Anja Grünheid, doctoral student
Germany
If you could do your PhD at any university in the world, would you still choose ETH above other institutions? Why or why not?
An important aspect of finding a place to do a PhD is to find a professor who is an expert in the area that you want to work in and with whom you work well. There are two ways to achieve that. First, you can look through candidate universities to find out more about the professors’ research. Second, you can ask others (students, but also professors that you know) for their opinion. I took the second path and asked one of my previous advisors who recommended my current professor. After interviewing at ETH Zurich, I never even applied to a different PhD program because I instantly liked both my group and professor. In addition to having a great advisor (and there are many of those around here), I felt that the Systems Group creates a great environment in which to interact with and learn from numerous experts.
How would you describe your life as a PhD student up to now? What do you like most about it? What has been particularly memorable?
Personally, I find that both travelling and networking are top highlights of my PhD studies. Working in the research area of databases, I have had the opportunity to present work and engage with other researchers at top-tier conferences all over the world. In addition, my group is well known for being very application-oriented and our professors encourage us to participate in an internship over the course of our PhD. I worked at Microsoft Research in Seattle and at Google in New York - from both I have gained valuable experiences. Doing an internship is extremely beneficial: it means evaluating whether your research can actually be applied to real world challenges; and it will also help you to make well-grounded decisions on your future career path.
Obviously, a lot of hard work goes into a successful PhD. One of the great things about ETH Zurich is the vast pool of talented and helpful people who will help you to exert yourself.
If you were given the opportunity to change one thing at ETH, what would it be?
I think better school outreach programs would generally benefit the Department of Computer Science. Right now, we piggyback on the ETH-wide program “ETH Unterwegs” that takes place in fall and allows us to visit a few schools to promote computer science studies to high school students. However, I feel that it would be much more useful to have constant interaction with schools. There exist mentoring programs for pupils in industry (e.g. “Girls Who Code”), pre-college computer science classes (e.g. at TU Munich and Stanford) and a lot of efforts to promote computer science as a “cool” topic (e.g. classes given by Google engineers in schools). In my opinion, ETH Zurich could enhance its exposure to the younger generation. The nerd image that is still (often unfairly) associated with this area of study prevents a lot of potential students from learning more about computer science. I find it necessary to provide the grounds for students to make an informed decision and give computer science an equal chance.
By choosing to do a PhD in Switzerland, this country has, to some extent, become a new “home”. Which part of you is actually Swiss?
Being German, there is not a lot of cultural difference between my upbringing and the Swiss culture. Actually, one of the main differences is that even after three years I still have a hard time understanding locals when speak fast Swiss German.
You are about to complete your PhD. What are your personal and professional aspirations in the future?
One of the advantages of doing a PhD at ETH Zurich is that it prepares you for a variety of careers - from being a software engineer to becoming a professor. I have learned that I like doing research and working on projects that evolve the state of the art. As a result, I have decided to apply for a position in a research lab in the US. Europe, unfortunately, lacks well-established research labs in my specific scientific area. Many large companies which can afford specialized researchers are American-based. Hopefully, this will change in the future.