Hey everyone,

I've been wanting to write about this for a while, and I'm genuinely curious to hear about your experiences with the ETH Career Center (and UZH's).

Events and workshops organized by the ETH and UZH Career Centers often have titles that almost feel like clickbait, such as:

• “The Early Bird Gets the Job”
• “How to Find Out What Job I Am Looking For”
• “How to GET a Job in 30 Minutes”
• “Navigating the Hidden Job Market”

I've attended several of these events, hoping to get some practical advice on navigating the job market. But honestly, I have left disappointed almost every single time.

Most of their advice boils down to “networking”, and while they do explain how you're supposedly meant to approach it, a lot of those explanations are, frankly, bullshit.

For example, at one of the most recent events, the advice was something along the lines of:

“Hey, there's a Roche career event this evening. Go talk to the lady there and show genuine interest in the company and the work, rather than making it obvious that you're just looking for a job. Then, at some point in the future, when they need to hire someone, she'll supposedly remember you and think, 'Oh, that nice student I met at the networking event who asked so many great questions! Let's offer her a job instead of posting the position online.'”

Like, seriously? Is this how they think hiring works at a company like Roche? lol.

It's not that they are not trying to help. They do, and I honestly think people working there are really nice people. The problem is that much of the advice feels completely detached from how the job market actually works, at least in 2026. They present these supposedly clever networking strategies as if they're some kind of secret to getting hired, when in reality, they're often just common sense, which has no value anymore.

And don't even get me started on their 100-page application guide. ETH has this application guide, which they also distribute in printed form at pretty much every career-related event. Here's an example of the kind of advice it offers (paraphrased):

“If you score high in the 'people' section, you might enjoy working with people or in a team. If you score high in 'data', you probably prefer analysing data and developing ideas. And if you like working with animals, plants, tools, or materials, you'd probably be happier doing hands-on work rather than sitting at a computer all day.”

Sorry but what is this bullshit? Is this a middle school career orientation exercise, or is it supposed to be actual career advice for people who are in their mid 20s and about to graduate from university, having already spent years studying and committing to a particular field (whether it turned out to be the right choice or not)? I mean, we're talking about a 100-page booklet supposedly designed to help university students navigate the job market. And this is the level of guidance we're getting? I'm genuinely struggling to understand who the target audience is supposed to be.

I completely understand that the job market is difficult right now and that there's only so much a university career center can do. I'm not expecting them to magically find every student a job. But I do expect something more substantial than generic advice dressed up as groundbreaking career strategies.

I know ETH is primarily a research-oriented academic institution rather than a university known for its industry connections and networking opportunities, and I don't expect it to be one. But surely a career center at a university like ETH should still be able to offer more meaningful guidance, especially considering how difficult the transition from academia to industry can be at the moment.

At this point, I honestly feel more frustrated than helped whenever I attend one of these events. Sometimes I wonder whether I'd be better off not going at all, because I always leave feeling like I've just wasted my time listening to advice that's either painfully obvious or completely unrealistic.

So here's my question to you all:

How do you guys feel about the materials, workshops, and career advice offered by ETH or UZH? Do you actually find any of it useful?

Should I just take everything they say with a grain of salt? Or would I genuinely be better off saving my time, skipping these events altogether, and spending those hours doing something more productive for my job search or just simply enjoying other things in life?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing your experiences. Has anyone actually benefited from these workshops, used their advice successfully, or found the application guide helpful? Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe I've just attended the wrong events or had a wrong mindset.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

I would really love to hear what others think, including people who've had positive experiences. Maybe there are actually useful resources or events I'm overlooking.

Thanks a bunch!

I already have a master's in Data Science from my home university in Barcelona, but I have always wanted to study at ETH because of the quality of their teaching, as well as the curriculum you get from it. Moreover, I feel my university does not teach Data Science really well. However, I will be 26 years old if I start the master's, and I think I might be too old.

Assuming I am accepted after applying, should I take the opportunity?

Hello everyone :)

I’m looking for a simple and affordable place to stay in Zurich for two nights per week — Wednesday and Thursday nights — from now until around mid-December.

I’m currently attending courses at ETH Zurich and I travel in from the German side near Basel by car each week. Instead of driving back and forth every day, I’m hoping to find a room, spare bed, sofa, or similar place where I could regularly stay overnight. I would spend almost all of my time at ETH attending lectures or working on my laptop, so I mainly just need somewhere quiet to sleep at night. I’m clean, respectful and easy-going, and I’m absolutely happy to pay/contribute something for the accommodation.

