Staying Permanent After ‘Master’s in Europe’
Yes, I think we’ve come to the place where the clarion says ‘zzzt’! In our previous articles, we explained how we decided to do a Masters in Germany here and our moving story here.. Glad we told you. When we started the blog, we said that it should be a blog that aims to learn together, not to teach.. We tried to understand a little more what we did right and what we did wrong in this process with the e-mails and comments we received.. But we realized that the thought of most of us is not only to do a master’s degree in Europe, but also to stay in Europe after completing the master’s degree.. Because we want to stay in Germany for a while, there are people who ‘shame us on the continents’, but we are happy if we can provide an ‘idea support’ to those who think like us.. That’s why we want to talk a little bit about ‘after in this article.. There will be things we missed again. If you write in the comment section, we can add it later..
Residency and Work Permit in Germany:
European countries also differ among themselves in whether or not to keep post-master foreign students in the country.. For example, Spain is very strict in this regard, while Germany is a little more generous.. Therefore, what we will write about the residence and work permit is the version valid only for Germany.
Germany’s principle on this issue is as follows; Let’s say you moved to Germany for a master’s degree and your school is over, naturally your residence permit is nearing the end.. The Immigration Office extends your residence permit for another 18 months (if there is no obstacle).. You do not need to have found a job to extend your residence permit for another 18 months.. But you have to show that you have enough money to stay in Germany for a while.. Most people use these 18 months to find a job and improve their German.. If you can’t find a job within these 18 months, they are unlikely to renew your residence permit.. If you find a job, the company you find a job becomes your ‘visa sponsor‘ and you can extend your residence permit again.
This is the ‘principle’ of Germany regarding residence permit for foreigners and most of our friends around us. this is how he extended his visa. But we cannot say ‘they will definitely extend it for 18 more’ since international policies and Turkey’s situation are very volatile.. Let’s say exceptions don’t break the rule.
And those who are married are rightfully worried about their spouse’s condition.. Let’s say you are married and want to move to Germany for a master’s degree, but your spouse does not have any master’s plans and does not have a job in Germany immediately.. Again, without forgetting the rule that “exceptions do not break the rule”, your spouse can also get a residence permit while you are studying in Germany, since Germany attaches importance to family unity.. There were even some of our classmates who came with their spouses in this way, had a child and got a residence permit for the child! So it’s free to reproduce
Master’s Degree in Non-Field
Let’s say you have a bachelor’s degree in Turkey, but you are not satisfied with the department you are studying and you want to do your master’s degree in another field.. What then?. While departments such as business, economics and international relations are more fortunate in this regard, ‘non-field graduate’ may not be as suitable for numerical fields such as mechanical engineering.. For this, you need to choose the graduate department and school you want to do and look at the application conditions.. Let’s say you want to do a master’s degree in ‘global marketing’ and you go to the relevant page of Goethe University and look at the application conditions.. It says ‘business administration, finance and relevant degree graduates’ there, which means you don’t need a ‘marketing’ license to do a ‘global marketing’ master’s degree, graduates from other departments can also apply, provided they are ‘relevant’.. In short, if you are an architect who wants to study ‘global marketing’, “let’s go to another door” but an economics graduate “come on sir!”
Let’s give an example from ourselves; normally the LL.M (Masters of Law) program is known as a graduate program that only law graduates can do. But the full name of the master’s program I did was ‘LL.M in Finance’ and finance graduates were also accepted into the program.. In other words, with this program, it was possible for a finance graduate to do a ‘Master of Law’.
In the Stadelschule Architecture Class of Umut, not only architects; Graduates from departments related to architecture such as city planning or interior architecture or landscape architecture can also apply.. Long story short, non-field master’s degree is possible.
Writing a Personal Statement (Letter of Intent):
Actually, we mentioned this letter in the first article, but we can remind a few more things. (Tee is here). You really have to write the letter yourself, because no one knows your interests, why you want that school, and knows you better than you.. But before sending your letter of intent to schools, you can have a native English speaking friend read it to you, if you have one.. No matter how good your English is, it’s much easier for a native to spot mistakes.
For Law Graduates
The following part of the article contains some spoilers for Law graduates! Let’s start with the happy ending first, yes it is possible for law graduates to get a master’s degree and find a job in Germany! Blog breaking taboos at work. But how?
P.S: There are a lot of English terms in the article, but it may not have the exact equivalent when translated into Turkish.. That’s why I left it as it is.
You know, you have been told, I was told many times while studying law, that you will be a lawyer here, you cannot be a lawyer abroad, so it is very difficult for you to work abroad and find a job.. Yes, unfortunately, since we studied law in Turkey, we are not ‘qualified’ in Germany and we need to study for 7 (!) more years to become a lawyer in the classical sense.. In the classical sense, we can also say to be a lawyer by registering with a bar in Germany and being an ‘attorney’ in the system.. But fortunately, being a lawyer is not just being an ‘attorney’.
