My stay in ETH Zurich + advice to incoming/potential exchangers

 In my previous blog post, I reflected on my application process as an exchange student to ETH Zurich (shameless plug, but if you haven't seen it feel free to do so here). In this post, I will be talking about my actual stay in Zurich along with my reflections and advice to incoming exchangers to ETH/those who may be considering doing a semester exchange here. 

Even after completing the final parts of the application process, there was still a lot of uncertainty on whether my exchange could proceed (to those reading in the future, I applied for exchange in the 2020 – 2021 period, when COVID-19 was still active). Thankfully, everything went well and I was able to fly off to Zurich for my exchange! :) 

Part 1 – Landing + Settling admin

My academic semester in ETH Zurich began on 21^st February while I arrived on the 15^th February. After checking in to our respective WOKO apartments, my friends and I then proceeded to settle all our admin as part of our stay in Zurich. Some of the admin stuff we had to settle (this list is not exhaustive) included 

1. Collecting our matriculation package from the ETH Student Exchange Office (for those studying in ETH, the exchange office does NOT open every day! When we were there, they open on Tuesdays/Thursdays from 11am – 1pm, but they do change their office hours regularly – check here for their updated opening hours) 

2. Register for your residence permit. Zurich is split into 12 districts, and people who are staying in Zurich for more than 3 months are required to apply for a residence permit with their respective Kreisburo office. The Kreisburo office which you need to register for your residence permit at depends on the district which you are staying in.

While you need to register for your residence permit 14 days after landing in Zurich, for ETH students you can only do this after collecting your matriculation package because the package contains proof of your exchange in ETH. 

3. Apply for a SIM card (and data plan). In order to access data outside and make phone calls in Switzerland, you will need to obtain a SIM card and subscribe to a data plan. While there are many options available, I opted for Mucho Mobile (you can learn more about them here). For 20 CHF a month, I was able to get 10GB and access to both SMS and phone calls (couldn’t remember the amount for this :P), which was more than sufficient.

Also If you’re coming from Singapore, be prepared to pay a lot more for your data plan because telcos in Switzerland are not as generous in their data plans as compared to Singapore LOL 

4. Register for a bank account. While this isn’t compulsory, you will be highly compelled to do so because for those who are staying in WOKO apartments, WOKO only accepts payments either via local bank transfer or Western Union (the latter is not economical, because of the additional transaction costs). While many of my friends registered for a bank account with UBS, I applied for my bank account with PostFinance. 

To register for my account, I had to go down to the bank physically in the Zurich Bahnhofstrasse. However, if you’re planning to apply for PostFinance, they also have other outlets – I simply went to the one in at Bahnhofstrasse because it was the one nearest to school.

5. Apply for health insurance. Even though your local university will provide insurance for students going for exchange (at least NUS does), it is still compulsory for exchange students to purchase insurance (unless you have exemption, which is extremely difficult to secure). While there are various health insurances available, their prices vary along with their coverage. In addition, ETH holds a talk for exchange students regarding the purchase of health insurance, which will definitely make things a lot clearer. If you want more information regarding the health insurance, you can refer to the two links below

 https://ethz.ch/en/studies/international-immigration-housing/health-insurance/nicht-eu.html
(for students from non-EU countries)

https://ethz.ch/en/studies/international-immigration-housing/health-insurance.html

6. Finalise your study plan! Once you arrive in Switzerland, ETH will send you an email for you to confirm your final study plan (by now, the course catalogue for your semester should be available) – typically you will only need to do this around 1 month after the academic semester has started. This will allow you to explore various courses that the school offers, and then drop those courses which you might not enjoy (I had friends who took 30+ credits initially, and then proceeded to drop courses until they had around 20 credits, which is the minimum workload you have to take in a semester in ETH). Once you finalise your study plan, you will not be able to make any more changes to it.

Part 2: Settling down in Zurich

I stayed in a WOKO located in Meierwiesenstrasse 62 (MWS) during my 5.5 month stay in Zurich! While MWS is just one of the many WOKO residences, it is a little different in terms of its structure. While most WOKO residences employ an apartment-style structure where a group of 6-8 people live in a suite, a typical floor in MWS has around 40 people, each with their own individual room. For those who lived in the NUS halls, you can think of MWS as basically a mini hall only with single rooms.

