Trump has slashed education funding, meaning many US universities are facing hiring freezes and budget constraints. Economist Monika Schnitzer speaks to DW’s Marie Sina about the opportunities for German universities and research institutions to tempt academics and scientists to cross the pond.
I think this is related to Europe as it may try to take advantage of the current situation in the US to its advantage. This one focuses on Germany.
If you have the credentials to go for the prestigious Unis and other Unis don’t stick out in your specific field for particular excellence, i would not recommend going to Germany. German Universities are good overall. They provide access to higher education to a relatively large group of people. In some fields certain Unis are absolutely excellent and thus have a great reputation in that field. But the Unis are not “household names” by themselves.
If you want to go into a direction that values prestige, go for that. If you want to make use of particular excellence in your particular field, you can find something in Germany. If you want to go for living in Germany or for enjoying student life in Germany, then i strongly advise against that.
Germany is becoming increasingly racist and reactionary. The federal parliament passed a non binding but kind of binding resolution that researchers should be surveilled by the interior intelligence and get their funding revoked if they are not “without a doubt not antisemitic”, aka if they have said anything that was critical of Israel. Also questions of scientific discourse such as the definition of antisemitism should not be left to scientific discourse, but rather decided politically through legislation, like the resolution enforcing the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Note that this resolution had full support from the fascists of the AfD to the former progressive parties now center-right Green and Social Democrats. Only the Left party abstained from the vote and a fringe social-but-nationalist-pro Putin party opposed it.
I appreciate your input, but honestly, coming from Brazil, even with those cons I can’t help but wish those were my problems…
If you look Latino, people will probably think you are Turkish or Arab and treat you like that. While racist violence is on the rise it is still less prevalent than the general violence in Brazil, but the trend is not going well. If you can, i recommend going to some other EU country where this is less of a problem.
Fair enough. I was considering France and England, too. What are your thoughts on those?
For France racist violence against Arabs is quite high from what i know, but given the proximity to Spain i would assume that they are a bit more able to tell apart Iberians and Latinos from Arabs. However French cops are notorious for beating up racialized people as a weekend sport.
The UK seems to be more diverse and have long established immigrant communities, mainly from the former British colonies. From what i understood both in terms of safety nets and in terms of social acceptance of people “looking brown” the UK is somewhat ahead relative to many mainland EU countries.
I have only briefly spent time in France however and i have yet to visit the UK, so these can only be a idea of what to look for. On another note. You should also consider the weather, especially sunshine in winter. In Germany Berlin is notorious for having an almost uninterrupted cloud-cover during November and December and many people with a healthier skin color suffer strongly from seasonal depression.