It doesn’t have to be directly in the city centre either, I think also somewhere around Zurich with reasonable access to ETH would also work for me since I have my car. If anyone has a spare room/sofa, knows someone who might, or has any ideas for this kind of weekly arrangement, I’d really appreciate a message.

Thanks a lot!

Has anyone ever participated in an activity that was fully booked without registering ? Do they check ? If you get caught then what happens

Hey I was wondering if I would be eligible to apply if I hold a Dutch master in Econometrics or the community will find this master too similar.
What are your guy’s opinions?

I’m a B.Tech graduate with a 9.1 CGPA and am considering applying for the MSc in Data Science at ETH Zurich. I graduated from a mid-tier engineering college in India, so I’d like to understand my realistic chances of getting admitted and what factors matter most in the selection process.
I’m also curious about the European job market for non-EU students, particularly in data science and AI/ML. I’ve seen mixed opinions online and many graduates seem to end up in research roles. I’d love to hear about the actual industry opportunities, job prospects and challenges international students face when looking for jobs in Europe after graduation.
Thanks in advance!!!

Hey everyone! This year I am finishing by Bachelor's in Intellectual Robotic Systems in a Latvian university (Europe if someone doesn’t know) and I wanted to know if my resume is good enough to get in ETH master’s program - Robotics, Systems and Control. Ideally also get the ESOP?

Top of my class in university. I have good grades, but I also have a few 7s for some subjects, although nothing lower. Avg. grade should be around 8.8

Erasmus+ program in Japan for 6 months.

Work experience in a technological startup – 2 years. (as Head of Product Development). Not working anymore, as my last year in university is quite packed.

Team Captain for a university project building an ASV (autonomous surface vessel)

IELTS score – 8.

SOLIDWORKS Associate certification (nothing crazy, my professor could apply us for free)

Judo National team member – Seniors, U23, U21 and U18.

I think I can get some good recommendations from at least a few of my professors.

I also have some accelerator program certifications and summer school, not sure if it counts as something though.

I am not planning to take GRE because I am not required to do it.

Ciao a tutti. Ci sono italiani attualmente all’ETH di Zurigo in triennale? Avrei bisogno di fare una domanda sull’ammissione. Scrivetemi in dm!

Hey everyone,

I am an international student and my dream is to pursue a Bachelor’s degree at ETH Zurich.

Since the undergraduate path for non-EU/non-Matura students is notoriously difficult, I would love to briefly chat with or ask a few questions to any current international student who successfully made it into a bachelor's program here.

I’m particularly curious about:

• How you prepared for the ETH Entrance Exam (Reduced or Comprehensive).
• How you managed the transition to a German-taught (C1) academic environment.
• Any tips on navigating the visa/financial proof process from outside Europe.

If you are a current international bachelor's student (or know someone who is) and have a few minutes to spare, please drop a comment or send me a DM. Your insight would mean the world to me!

Thank you so much!

Hey all,

I kept finding out about cool events (VIScon, Fachverein parties, random apéros) the day after they happened, because every club posts on its own website or Insta. So I built a site that collects them all in one place:

https://zrh-events.bquozon.ch/?ref=reddit-ethz

What it does:

- pulls events from 250+ ETH and UZH clubs, Fachvereine and the VSETH calendars, updated every 4 hours

- filters for uni, type (party, talk, career, sport…), weekend, free, evenings only

- a "Main clubs" view if you only care about the big ones and your Fachverein

- add to Google Calendar in one tap, or subscribe to the whole thing as a calendar feed

- national/language clubs have a Community filter (AFrEZ, ASTAZ, etc.)

- works in English, German, French and Italian

We all hate the HIL building, mainly because we all wrote the one or other exam in this misconstruction crying for some sort of help, "HIL-fe, ich kann das alles nicht mehr". I mean how is it possible that I have to cross 2 giant rooms just to go to the other side of the building? I think we all hat terrible experiences finding one or the other room. Hönggerberg would be a much better place without HIL

Hi, I am repeating a block this semester that I failed, so if I fail again I’ll be kicked out. I’m already stressed as of week 4 and study a lot but the pressure doesn’t go away.

How did/do you deal with this?

