Studying Computer Engineering in Germany: Universität vs Hochschule

If you’re considering studying in Germany, one of the first choices you’ll face is between a Universität and a Hochschule (Fachhochschule / University of Applied Sciences). Both award a  Bachelor of Science (BSc), but they serve different types of students and career goals.

Universitäten focus on theoretical knowledge and research. Professors are evaluated mainly on publications, grants, and PhD supervision, so teaching ability is less emphasized. Class sizes can reach into the hundreds, leaving students with little chance of direct contact with professors. Students dive deep into mathematics, algorithms, and computer science theory, and are largely expected to learn on their own — which can add extra stress for foreign students. This is the ideal path if you want to pursue an academic career, or if you enjoy fundamental research.

Hochschulen specialize in applied sciences. Professors are hired for their industry experience and teaching ability rather than publications. Programs include a mandatory internship semester (Praxissemester) and project-based courses. Class sizes are smaller (often just a couple dozen students), giving students much easier access to professors and helping them graduate with strong connections to employers. This path is perfect if your goal is to  enter industry as a job-ready engineer.

By institution type, the dropout rate is around 33% at Universitäten, compared to about 23% at Fachhochschulen, indicating that studying at a Fachhochschule is generally easier.

Türkiye does not have a direct equivalent of the German Hochschule. The closest would be Meslek Yüksekokulu (2-year vocational schools), but those don’t lead to a BSc. All proper engineering BSc programs are run by universities which follow a more research-oriented academic culture and place little emphasis on teaching quality or industry needs. Due to incentives tied to publishing papers, teaching is often viewed as a burden rather than a priority.

Turkish graduates may lack structured internship/practical semesters. To be hired in the tech industry, students must take initiative, actively develop practical skills beyond coursework and demonstrate hands-on experience through internships, freelance work, or GitHub contributions.

AI: More Luck Than Science?

In AI, a lot of progress still comes down to trial and error — and sometimes, plain old luck. We can’t even predict how many images you might need to train a cat classifier to 95% accuracy.

When researchers train giant neural networks, the outcome can swing wildly depending on small, random details. Change the initialization seed, shuffle the data differently, or even let the GPU run in a slightly different order, and you might end up with a model that either crushes benchmarks… or flops.

Big labs try to beat this randomness by brute force — running thousands of experiments in parallel until something works. Smaller teams don’t have that luxury, which is why AI breakthroughs often come from places with deep pockets.

Scaling laws, optimization tricks, and theory give us islands of predictability. But we don’t yet have the “physics of deep learning” — the equations that would let us design a network and know it’ll hit 95% accuracy without a thousand failed runs.

Until then, success in AI will keep feeling less like engineering and more like informed gambling with increasingly sophisticated strategies.

Gaining Experience by Fixing Existing Web Apps

Here’s a little secret: most small business web apps… kinda suck. Small businesses usually don’t have the budget for high-quality software engineering, so their apps are often missing important features, are slow, outdated, and not mobile-friendly. But that’s actually an opportunity for you as a student. Instead of building yet another “hello world” project or a to-do list app no one uses, try this:

1. Find a small business with a clunky website or app, e.g. diyetta.
2. Use it on PC and mobile, make a list of improvements.
3. Make a copy of the whole app or parts of it and make it faster, cleaner, easier to use.
4. Demo your version to the owner.

Worst case? You get real-world experience. Best case? You get paid. Either way, you win. You’re not just learning to code—you’re learning how to:

• Create real value (solving actual problems, not just coding puzzles)
• Sell your ideas (convincing skills)

This one simple strategy can turn you from “just another student” into someone who can point to real impact. That looks so much better on your resume than “I built a weather app.”

So… what’s the worst small business web app you’ve seen lately? Maybe that’s your next project.