Jared Niederhauser, Master's student
USA
If you had a full scholarship for any university worldwide, would you still choose ETH Zurich to study computer science? Which reasons speak for or against ETH?
If you had asked me this question 3 years ago, before I began studying at ETH Zurich, I probably would have chosen a university in the US. A large motivation for me moving to Switzerland and attending ETH was the cost compared to American institutions. However, now that I’ve completed my studies at ETH, I can’t imagine studying anywhere else. I think this is a fundamental difficulty when choosing the perfect university; that is to say, you can never accurately assess a school’s qualitative or intangible attributes until you get there. It’s easy to compare prices, academic rankings, etc., but those metrics are entirely insufficient in determining how well a university fits with someone’s personal interests. In my case, I knew that ETH had a very diverse student body and was situated in a very beautiful city/country. However, I did not realize how much I valued these attributes until I arrived at ETH. This type of naivety can only be remedied by experience and, in the end, I’m grateful that I chose ETH.
Apart from my personal feelings and interests, ETH has an inarguably great academic reputation. Every ETH professor I've had has been extremely good and their enthusiasm motivates me to further my own academic learning and exploration. Equally as important, the students here are amazingly smart and driven which helps mitigate much of the fatigue caused by lengthy study sessions and long nights working on projects.
What highlights your student life up to now? What do you like most about it? What has been particularly memorable?
Personal highlights would be simply meeting new people and learning about their backgrounds. Prior to ETH, I had never been to Europe so when I came here my mind was a cultural blank slate. ETH is a very diverse and international campus and it's been great making new friends whose backgrounds differ so much from my own. Additionally, the university and city provide a lot of great opportunities for socializing. Grilling at the lake and grabbing a drink at bQm are awesome ways to strike up a conversation with new people. That's definitely been one of the highlights of my student life. Other notable highlights are the various computer science colloquia. Having brilliant computer scientists from all around the world come and talk about their areas of expertise is fascinating. Plus, many professors often attend the talks, voice their opinions, and enrich the dialogue with their own professional opinions and
anecdotes.
In your opinion, what has been the biggest change compared to your experience as a Master's student?
Courses taught at my undergraduate university followed a slower, stricter curriculum and included a lot of intermittent, graded coursework (e.g. homework assignments, graded projects, etc.). This is not really the case at ETH where nearly all of my courses included suggested assignments which wouldn't impact your grade, but were very helpful in actually understanding the topics taught during lecture. The positives of this structure are that you learn more material at a faster pace and you can choose to explore a topic in more detail outside of lecture at your leisure. However, this also means that I've had to be much more disciplined in how and when I study. Additionally, I find being evaluated by a single final exam is much more stressful and difficult.
If you had the possibility to change one thing at ETH, what would it be?
The logistics of moving to Zurich were rather challenging, particularly finding a place to live. Additional student housing would be nice not only because it would make the transition to Zurich much easier, but also because it would put students in closer contact with one another. I find it very helpful talking with students who have been in the Master's program longer than I have as they know about the various pitfalls and hidden gems that are present at ETH. Providing more opportunities to live in student housing would make it much easier to meet and associate with older and wiser students.
Assuming that after your graduation, you decide to stay in Switzerland. What are your personal and professional aspirations in this country?
Personal aspirations: hike over every mountain in Switzerland. Seeing that this is probably impossible in my lifetime, I would also like to learn how to ski. I've been here three years and have still never skied. Very embarrassing.
Professional aspirations: ETH has a great startup scene and it'd be great to either join a pre-existing startup or found a company of my own. Alternatively, the pharmaceutical and medical industries are very prominent in Switzerland and I feel there is a lot of interesting work present in those fields.