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Re: oral exams in Germany

Not sure when this was supposed to be the case, but for actual universities (not meant in a deragotary way, Germany has two types of higher eduction) in hard sciences, most classes are graded on a single written exam. Both in undergrad/bachelors and masters.

Unless things have drastically changed in the last five years...



This was in Freiburg University, which is among the top in Germany and top 250 globally. Computer Science bachelors and masters, around 8 years ago, most courses had a final oral exam unless many students (roughly >25) signed up to the class. Some classes like Information Retrieval or Machine Learning had >100 students so they had a written exam, but most others were smaller and oral: Data Engineering and Databases, Cryptography, Physics Simulations for Graphics, Formal Verification Methods, Bioinformatics, Planning AI, P2P Networking... I had a couple oral exams in VU Amsterdam (masters) too but fewer and not the final exam.

I know that an oral exam might seem less serious and rigorous, but I do think the professor can get a better grasp of how much the student actually understands the subject through an interactive interview.




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