Think of big companies that do business both in Turkey, in Europe and even around the world.. It is possible to work as a ‘legal counsel’ in these companies.. To give a concrete example, the first ones that came to our minds were Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft or audit companies such as PwC, Deloitte, KMPG.. You can also apply to these companies as ‘Legal Counsel’ or ‘Associate’. Of course, the companies you can find a job with are not limited to these.. Especially in Germany, since there are too many companies doing business with Turkey and their partners in Turkey are not good at English, they even look for Turkish legal counsel for their own organization.. In other words, you do not become a lawyer in the classical sense, but you can become a legal consultant.
How can we increase our chances of finding a job abroad as a law graduate?
As you know, law graduates mostly do LL.M.. While some of the LL.M programs are focused on a specific field (such as International Tax Law, European Commercial Law), some are on a more comprehensive and general field.. In this respect, you can choose master’s programs on Finance, such as ‘LL.M in International Business Law’, ‘LL.M in International Maritime Law’ (there are more, actually) that will open your way.. So when applying for a job, you can say, ‘Look, I’m a law graduate, but I’m considered a semi-financier’.
That’s it, yes, law graduates may not find a job abroad as quickly as an ‘architect’, but it is never impossible, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. there is.
There is also the issue of ‘Lawyer Internship’. After graduating from law school, I did my internship and after working as a lawyer in Istanbul for two years, I decided to pursue a master’s degree.. In other words, before I came to Germany, I spent some time in business life in Istanbul and before I started my master’s degree, I always had the thought ‘are we late?’. Then I saw that most of my classmates are older than me, they have children or something! So no one was in a hurry, I guess because we are a bit hasty as a society, there is a perception that I will always be late.. Both have different advantages.. If you go abroad for a master’s degree immediately after graduation, you will be a little more vigorous and being young can be a plus in job applications.. But on the other hand, they are looking for some work experience when applying for jobs abroad.. That’s why it’s good to have some work experience in your country and come here.. We leave this decision up to you.
Architects Please Here!
Well, so much law has been explained, what are we missing?. (Hope is holding the instrument here) Let me start like this; Yes, we are a bit luckier than lawyers in finding a job, after all, the language we use is basically “drawing”, so you can get along somehow even if your foreign language is not very good. And of course, when you do a master’s degree in Europe, your chances of finding a job increase, but that doesn’t mean it. Studying in Europe is a must to find a job.. No it is not! But for this, unlike other architects, you need to have skills that will make you stand out (to be talented in computer programs, have a high design power, etc.). You can start to apply to the offices 1-2 months in advance without being hired.
Finding a Job and Staying Permanent Chapter:
Actually, you can read this part of the article after I submitted my thesis and got a job. Then, we wanted to write after Umut graduated from his master’s degree in July and got a job, but we thought there was a long time to July, at least we wanted to write down our observations! After all, ‘new hopes in a new article’ is not wrong, we all need something ‘new’.
It has been almost 2 years since we moved to Germany and in this process, we have plenty of friends who came here before us and those who have already started working. We observed(!). And the conclusion we draw is that it is quite possible to be permanent! Indeed, among our graduate friends, almost all of those who wanted to find a job found a job and managed to put their life into a routine.
Me (who is Asian), too, did not study because I was dealing with my master’s thesis this semester, but last year I did not study in German. I did an internship at Borsa İstanbul and met a lot of young people just like me.. They also wanted to be permanent and found a job after completing their master’s degree in Germany.. Seeing all these things strengthened our thought that it is extremely possible to stay here.
What can we say, let this article be like that.. Every once in a while we all need encouragement. Since being permanent is a very ‘radical’ change, we were also intimidated at first, but we thought it was better than being aimless.. Moreover, since a life without a goal turns into a meaningless, hopeless and unhappy life over time, let’s see, for now, we aim to be ‘permanent’!
Finally, if you want to settle abroad and become permanent, don’t be intimidated by this.. Coming to a master’s degree, adapting to a new country and settling there already develops in a certain process, so instead of a new and radical change, you should change gradually but continuously; In short, you are going through a ‘transformation’ and you have a new life now!
We want to say that. We are writing this article so that it stays on the sidelines “not to escape but to live for a while without fear of life.”
With love
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Additional note 1: We couldn’t go again without writing additional notes. In this process, you may have a lot of document work, and when you have a document job, you may have a translation problem.. We have always knocked on these friends’ doors in emergencies.
Additional note 2:The most used ‘job portal’ for job searching in Germany is https://www.monster. de/ We want to write a separate article on this subject, but for now, let the link stay here 🙂