Your Life and Studies at the ETH Zurich

ETH offers students a comprehensive education and an inspiring research environment as one of the leading international universities for natural sciences and technology. ETH regularly appears at the top of international rankings as one of the best universities in the world. Students benefit from an unusually high number of faculty per student, attractive tuition fees, leading-edge research infrastructure, and a city with a high standard of living.

Pushkar Kopparla

PhD Student, California Institute of Technology, Caltech, Pasadena
“My time at ETH was a profound learning experience, academic and otherwise. It greatly changed my outlook on life, and is one of the main reasons I chose to go into research.”

Pamela Köllner Heck

PhD, Senior Scientific Officer, Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, BAFU – “Studying climate sciences offered me the possibility to turn my passion for nature into my profession. Thanks to the knowledge I gained, I am able now to find solutions to our actual environmental challenges.”

Daniela Schmuki

Meteorologist, SRF Meteo
“As a meteorologist I put into prac- tice the atmospheric science that I learned at ETH. I love the directness of my job: at the end of my shift I find out immediately whether I got things right.”

Christian Vogler

Project Manager Energy & Climate, Econcept AG
“The studies in atmospheric sciences guided me from wind turbines and energy industry to today's position at the interdisciplinary interface of research, consulting and practice – quite the thing!”

Courses at ETH Zurich are intensive and demanding. Nevertheless, students find time to enjoy an active student life.

Get involved

Many students are involved in the Environmental and Forestry Studies Association (UFO) or the ETH Student Union. As a member, you can actively influence the organisation of study programmes.

Balancing your studies

The external page Academic Sport Association of Zurich ASVZ, one of the biggest sports associations in Europe, provides ETH students with a wide range of sports to choose from: over 600 sport instructors teach more than 70 different types of sports. Students registered for academic studies are entitled to participate at the vast majority of these sports courses.

Zurich is a fascinating city, offering a high quality of life and diverse recreational and cultural activities. Its proximity to lakes and mountains makes it a popular spot for water sports and alpine leisure activities, but also mountain sports.

Zurich is beautiful, but expensive. The approximate monthly fixed costs for a single person is at least 1790.-- CHF. Personal requirements such as clothing, telephone calls, leisure activities etc. are not included in this list.

Accommodation

ETH Zurich does not own any student accommodation facilities. It is possible to find accommodation (rooms, studio apartments, etc) by contacting one of the institutions working with ETH Zurich and University of Zurich.

ETH Zurich provides a limited number of furnished single rooms for international Master’s (MSc) and exchange students. These rooms can only be rented for one or two semesters.
The Housing Office of the University and ETH Zurich provides an index on privately run student residences in the “Wohnbulletin”. www.wohnen.ethz.ch
The Student Houses Cooperative Woko rents out 2000 furnished rooms in student residences, student houses or flats throughout the city. external page www.woko.ch
On these websites you can check out other students’ housing advertisements and create your own room request for free: https://point.ethz.ch ; external page www.wgzimmer.ch