Well, so, Slack is expensive, even for the education pricing. Do any fellow researchers here use Discord to communicate with collaborators? Are your supervisors okay with it? Thanks!

Hi everyone!

I'm a 16 year old student currently studying international A levels, hoping to apply to ETH for autumn semester 2027 for my bachelors.

I am particularly interested in the Computer science, Electrical engineering and information technology (EEIT), and Computational science and engineering (CSE) programs at ETH, but I haven't decided which one I want to apply to yet.

I’d love to hear from current students in these programmes about their experiences, particularly regarding the academic workload, teaching style, student life, accommodation, and what they like or dislike about their programmes.

I’d really appreciate it if anyone would be willing to share their experiences or answer a few questions. Thank you in advance!

Hi everyone - we’re looking for an ETH Zurich Master’s student for a six-month thesis project at IBM Research Zurich on GPU-accelerated stream processing.

The rough research question is:

When should a streaming workload move from CPU execution to GPU execution?

GPUs are excellent for throughput, but they usually need enough parallel work / batching to amortize kernel launch, scheduling, and data-movement overheads. For streaming workloads, that creates an interesting trade-off: CPUs may be preferable at low event rates, while GPUs become much more attractive as throughput demand increases.

The goal of the project is to investigate adaptive GPU offloading for high-throughput stream processing, potentially using Apache Flink together with GPU frameworks such as CUDA, RAPIDS/cuDF, and Velox.

Some of the questions we’re interested in:

• At what event rates / batch sizes does GPU execution start outperforming CPU execution?
• How should the system adapt when the incoming event rate changes over time?
• Can backpressure, queue depth, GPU utilization, or other runtime signals be used to decide when to offload operators?
• How should GPU micro-batch size be chosen dynamically?
• Can we maintain latency targets while exploiting GPUs during periods of high throughput?
• Which streaming operators benefit most from GPU execution?

A likely starting point would be to characterize representative streaming operators on CPU vs GPU and then build an adaptive policy that switches execution mode based on workload conditions.

There’s quite a lot of flexibility in the exact direction depending on your interests. Possible extensions include dynamic CPU/GPU operator placement, GPU pipeline fusion, GPU-resident state, or GPU sharing across streaming workloads.

What we’re looking for:

• Strong C++ and Python skills
• Interest in systems, streaming, GPUs, or performance optimization
• Experience with benchmarking/profiling is useful
• Familiarity with Flink, CUDA, RAPIDS/cuDF, Velox, databases, or distributed systems is a plus, but definitely not required

The main thing we’re looking for is someone who enjoys digging into systems, measuring things properly, and figuring out why something is fast or slow.

Details:

• Location: IBM Research Zurich
• Duration: 6 months
• ETH Zurich Master’s thesis
• Start date: flexible, earliest 01.12.2026.
• Unpaid, in line with ETH Master’s thesis arrangements
• Desk space + laptop provided
• Access to H100/H200 GPUs and frontier LLM models.

We’d like this to be a genuine research project rather than just an implementation exercise, and if the results are strong, we’d encourage and support turning the work into a publication. We actively encourage and support students to publish their work at top-tier conferences such as VLDB, SIGMOD, EuroSys, ASPLOS, DAC, and related systems venues.

If you’re interested, send me:

• CV
• Transcript
• A short note about your background and why the topic sounds interesting

at corey.lammie@ibm.com.

Also happy to answer questions here or by DM. Thanks!

Hello! My husband is a structural engineer and visited ETHZ several years ago on a school trip. He bought a graphic hoodie very similar to this but has unfortunately lost it within the last year, and I would really like to find him another one for his birthday next month. It is out of stock in his size (medium) online, and I can't seem to find another one anywhere. Does anyone know if they frequently restock them (or similar)? Does anyone have one in good shape they dont wear and would be willing to part with? Is there somewhere else I can look, or any other advice? Thank you in advance.

MSc in Statistics in ETH

Hi all, I’m considering applying to the MSc in Statistics at ETH and would appreciate some realistic feedback on my background. I hold a Bachelor's in Statistics from a reputed Statistical Institute in India

My current absolute grade is 88.75 which translates to 9.3/10(absolute grade/9.5). I have done research projects( not preprints though) in Applied fields like Bioinformatics and Time series analysis. My main concern is about my GRE scores. I can't seem to get above the verbal threshold while the others are met. I will be giving the GRE again and I know I'll probably won't get above 158 in Verbal.

