird, dass die Studierenden die universitäre Praxis kennen und nahezu alle Vorlesungen und Seminare eine Viertelstunde später beginnen ...

Am I the only one here who was surprised by a lower standard of living than I had expected?

Bipa, I was somewhat surprised as well.

That's interesting. In which way were your expectations not met? (other than supermarkets )

In what way is your standard of living lower?

I came here with an open mind and did not really take all things in to consideration before moving here.The comparison was:-

1. came here for a job = unemployed in England
2.Earning money = had none in England.
3.All my German experiences were based on the comic Victor when i was younger = Nothing like it at all.
The people you are giving the talk to should expect knock backs and not to start thinking bugger this i am off back home every time something comes up.
Give Germany at least 2 years before going back home.
Been here 25 years now and would only ever think of going back to Blighty if i came in to some serious money.

We're talking subjective observations based on my personal experience. I don't mean this to be a bitch-fest, nor am I really complaining. There are no hard facts to back me up, only my own anecdotal evidence. Didn't have as much of a problem when moving from Canada to Switzerland, even though that was my big change from urban to rural living. I started learning to speak German in Switzerland, so language wasn't a huge barrier when I came here. My biggest mistake was in thinking that Germany was similar to the German section of Switzerland.

I had imagined that most homes are pretty up-to-date and modernized. Now have realized that for various reasons, many homes still don't have central heating. Of those that do, quite a few have unheated bedrooms and hallways. There's a lack of proper ventilation, bad plumbing and sometimes even dangerous wiring. My house in Toronto was built around 1942, had forced air central heating and air conditioning which wasn't considered unusual. We've recently bought a house here with a geothermal heat pump system so I don't understand why so many people continue to live in what I consider to be more primitive conditions.

Roads and infrastructure. I had assumed that the land of the autobahn would have a decent road network. Granted, the narrow roads meander wherever the cows wandered 1000 years ago, causing interesting curves and changes in direction. Got used to that in Switzerland. But I was surprised at the bad condition of many roads and the lack of proper maintenance. A German friend on a local town council tells me that since reunification, most of the infrastructure budget has been allocated in bringing the East up to standard, leaving the West to deteriorate.

Shopping: always a favourite subject, eh? I had three large modern shopping malls within easy driving distance in Switzerland. (One was just across the border in Austria.) The only comparable shopping mall with many stores under one roof that I've seen so far is in downtown Stuttgart. There was also a small Galleria in Reutlingen. But there just aren't nice large shopping malls like I've been used to, where I can get everything on my extended shopping list in one go. Driving from town to town to get everything I need is time consuming, bad for the environment, and expensive in terms of gas and parking. Also, the variety of goods for sale is more limited than in either Canada or Switzerland. I stock up on favourite brands when visiting friends in Switzerland.

Cost of living: using our own disposable income as an indicator, and given that we're earning more (before tax) now, it is more expensive to live in Germany than in Canada or Switzerland. I'm talking about the overall cost of living. Sure, certain specific items in Germany are cheaper, but when you look at the big picture, including taxes, then you need a higher gross income to live comfortably in Germany as compared to Canada or Switzerland.

Quality of work is often lacking. For example, our sports car is a bit rare and exotic, getting on in years and needs regular maintenance and service. Over the first three years in Germany, we had work done at two different official dealerships using original parts. Expensive, but we expected that. We knew that keeping this car would cost more in Germany than in Switzerland. Higher taxes, higher insurance, higher gas prices etc. What we didn't expect was shoddy workmanship. The car started having some serious problems and I finally had to take it back to our original dealer in Switzerland. He told me the car looked like it hadn't been serviced in three years. The brakes were shot, the water pump was in bad condition, the brand new radiator hose was spliced with a cheap piece of plastic instead of being the proper hose etc etc. And we'd just gotten TÜV! The last dealer had kept the car for a week, and then told me he didn't know what the problem was and told me to keep on driving it and wait and see. Not what I want to hear when I know the brakes are fading. We ended up having to get new rotors in addition to pads, plus a bunch of other stuff. An expense that could have easily been avoided had the car been properly serviced during our first three years in Germany. I got to see all the parts, and there was no fudging by my Swiss mechanic just to get some extra money from me. He's busy enough.

Good customer service is hard to find. Keeping with my car example, my Swiss mechanic would always put the car up on the hoist, then either he or another mechanic would first do a basic visual inspection with me right there observing everything. I wasn't treated like a dumb blond, but given full explanations and answers to any questions I might have. Options would be discussed fully with me, while here in Germany the mechanics often will ignore me and only want to speak with my husband. I do most of the servicing because I have more time than Hubby. But to have a mechanic ask for Hubby's phone number to discuss a car problem when I'm standing right there was really insulting. Also, in Switzerland my car would be vacuumed and washed before being given back, no matter whether it was a simple tire change or a major servicing. Here even the ashtrays don't get emptied. And I miss the coffee and pastries that I was always offered at the garage. Minor, but an indication of excellent customer service.

I first heard the German terms "man's work" and "women's work" when we came to Germany. I was surprised that gender discrimination is so prevalent, since I hadn't faced it in Switzerland nor in Canada. I had often joked about being a dumb blond, but here for the first time I was facing such preconceptions in reality. Quite the eye opener.