Another thing that made my experience very unique was the number of people I could interact with. While most WOKO apartments house around 30-60 exchange students, MWS has a total of 169 rooms! This means that there were a lot of opportunities for me to interact with people from all walks of life. I had a fairly diverse bunch of flatmates – approximately 1/3 of us were from Asia, while the remaining 2/3 were from Europe + America. This was a perfect balance for me, as not only did I have people that I could relate my culture to, but also ample opportunities to learn cultures of different nationalities which I may not have a chance to back in Singapore.

That being said, I do know of friends who did get quite homesick when they first arrived in Zurich (which is perfectly understandable because we are so far away from home!), so please call back home every now and then! 

Part 3: Academic Life on exchange

In a fairly stressful and competitive environment like NUS, spending a semester studying in ETH was rather refreshing – this was especially so because it was the first time in around 2 years I was attending physical lessons (since Y1S2, most of my lessons in NUS were online).

I loved how all of my professors were extremely clear and passionate about what they were teaching and did their best to engage in two-way conversations in order to make classes more lively. Furthermore, I also had really dedicated and enthusiastic TAs in my courses which made my learning experience in ETH a lot more enjoyable. Finally, the fact that my exchange was on a pass-fail basis (meaning that I only had to pass the course in order to map my credits back to NUS) also made things a lot less stressful. 

I remember when I first enrolled into ETH, I was extremely confused on how lessons worked – unlike NUSMods where they very clearly state whether the class was a lecture or tutorial, ETH has their own set of symbols to denote what the class is about, which you can refer to over here 

All my classes were either lectures or exercises, so only the first three course types were relevant for me. However, if you attend a seminar class instead (which I believe is fairly popular, since most of these seminar courses are graded on a pass-fail basis!), then the fourth course type would be relevant too. Finally, if you’re studying engineering or sciences which require lab work, then practicals may also be part of your curriculum too. However, the pdf above really made it a lot clearer how to read my timetable and I hope that you find it useful too! 😊

Part 4: Tips to living on a budget in Switzerland

As an exchange student in Switzerland, budget was one of my biggest concerns since Switzerland is known to be one of the most expensive countries to live in! How do I make the most of my time on exchange while remaining on a tight budget? To be honest I don’t think I’ve figured out the answer to that yet, but from personal experience I do have a few $$-saving tips for juniors who might be planning to spend their exchange semester in ETH 😊

1. If you’re commuting to school every day, PLEASE get a Zone 110 monthly pass (you can find more information at https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/en/travelcards-and-tickets/travelcards/networkpass.html , under the section ‘Personal ZVV Network Pass Child/YoungAdult). For 62 CHF, this monthly pass will allow you to travel freely around Zone 110 via bus/tram/train as many times as you want.

To illustrate the cost savings from purchasing the monthly pass, take my case for example. For me, a two-way ticket from school and back to my WOKO costs 6.20 CHF. Since I have school every day, I will need to spend 31 CHF on transport every week, which amounts to 124 CHF every month (assuming no public holidays). And this is excluding other personal trips which you make as part of your spare time, which will also be just as costly! Hence, purchasing the monthly pass has allowed me to cut my spending on transport by at least 50% 😊

However, if you get the Zone 110 monthly pass, do note that your travel is only covered for areas within Zone 110. Hence if you make a trip starting from Zone 110 and end at an area outside of Zone 110 (for example, the nearest IKEA outlet from Zurich is at Dietikon, which is in Zone 111), you will need top-up for the remaining part of your trip not covered by your monthly pass. The SBB (Swiss train) staff are extremely efficient (can’t say the same about the reliability for some of their trains though…) and LOVE to conduct ticket checks, and the fines for not having a valid are substantial (first timers face a fine of around 70-80 CHF), so be warned!

2. Learn how to cook! Coming from Singapore where food is generally very cheap – a meal at a coffee shop or hawker centre costs around SGD $3, or 2 CHF – one of the biggest culture shocks when I first came to Switzerland was the exorbitant prices that I had to pay for food. For instance, a typical restaurant meal (where you only order ONE dish) could amount to around 30-40 CHF – even restaurant meals in Singapore only cost around half this price. Even non-restaurant food was extremely expensive – both a typical meal in McDonalds and Subway cost me twice as much in Zurich than in Singapore.

 While it’s okay to have outside meals occasionally (the Swiss do have some extremely authentic food), eating outside every day is definitely not sustainable for your wallet. Therefore, I highly recommend cooking your own meals in order to save $$! While this might seem like an extremely daunting task at first (at least it certainly was for me, as I DO NOT cook back in SG), it grew to become one of my favourite things to do while on exchange 😊

(Highlight of my exchange cooking diaries - making Hainanese Chicken Rice!)

