Nicky Kern

The new Survival Guide is finally finished! Wait a moment: "survival" of what? ETH of course! - An article on our own business.

ETH is, as every other large corporation, an organism in itself. There are very special and unique rules to be obeyed. There are things one just needs to know: important people or offices, administrative hassle, sports, cultural things, student restaurants, and many other things. Just small things? Not necessarily, but even if so: a big pile of small, annoying things can make life a lot harder.

There are already quite some introductory guides to Zurich in general and ETH in particular, e.g. the polyguide (www.polyguide.ch). So, is another 200 page book really needed to survive ETH? There can't be that many students' restaurants!

However, already a very first glance at the two tables of contents shows, that two distinct publications are quite justified. Especially the one of the Survival Guide shows what is bothering PhD-students and PostDocs at ETH. Of course, there is a detailed description of ETH and some information about Zurich, but that is not the main thing.

More important is the description of the system of doctoral studies at ETH: especially for PhD-students from non-german speaking countries this system is not obvious to understand. Search for a PhD, financing, application, "Doktoratsstudium" (which is very much different from a "traditional" PhD-program) - all these things, that are essential to know about at ETH.

Which brings us to another very important point: foreigners. Considering, that half the Mittelbau is composed of foreigners, there is an obvious demand for help. Thus, an important part of the Survival Guide deals with moving to Zurich (from another country), residence permits, parking permits, changing of driving licenses and other pleasant things. That the Survival Guide is written in english is not really worth mentioning of course...

Weiter: oben rechts (#oben)

Nicky Kern

But there are also things for the natives: techniques for organising daily work, dealing with advisors resp. bosses - the right term depends obviously of the advisor/boss, teaching activities, emergency management and further education are all things, that might pose questions.

A special chapter is dedicated to the equal treatment of men and women. The situation is not always easy in a environment of male abundance. Especially difficult is the situation in the case of a pregnancy: places in creches are very rare and advisors are not necessarily very helpful. Although there are no ready solutions (even though it would be nice if there were), the situation has occured before, and there are people that can help!

In brief: the Survival Guide actually does help to survive ETH. Some topics are very interesting for the general public - the structure of ETH and information about Zurich and Switzerland -, others are specifically for the "Mittelbau", such as specifica about PhD-studies, help for foreigners and families (which are a lot more commonplace among postgrads than under undergrads). Such a publication is a lot of work, and we hope that it will help many people!

The Survival Guide can be obtained from the AVETH secretary (sekret@aveth.ethz.ch). More information can be found on the web page www.aveth.ethz.ch.