I want to know how sensitive are the GRE scores and also whether my current profile is good enough for pursuing a degree here. Any ideas and recommendations are welcome !

I am looking for a realistic and critical assessment of my chances of being admitted to EPFL’s Master in Management, Technology and Entrepreneurship (MTE) and ETH Zurich’s Master in Management, Technology and Economics (MTEC).

I am a Chinese citizen, and my academic background is somewhat unusual:

I studied Physics through a joint academic path involving Jilin University in China and Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) in Russia.

I completed a Bachelor of Science in Physics at Tomsk Polytechnic University, with a focus on condensed matter physics. The degree is 240 ECTS, with an average grade of 4.78/5.0 and graduation with distinction.

My Jilin University transcript has an overall grade of 88.20 and a GPA of 3.58.

I am currently a direct PhD student in China.

My current research involves explainable artificial intelligence.

My TOEFL score is 102. My GRE score is 149 Verbal, 167 Quantitative, and 3.0 Analytical Writing.

I have taken courses in calculus, linear algebra, mathematical methods for physics, mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, programming, numerical methods, and some economics/finance-related subjects.

One concern I have is how EPFL and ETH evaluate degrees awarded by Russian university and Chinese university for international applicants. I would like to understand whether the Russian degree itself could create additional concerns regarding international credential recognition, degree equivalence, document verification, or admissions risk, especially given the current geopolitical context. I am not asking about political opinions; I am specifically asking how universities actually handle the academic recognition of Russian degrees in admissions.

I originally studied physics because I wanted to understand the regularities behind the world. Physics gave me a way to analyze complex phenomena, identify underlying structures, and gain some sense of control and clarity even when I could not change the situation itself.

However, I no longer want physics to remain the center of my academic and professional life. I now want to move from understanding systems to participating in and changing them. In particular, I am interested in management, technology commercialization, entrepreneurship, organizational decision-making, and possibly finance. I want to use the analytical habits developed through physics to understand organizations and social systems, and then take responsibility for practical decisions rather than remaining only an observer of objective reality.

This is not simply an attempt to escape physics. I am trying to build a new direction in which scientific reasoning becomes a foundation for management and action. My long-term goal is to work at the intersection of technology, organizations, and society, possibly in technology management, consulting, innovation, entrepreneurship, or policy-related work.

I would appreciate honest opinions from people familiar with EPFL or ETH Zurich admissions:

Does my academic background look realistic for EPFL MTE or ETH MTEC?

Would my transition from physics and a current physics PhD to management and technology be considered coherent or suspicious?

Which of the two programmes would be more realistic for my profile?

How much of a disadvantage are my limited formal economics and business courses?

Would my current PhD status and research experience strengthen my application, or could they make the transition appear less credible?

Could my Chinese nationality and Russian Bachelor’s degree create any additional credential-recognition or admissions concerns?

What weaknesses would you recommend addressing before applying?

I am not looking for reassurance. I would prefer a conservative assessment based on comparable applicants, programme requirements, and actual admissions experience.

Hey everyone,

I signed up for the VIScon hackathon this weekend, but wondering if it's still fun and worth it, especially with everyone relying on AI to code.

For those who have attended before, is the experience still enjoyable? Is there still a lot of actual coding and collaboration, or has AI changed the whole dynamic and it's basically just spamming claude?

So basically is it worth spending the weekend?

I was able to only find mega thread for 2026 admissions that's why I am posting here

I am looking for fall 2027 admissions, MS in Civil engg. Here's my profile-

* B. Tech in civil engg with honours from IIT Bombay (QS 146 overall, 46 for civil engineering, no 1 in India)
* 8.4/10 CPI (ETH asks for 8.8/10 but on my research I found out that it is for other, more competitive streams)
* One professional Structural design Internship of a month, one industrial research project for one sem (LOR possible)
* One research ongoing (trying for a research paper). Multiple smaller research projects. NO PAPERS (research or others)
* One on-going real world project (Trying for a conference)
* Two non civil related internships, one month each (Growth Outreach and Operations)
* Good Rapport with professors therefore decent to moderately strong LORs possible
* Assume a moderately strong Motivation Letter / SOP
* 92% in matriculation
* GRE uncertain

ANY COMMENTS will be helpful. Thank you.