Pro-tip: While there are various grocery stores in Zurich, not all of them are ranked equally in terms of pricing. In order of pricing, the generally accepted ranking is LIDL >= Aldi > Denner > Migros > Co-op. In other words, LIDL/Aldi groceries are the cheapest, followed by Denner.

Even though Migros and Co-op are a lot more common in Zurich, these two grocery stores are significantly more expensive (at least by 50%). The only times I actually bought stuff from Migros was for convenience (Zurich HB has a large Migros, while I need to head to Zurich Bahnhofstrasse or Forrlickbuckstrasse to shop from Aldi and LIDL respectively, which may not be ideal when time is not on your side).

Finally, if you’re too lazy to cook yet still want to save $$, your best bet is to simply eat at the ETH/UZH Mensa (canteen) on weekdays and then settle your own meals on weekends (pro-tip #2: ETH students can eat at the UZH Mensa, which is around 10% cheaper than ETH’s Mensa). But I can’t imagine eating Mensa food every day…..

3. Consider various modes of transport. One of the key parts of exchange is the ability to travel freely by yourself, and I’d say Europe is definitely one of the best places to travel around as a tourist because of how many options you have (there are so many countries to choose from!). However, not all modes of transport are equal in terms of pricing.

Generally, there are three ways you can get from one city to another – plane, train or bus. They all have their pros and cons – while buses are definitely the most economical, they are the most time-consuming. On the other hand, trains are definitely faster but they may not be the most economical (some inter-city train tickets are expensive!). Finally while flying is the most direct option, some trips only operate once or twice a day and depending on the flight, the prices may also vary greatly. 

Hence in order to save $$ on transport, it is important to….

(i)   do your research on the different modes of transport available for your journey along with their respective costs 

(ii)  book your tickets in advance as the closer you settle your transportation to the day of departure, the more $$ you will need to spend 

Do note that if you do intend to take a plane for your travels, the airport which you fly with is also important. For those in ETH, Zurich Airport is logically the most convenient airport. However, Zurich Airport is also known to be one of the more expensive airports. A more economical approach would be to take flights from Basel Airport, which is around a 1h 30 min journey from Zurich. I also had some friends who took a train to Milan and then flew from Milan, but doing this will be a little more time consuming because the trip from Zurich HB to Milano Central takes slightly more than 3 hours.

4. A lot of my European friends made use of interrail, which allows them to make inter-city travels Europe without having to pay for train tickets (you can find more at https://www.interrail.eu/en, but do note that interrail may require you to purchase seat reservations, which come separately from the train ticket).

While this sounds like a great deal, interrail passes are extremely costly – just a 7-day pass (meaning 7 days of unlimited inter-city travel) costs 251 Euros! Do note that interrail passes only cover inter-city trips and not intra-city trips (meaning you will still need to purchase tickets for trams and buses within the city you travel to), so sometimes the cost savings may not be able to make up for the hefty amount spent on the interrail pass.

However when I was in Europe, interrail had a 50% flash sale in May celebrating their 50^th anniversary, with all interrail passes being sold at a 50% discount! I can’t remember the exact cost of the other passes, but I remember paying 272 Euros for a 2 month interrail pass. While it still seems like a lot of money at first (which it is), purchasing the interrail pass was extremely worthwhile because I managed to save a lot on train tickets. 

Part 5: Still considering coming to ETH?

If you’re considering applying to ETH for your exchange, then good for you! However, I feel that unlike other universities, ETH stands out in a few ways (and unfortunately, I don’t think all of these ways are positive). While I definitely I had an amazing time on exchange at ETH, there are some things that you might want to consider if you’re contemplating spending your exchange there

1. ETH’s academic calendar does not perfectly coincide with the academic semester in NUS. In NUS, we begin Semester 1 and 2 in August and January respectively. However in ETH, the Autumn and Spring semesters begin in September and February, over a month after NUS begins lessons (they also tend to start lessons in the later part of the month too).

This means as compared to your peers, you may find yourself doing nothing in that final month before your exchange – for me I wanted to find an internship from December to February so that I would have time to do something before flying off, but I wasn’t able to secure one ☹ 

NUS does recommend you to register for modules in NUS as backup, but trust me you wouldn’t be motivated to study HAHAHA

2. With Swiss German as the main language used in Zurich, Bachelor’s courses in ETH are taught in German while Master’s courses are taught in English. Unless you have sufficient background in German (and note that Swiss German is different from Standard German!), your courses will often be limited to the Master’s courses – which does make sense to some extent, since you will usually be mapping NUS 3k or 4k modules on exchange.

