Question for Americans here

Hi guys,

I'm from Europe, more specifically Germany and I've been using reddit for a couple of years now and have talked to all kinds of different nationalities on different subs.

Now let me preface this by saying I have absolutely no clue about the educational system in America. I know there's high school, college and university and up to this day I do not quite understand the difference between college and uni.

The way it works in Germany is that after elementary school you have amassed certain grades (I guess this is similiar to credits) with which you can go to 3 different types of schools: Hauptschule (relatively bad grades, lasts 5 years), Realschule (decent grades, lasts 6 years) and Gymnasium (this is why a lot of Germans get confused when they first hear the word gym, good grades, lasts 8/9 years). There are other types of schools which I will not include so as to not make it too hard to understand and explain, given that I tend to write very long sentences and as I'm not a native I don't want to make it too annoying to read.

The only way you get to study at either Fachhochschule (this rewards both a Bachelor and a Master's degree, if you choose to pursue it, but offers less variety of fields of study compared to university and has it's main focus on "on-hand practice" , usually through internships) or university (works pretty much like it does anywhere else) is to successfully complete Gymnasium, which will earn you "Abitur" (your graduation).

Now to the core of my question: I have read from several Americans on reddit that "Psychology" as field of study is kind of looked down upon by people, as it is apparently something a lot of people that are clueless about their future and ambitions do to kill time (not my words). So I was wondering if there is any merit to this and if so: why? I found this particularly strange as Psychology is one of the most prestigious and hard to get into fields of study where I come from (I live in Munich, this might be a bit different in other states of Germany). There are a LOT and I mean a LOT of people that would love to study but simple get their acess denied because you need to usually average 1,2-1,3 in your Abitur. For clarification: grades in Germany are awarded from grade 1(best) to grade 6(worst), meaning your Abitur average needs to be very, very close to straight A's. Now, the difficulty of the Abitur varies a bit depending on which state you are from and mine (Bavaria) is notorious for being among the 2 most difficult ones, so having close to straight A's is something only very few people can realistically achieve. I have heard that high school tends to be relatively easy compared to university so I would like you to not think of Gymnasium as high school since there is no transitioning school between it and University, so if I understood it correctly it's more like high school and parts of college in 1 school system, if that makes sense?

Sorry for the wall of text, initially I just wanted to ask about Psychology but I felt like explaining the basics of our educational system might help in understanding why the stigma I've seen about psychology was so curious to me. And it might also help me understanding the differences in our educational systems a bit more.

Appreciate any responses!:)

Submitted June 11, 2019 at 03:41AM by MadEyeEUW http://bit.ly/2F2q5Km