The school system in Germany is a disaster. The public school teachers are often mini-dictators and act like little gods. Another personal example: My niece is now 16. She has a mild touch of dyslexia but is very bright. When she was 10, the teacher recommended the lowest level of schooling although she had decent marks. My sister-in-law fought the decision, but was forced to place her child in the assigned school. The new teacher couldn't figure out what the child was doing there as she had a 1.8 average that year without putting in much effort. He suggested that she be bumped up to realschule. The school board insisted that the girl be forced to repeat the year at realschule, while we argued that she should be allowed to continue to the next grade and we could use tutoring if she needed any help to catch up. No go. Finally we gave up, and the girl was placed in a private boarding school. She didn't repeat the year and managed just fine. She's doing so well that she is looking forward to doing her abitur and going on to university. Not bad for a kid who was told at age 10 that she was too stupid for realschule.

As always, if you've got enough money then you can overcome almost any difficulty. It's just heartbreaking when I hear stories of other kids being forced into bad basic schools and given no chance at a good future. I've tutored a child of Russian immigrants who was quite intelligent, at least realschule calibre, yet she was in a class with mostly other immigrants and being taught stuff so basic that she'd be fit only for low-income manual labour after "graduating". She was preparing for an entrance exam to a secondary school, and much of the material had never been covered in her regular classroom work. I also got in trouble when teaching her alternate methods for solving math problems. It seems that in Germany, it isn't enough just to get the correct answer, you are also required to only use the correct methodology. Yet does it really matter whether I add 1+2+3 or 3+1+2? Apparently, in Germany it does, and you won't get full marks if you do things a different way, at least in math class. Very frustrating.

I've adapted my expectations to be more in tune with the reality of living in Germany. You could say that I've taken the AA prayer as my new general rule for living. Even though I'm not an alcoholic, I think it's extremely applicable to expats living here:

God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and the Wisdom to know the difference.

miwild, I understand that the classes do start 15 mins after they say they are supposed to, and they usually end 15 mins early too. The problem I had is that sometimes professors aren't there for their office hours when they are supposed to be, sometimes not showing up at all, and some classes I have had started up to 45 mins later, which is forgivable since it is the semester start, but still. Also it is really weird working with the office hours at the university, at my college in the states you could talk to the professors any time they weren't having class and they stayed on campus all day. Here one has to really search to find out that one professor is maybe there for 2 hours a day, one day a week to talk to students. Thanks for your reply.

I expected to only be here for 3 months. That was nearly 10 years ago.

This place is too anal. Driving me crackers. Starting to feel that I have done my sentence.

Jake, part of it may also be how universities in Germany are funded, as opposed to the States.
I am currently studying in Spain, and there is some sort of academic quarter here as well, except it depends on the professor whether they put it at the beginning or the end of the class and sometimes they split it up (so sometimes a class will start at exactly the hour it says in the Vorlesungsverzeichnis, sometimes 5 mins later, sometimes 10, sometimes 15). Professors here also have office hours, by the way, and so did my professors at my university in the States!

Right, and I know Hamburg is going through some tough times because of changing systems and problems with the Studiengebuehr (I think that's the right one, the tuition payment). I was just saying that I was spoiled in the states, and my expectations here hit me harder. I go to a private college in the states, so it was a very different change from someone who comes from a state university. Just putting my observations out there.

Yeah, I figured. I guess it all comes down to "you get what you pay for" (or in this case "you don't get what you don't pay for").

(By the way, my school in the States was a state school.)

Bipa, thank you for the detailed explanation. I wondered what different people mean by "standard of living" and where you see shortfalls in Germany. It is not surprising to me that in your opinion the German standard of living loses out compared to Switzerland. The superiority of many goods and services (at a price) is noticeable even to tourists; there is a distinct Swiss work ethic and a highly developed sense of quality.

Many people have seen problems with the German education system, not only since the disastrous outcome of the PISA study. There have been attempts to improve the partitioned system for decades now (e. g. comprehensive school, orientation classes) and make it more permeable, and in fact, in many provinces the Hauptschule as the lowest qualification is integrated into the Realschule (secondary till class 10), so that students can chose between final exams at different levels. But the early selection of pupils for the respective school is still an issue. One of my brothers almost got sent to Haupschule based on the recommendation of a teacher, which proved quite wrong, and that was 30 years ago. So not much progress here.

The UN Human Development Index (HDI), which comprises standard of living (GDP, income per person and other economic data), life expectancy, literacy, education places Germany on a low 21. Switzerland is 9th and the US 8th on the list.

Interesting! Canada rates #6 on that Human Development Index. So it seems my experiences do reflect reality. Thanks for the link.

As a Canadian (Vancouverite) who has lived in Germany for the past 17 years, I agree with every single one of your points, Bipa, so there must be something to them.

Have to say that for the 15yrs I lived in Germany I could not fault a health system which gave me two specialist appointments, a scan and an operation within a week or seeing my GP. This was followed by six weeks rehab in a beautiful mountain region. I guess this has changed somewhat but surely not that drastically. No I wasn't privately insured. As far as I know, Germany and France have the best health systems in the EU. Cost of living definately cheaper than Ireland or UK. Crime rate would be an important factor for anyone moving to a new country I guess, so if asked you can say with some confidence that recent European studies have found that Germany has the lowest rate of serious crime in the EU, contributing factors being that the general public trust the police enough to report more often than occurs in other countries. Transport? Well whether it was train, bus or tram, I rarely experienced long delays or other problems and found it to be clean and efficient.One can only speak as one finds and I am referring to 2002, so it is possible that things have changed on those fronts in five years.

Some very interesting points there, but I'm sorry I could not be helpful with regard to education as I wasn't involved in that. At the end of the day I feel that nomatter what country one intends moving to, you have to do intensive homework before making a decision. I wish you success with your talk, and remember if you are asked a question to which you don't have the answer, apply the good soldier technique; "I don't know sir, but when I find out I'll get back to you"!!!