Studying in Europe?

Alright, here's the deal. I'm currently finishing the third year of highschool, so I figure it's time to start looking for a university to go to. Obviously, things aren't the greatest here (education-wise, but in general too), so I'm looking to head abroad; after I decided that, Europe was a logical follow-up. I'd like to study something IT/computer science related, spefically programming - I come with a strong background in math (Matematička gimnazija, my school, at Wikipedia), so I'd like some "hardcore" programming (as opposed to some sort of administrating and such); still, I'm somewhat flexible. My only requirement is that the studies are in English.

So, since we've got people from all over Europe over here, I figured I'd ask for advice - how do foreign students fare in your country? Got any universities/study programmes to recommend? Any sites with more detailed information? General advice? Furthermore, I'd be particulary interested if you'd tell me how scholarships are handled and what are my chances of getting one (I'm not the best of the best, but I'm hardly bad either).

Thanks everyone!

Generally speaking almost every university should have its own office to handle foreign students' matters. It has perfectly qualified personnel which can tell you how it´s handled in their country, which papers you need to supply (don´t forget to ask whether they need a simple copy or something closer to an original ) and if they have they have scholarship programs.

On a sidenote, IT / programming at a university is math-heavy. You´ll have to prove abstract stuff until you puke.

Saw a cool program the other night on Denmark("happiest country in the world") and they had some very articulate and bright Danish students on--I have no idea how difficult it is to go to school there if you're from another country, but if I were college age in Europe,I might think about going there. Mostly just because everyone really did seem stable and happy, and extremely laid back.

Well, I was just about to mention the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The university is situated in Ørestad, a new, modern development area in Copenhagen connected with the metro.

Images from Ørestad (Oerestad in English).
Some video I found.

But I really don't know much about the IT University, whether it is good or not. I'm planning to study something in the faculty of humanism myself.

ITU Copenhagen is fairly good, probably among the better in Scandinavia.

Gorath said:

Generally speaking almost every university should have its own office to handle foreign students' matters.

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Oh, definitely, the trick is in picking one!

Zaleukos said:

ITU Copenhagen is fairly good, probably among the better in Scandinavia.

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I've looked around the website, but I've only seen Master studies, with only a few mentions of a Bachelor programme (and no mentions at all that it is in english). Furthermore, the tuition fees are a bit too high for me (almost 6000 euros per term!) and the scholarships are few.

Speaking of Scandinavia, I've been looking at IT University of Goteborg; here's a link to their programmes in english (for the record, I found that university over the excellent Study in Sweden website). Anyone know something 'bout it?

Helsinki University of Technology isn't half bad either, nor is Oulu University, if you like bicycles and ice. They take a lot of foreign students.

[ http://www.tkk.fi/en/about_tkk/contact/administration/academicaffairs.html ]

Helsinki University is less technological and perhaps more "academic" in its approach, but it's not too bad either. We employ a few of their maths, computer science, and physics graduates and they're doing OK. Lots of international students and staff there too. I'm one of their drop-outs, FWIW.

[ http://www.helsinki.fi/international/ ]

Sweden will also introduce tuition fees for non-EU students (not sure when, but within the coming five years or so).

VPeric said:

Speaking of Scandinavia, I've been looking at IT University of Goteborg; here's a link to their programmes in english (for the record, I found that university over the excellent Study in Sweden website). Anyone know something 'bout it?

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The IT university of Göteborg is AFAIK not really an institution of it's own but rather a collaboration between Göteborg university (of which I dont have a very high opinion) and Chalmers University of technology (a traditional engineering school which is fairly good). The collaboration hasnt been around for very long and I am too old to know any students there. Given the labour market demands I'd rather recommend a master in electrical or computer engineering at Chalmers/KTH(in Stockholm) or Linköping, but that is much more hardware oriented and I dont think they take in English speakers...

I dont know anyone who studied at Göteborg IT university (I'm old and the place is relatively new), but the curriculum seems ok even if it would have been nice with a stronger mathematical foundation. A lot of the courses listed are intro level though. We've had a minor breakdown of the Swedish high school system in the last 10-15 years, so good foreign students tend to find that the theoretical demands of intro courses are rather low.

Have you considered Ljubljana for a decent EU faculty closer to home? Scandinavia is awfully expensive, in my experience you need a minium of 5-600 euros a month to live comfortably here and that will just cover minimal housing, travelling, and food expenses. A lot of foreign students who come here for the low tuition fees are shocked by these costs... You could always get a Bologna-compliant Bachelor there and then aim for a more prestigeous place for your master...

EDIT: There are lots of English language master programmes in Sweden in technology and science (including computer science), but bachelor options are much more restricted. I'd imagine this is the case for most of non-latin Europe.

EDIT2: My personal ranking of the larger Swedish institutions would put them in tiers like:
1 Chalmers/KTH (excellent but more focused on the engineering aspect)
2 Uppsala/Lund (old universities that are solid all round)
3 Linköping/Umeå/Stockholm/Göteborg universities (large universities, Linköping probably have the strongest IT focus of the four).

There are of course other place that are good within narrow specialties, but for someone with a broad interest in IT and mathematics there's no reason to go outside the ones I listed. I'd intuitively put Göteborg IT university in tier 3 at most... The smaller places that I havent listed might be more accomodating to foreign students and be cheaper to stay at.

I would recommend Oulu, Finland.

