How we benefit from variety

My life changed at many levels when I switched from grammar school to ETH: suddenly, I was no longer a pupil amongst 20 classmates, but a student amongst 400 students I did not know; suddenly, I was able to do whatever I wanted, nobody checked whether I was attending a lecture or drinking coffee and playing cards with friends at Polysnack.

My social environment also changed all at once: while friends from my days at school were mainly Zurich locals, my first acquaintances at university suddenly included a lot of German nationals, people from the Romandie, Ticino and Austria. This variety changed my view of the world in many ways: I was no longer interested solely in Swiss political issues, but also in international affairs. My lifestyle was compared with that of my colleagues, my pride in and willingness to improve my own environment increased several fold.

In the first years at university, amongst other things due to the lectures being held in German in the foundation year, the variety of nationalities is largely still limited to the northern and eastern neighbouring countries; the environment then becomes yet even more exciting during the Masters’ phase. In addition to German nationals, students from the Romandie, Ticino and Austria, you also get to meet students from all continents.

Variety as part of education

This variety is enriching, not only in the social, but also in the scientific context. Many expert concepts which are taught at ETH are understood differently at other universities or in other countries, explained differently and have different applications. The resulting discussions amongst the students with various backgrounds make a strong contribution to self-reflection and the critical questioning of the subjects taught. I believe that they are a key component to the education at ETH.

Variety as part of education is also essential for the later profession: the variety of and openness towards other opinions and solutions, which we learn in our studies at ETH, prepares us to find our way around the global, interconnected world. This is not only restricted to working for commercial companies, but also applies in research, where collaboration in an international team is the usual approach nowadays.

It is, of course, not easy to support this variety at ETH in a political context, the tendency in Swiss politics over the past six months has been to make it more difficult for foreigners to come to Switzerland to study, in particular at ETH. Examples of this are the accepting of the initiative against mass immigration and the plan to set different levels of tuition fees for domestic and foreign students. But I nevertheless believe that it is necessary to fight to maintain the variety at ETH, as otherwise a large part of the valuable learning effect of the international exchange of ideas and experiences at our students’ own university would be lost.