However this means you will be taking Master’s courses as a bachelor’s student, which can be extremely daunting (I have friends who are permanent students who do say that some of the master’s courses are actually more manageable than the bachelor’s courses though) compared to your friends in other universities who are simply taking bachelor's classes as part of their exchange.

3. The mode of assessment in ETH is very different compared to NUS! NUS focuses a lot on continuous assessment, and it is extremely common to see components such as weekly quizzes, tutorial participation/submission and homework submissions to form part of your final grade.

However, in ETH (at least the courses I took), all of my courses were simply 100% final with the exception of one, which had a 30% homework component and a 70% final. This meant that I had barely any work to complete during the semester apart from the weekly exercises (which also wasn’t compulsory to submit) but meant that the stress closer to exam season was sky high (as you can’t afford to flunk).

Furthermore, unlike NUS which does set strict guidelines on their grading system (if I recall correctly a maximum of 5% of students in the course can get a D and below), ETH does not have such guidelines – this means that it is possible for a significant proportion of the class to fail a course if the final performance is poor (I do not have official evidence for this, but feel free to browse the ETH Zurich Subreddit for posts regarding this at https://www.reddit.com/r/ethz/). Given the difficult content + no boundaries when it comes to grading, I was constantly worried that I would fail my courses (and my seniors say it’s impossible to fail modules while on exchange…. clearly they didn't go to ETH...)

4. The examination dates in ETH are also very different compared to NUS. In NUS after week 13, you will have one week to study and consolidate your revision (i.e. Reading Week) before 2 consecutive weeks of finals. This means that once finals end, the academic semester is officially over.

However in ETH, for starters, we do not have a Reading Week. Finals are actually split into two phases – the end-of-semester examinations and session examinations. The final exam for each of your courses will either fall under either category, but not both. Do note that most courses have their final examinations under the session examinations though. 

For the Spring semester, end-of-semester examinations are typically held in June while the session examinations are in August. This means that while classes officially end in early June, the academic semester truly comes to end only after the final day of session examinations, which is typically in early September. Which is great, because you have the entire summer to study for examinations 😊 Oh wait… 

5. Remember I mentioned in part 1 that the academic calendars of NUS and ETH do not 100% align? This is where this becomes a problem – the session examinations are held physically, yet NUS will require you to return to Singapore to begin your new semester. This is where you will need to submit paperwork, where you have to either request to (i) prepone your session examinations (take it at an earlier date in Zurich) or (ii) request to take a distance examination (you take your examination remotely in Singapore).

Typically, professors will offer you the second option because option (i) would require them to set a totally new paper for you (in the name of fairness, they can’t allow you to take the same paper as your peers who are taking it normally) and this will require more work on their part. Unless you have an extremely strong reason to prepone your examinations, typically you will have to stick to option (ii). 

Do note that those going to ETH in the Autumn semester will face a similar issue, because the session examinations are in January-February yet NUS begins semester 2 in January.

6. Overlap between NUS modules and ETH modules – if you take your session examinations remotely (just as I did), you will have a month where you not only will be preparing for your ETH examinations, but also studying your NUS modules concurrently along with other possible commitments (e.g: FYP, Teaching Assistant, Internship etc.). And this can be extremely overwhelming at times, along with the uncertainty of whether you can clear your courses.

That being said, if you did study properly in July (I barely touched my notes then because I spent most of my July travelling LOL) then the stress shouldn’t be as bad.

 7. Finally for those in NUS, only certain faculties/departments offer an exchange to ETH, and if I’m not wrong only Science and Engineering open applications to ETH for all students. In Computing, only CS students are able to go for exchange to ETH. Additionally, I believe Architecture students are also allowed to do an exchange in ETH.

Part 6: Concluding Remarks

All things considered, I had a very enjoyable time on exchange at ETH! While the academic rigour was more intense than NUS, I thoroughly enjoyed the non-academic aspects, from the cultural exchanges with fellow exchange students to travelling around Switzerland and Europe to honing my soft skills, notably my (previously non-existent) cooking skills. 

To be honest I can’t imagine studying in ETH permanently if I ever consider to pursue a Master’s Degree, but I wouldn’t trade my exchange experience in ETH Zurich for anything else 😊