Yeah, grads' works from pforzheim are always notable. Expressive ideas were translated into the final model quite literally...breaking the conservatives and cliches fast!
I still think that the German language will present itself as a challenge...considering German's complex and precise grammar, (which is the base of German precision and progressive mentality) a lot of Americans today may find themselves limited with respect to social interaction at least...

at DFISH

I can´t see any lacks in the design-development-stage of pforzheim students. The philosophy that they got taught is to produce unbelievble much sketches in a very short time, to explore a lot and then to find the best design. I already talked to Mr Fuegener the prof of the bachelor course and I´m convinced that there is no lack. But I think that the master course by James Kelly is not that good, the designs are not that good. There are much asisan students who visit the master course, the quality of the bachelor course is much better.

But in my opinion RCA and Strate College are even better than Pforzheim. Look at there work at there models, awesome.

And to the point with the proffessionel modellers, I made an internship in an automotive design studio in Germany and I made my first small claymodel and I know that it´s very difficult. And I can´t imagine that the pforzheim students do all their stuff alone. But I think its ok, because they would like to become cardesigner and no claymodellers.

yea everybody gets help with clay models, pforzeims are so impressive I feel they either have more time to do them or have more help. regardless their work is mighty impressive. Remember I haven't actually seen Pforziems work in person, just selected images from this site so i'm not exactly qualified to make judgment, just saying thats what i saw.

On a separate note i sent you a pm because i'm seriously considering attending Pforziem over ACCD...even though i just moved to socal so try to get back to me.

thanks

hi. as a former pforzheim student i can tell that the big advantage of this school is the small amount of students. each semester there are up to 10 graduates in the bachelor course and even less at the masters.the only models where the students get professional help is the final year models, but just if you do your thesis in a company...and even there it varies: but i dont know any pforzheim grad who didnt sand his model on his own.
dfish, its true that the quality of the work is inconsistent, but the average is still very high. the intense modelbuilding is the main reason why there is not as much time for the sketching phase as somewhere else. but in my eyes the understanding of even the modelmaking is a big plus in the industry. only if you know how much work it is to transfer an 2d idea into a 3d object, you are able to work with modellers in the studio. often a designer is just as good as his modellers.
in terms of sketching i am with you but in terms of the idea and design developement i somehow disagree.