We've got both Computer Science and Computer Engineering here.
I see lots of foreign students here every day. Oulu is a very nice city (not too big) and all is well here.

http://www.oulu.fi/english/

Indeed it is. Its only downside is that it, truly, is situated in The Frozen North.

I've seen around the sites of the universities in Belgium, but the don't have a full English program for your course. Perhaps you can follow one in England? Oxford and Cambridge are known all over the world -> Gives you an edge when you'll start working.

http://www.webometrics.info/top500_europe.asp

I went to ETH Zurich and can recommend it as a good school. But I don't know their IT program.

Those rankings look... wrong. There's no way Helsinki University deserves the #4 spot.

The real differences in quality between any of the major Finnish universities are pretty small, but we have Helsinki at #4, Oulu at #69, HUT at #109, and Tampere at #164. I know these ones fairly well, and there's really no way that they should be spread out like that... unless, that is, all European institutes of higher education are of such uniform quality that you get huge spreads in rankings despite minimal differences in quality. That doesn't sound right either.

IOW, I get the strong impression that the ranking criteria are somehow bogus.

Edit: they have a page that explains their ranking criteria, and they seem pretty arbitrary to me. Basically, the more you publish on the Web, and the more these publications are cited, the higher your ranking. It does appear to produce some meaningful data near the top -- most of the (mostly American) institutions I'd expect to show up in the "Premier League" do --, but near the middle of the pack (which is where all the European universities lie) the results look more or less random.

These rankings are heavily skewed towards institutes that publicise online on a broad front. While that might be relevant in some sense it doesnt really tell whether a particular undergrad programme is any good.

Still the top names are good to have in a resume, but the solution is then to take your bachelor at a decent place and go for a master or PhD at a prestigeous place

Zakhary said:

I would recommend Oulu, Finland.

We've got both Computer Science and Computer Engineering here.
I see lots of foreign students here every day. Oulu is a very nice city (not too big) and all is well here.

http://www.oulu.fi/english/

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Oulu ?! Nice ! How small the world is !

Oulu is the twin town of my own town !

Zaleukos said:

Given the labour market demands I'd rather recommend a master in electrical or computer engineering at Chalmers/KTH(in Stockholm) or Linköping, but that is much more hardware oriented and I dont think they take in English speakers...

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The trouble is - I don't need a master, I'm looking for a bachelor programme.

Zaleukos said:

EDIT: There are lots of English language master programmes in Sweden in technology and science (including computer science), but bachelor options are much more restricted. I'd imagine this is the case for most of non-latin Europe.

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Yes, that's how it's starting to look. It's not really what I expected, to be honest.

Zaleukos said:

EDIT2: My personal ranking of the larger Swedish institutions would put them in tiers like:
1 Chalmers/KTH (excellent but more focused on the engineering aspect)
2 Uppsala/Lund (old universities that are solid all round)
3 Linköping/Umeå/Stockholm/Göteborg universities (large universities, Linköping probably have the strongest IT focus of the four).

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Thanks for the ranking; I've heard of both KTH and Chalmers before, but this is the first time I've seen Uppsala and Lund mentioned. Still, out of all those, it appears only ITU Goteborg offers a bachelor programme in english.

In any case, thanks a bunch for sharing your thoughts on the matter - much appreciated!

Zakhary said:

I would recommend Oulu, Finland.

We've got both Computer Science and Computer Engineering here.
I see lots of foreign students here every day. Oulu is a very nice city (not too big) and all is well here.

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Oulu sounds ok, though it might be a bit too cold for my tastes (well, if a native says it's cold, then it must be really cold!). Still, by the looks of it, none of those Finnish universities (Oulu, Helskinki, Helsinki again) offer bachelor programmes in english. They do in general take in exchange students, which is nice, but not what I'm looking for. A pity.

Bartacus said:

I've seen around the sites of the universities in Belgium, but the don't have a full English program for your course. Perhaps you can follow one in England? Oxford and Cambridge are known all over the world -> Gives you an edge when you'll start working.

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Thanks for looking for me, too bad there's nothing to find. England does look like an obvious choice, but it's got some things going against it - high tuition fees and high cost of living for one. Even if I manage to get a scholarship (which I doubt, since I'm not THAT good), it's still a considerable expense. Yes, I do plan on working once I get there (whatever there might be), but still...

I'm also looking at The Netherlands, because I've heard good things about it, but I haven't yet had the time to really check it out. In any case - thanks again for your help, everyone!

VPeric said:

I'm also looking at The Netherlands, because I've heard good things about it, but I haven't yet had the time to really check it out. In any case - thanks again for your help, everyone!

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The best thing they have is something my colleague is doing. He follows a course where you only have to take exams and receive the books to study for this. Everything is on your own. For him it's the best because he's still able to work and now he can get some sort of degree (he's also going for graduate level and the course he's in is called engineer in informatics) If you're interested in this kind of scholarship, I'll try to get some info from him on friday (He's now at home studying for his exams)

According to recent news Sweden plans to introduce tuition fees for non-EU students no later than 2010, and while I suspect there might be some bureaucratic delay there is no political opposition against the idea. The fees are supposed to only just cover the university's costs, which back when I taught a few years ago was around 6-7000 euros per year for an IT student. There will also be a scholarship system for foreign students. Keep that in mind when comparing the costs...

EDIT: What are tuition fees in Ireland and Scotland like? It would seem like logical places to take up an English language Bachelor program, and with slightly lower living costs than England...