EPFL Exchange Part 0: Pre-Exchange

This is the first part of my EPFL Switzerland exchange blog series! I keep a diary/journal, but the quality of my entries is not good enough to publish. It’s going to take me forever to write up my exchange blogs, but here’s a start. Santé! 🥂

Why Go on Exchange?

I had a great time on my Central Europe voyage in 2023, and I wanted to return to see more of the continent. I also wanted to experience living abroad for a few months since I wouldn’t have this opportunity once I start working full-time.

I struggled to make friends in 1A and 1B. Classes were hybrid in 1A, and 1B was our first in-person term (if you ignore the fact that school was closed for the first month due to high COVID cases). People had grown used to isolation over the previous two years, especially my classmates in the enriched math and CS courses. I was disappointed by the lack of extracurricular life at Waterloo. Sure, the courses are good, but university is supposed to be the best time of your life—and I wasn’t getting that here.

I stayed at a classmate’s place in Vancouver before heading to San Francisco. I was lucky to have three sunny days to appreciate the city. We reached a bench on the UBC campus, flanked by cherry blossoms, overlooking the sea, with mountains across the horizon. We had just suffered through two terms of enriched courses during a particularly cold winter. Taking in the view, she lamented that she would have loved to stay here for university. No—she had to choose Waterloo for the co-op program. But I… at this point, I seriously considered transferring here—until my summer internship changed my perspective.

Imagine living on a campus like this (UBC)

This was the first time since COVID that Waterloo students were doing in-person internships, and our Waterloo Bay Area group chat was buzzing. Everyone was there for the first time, and everyone was a stranger. We explored the city, hiked mountains, played board games, and altogether had a good time. I ran into a new grad who said his best term was on exchange at ETH Zürich! This piqued my interest: living in the mountains, speaking German, travelling on weekends, and hitting the bar with classmates after school.

I eventually figured out how to enjoy my school terms at Waterloo—but still 🙃. I’ve moved to San Francisco, San Mateo, and Chicago for internships. Now it was time to step things up and move to a truly foreign country.

Choosing a School

Singapore is the most coveted exchange destination (for Waterloo students), but it wasn’t the best fit for me. I love nature and history, not so much in big cities. All of our exchange destination schools are in Europe and Asia, so I narrowed down my search to Europe.

My exchange university criteria were, in rough order of importance:

1. Offered by the University of Waterloo
2. Good weather and nature
3. A good number of foreign (English-speaking) students
4. A local language I could converse in so that daily life wouldn’t be a struggle, i.e. English or French
5. Reasonably good course offerings (learning is still important)
6. A central location for easy continental travel

England was the first place I looked as they speak English and the country feels more “American” than the rest of Europe. They also have very good schools, but the weather isn’t the best gloomy and I wasn’t too interested in the country. There weren’t many schools offered in France, and none were particularly strong academically or near mountains. The Nordic countries, the Low Countries and Germany have excellent English proficiency, so those were my next considerations.

The Low Countries, Denmark, and northern Germany lack mountains, so I ruled them out. The only remaining option in Germany was the Technical University of Munich, a two-hour drive from the Bavarian Alps. I met a TUM exchange student at Waterloo in 2022 and visited him in Munich the previous year. While the city is nice, the campus was not that nice and in general, German professors don’t put as much effort into teaching.

I also didn’t want to freeze in the Nordic countries in winter while being far from the rest of the continent.

Switzerland has stunning mountains, mild winters, a somewhat international vibe, and two technical universities. I would have loved to study at ETH Zürich, but the school explicitly disallowed CS students from Waterloo. That left me with EPFL, the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne—still a good school—situated in French-speaking Lausanne. The Swiss French speak slower and more standard French (less slang and non-standard grammar) than elsewhere in France, so that would make things even easier for me. Switzerland is situated right in the centre of Europe and has excellent punctual transit. This was the perfect destination, but it would be expensive.

Pre-arrival

Housing

FMEL is the housing association affiliated with EPFL and UNIL universities in Lausanne. Most exchange students from outside Europe were guaranteed FMEL housing. This was a huge advantage, as I secured a studio right across the street from campus. My European friends struggled to find housing and ended up commuting 45 minutes by train for the same rent as me. Initially I had planned on getting a shared flat, but the small premium for a private kitchen was well worth it as I would be cooking almost every meal.

Visa

The visa application process was more frustrating. I was working in Chicago over the summer but had to mail my application package to the Montreal consulate. I would not use USPS again after they lost my tax forms the previous year, and the FedEx and UPS websites were unusable. I spent a week calling customer support just to buy a shipping label. The issue was that I was declaring a shipment value above $100, which triggered vague error messages. The whole time, I prayed FedEx wouldn’t lose my passport. 🙏

Arrival

I landed in Zürich and slept on the train to Lausanne. After moving into my dorm, I went straight to bed. The next day, I visited the population office to apply for a resident’s permit. I was annoyed by the 142 CHF (225 CAD) fee, but it was only the first of many to come…

I was surprised by how spacious my dorm was. I was used to dorms barely fitting a bed, desk, and drawer. Here, even shared flat bedrooms were huge. My studio included a kitchenette, dining table, and a beautiful eastward view of the light rail garage and mountains beyond. Initially, there were some pests (flies, spiders, and silverfish), but after a few rounds with the vacuum and as temperatures dropped, they disappeared.

My studio

Kitchenette

Morning photos out my window¹

Washroom²

While moving in, I met an Irish guy whose English accent I struggled to understand. We pronounced our vowels very differently, and I had to ask him to repeat himself again and again. We ended up speaking a mix of English and French. 🙃

My high school French classes emphasized reading, writing, oral comprehension, pronunciation, and responding to the teacher’s questions—not conversational fluency. This was four years ago, so unsurprisingly, I had forgotten much. I guess I have more work to do this semester…

Bergen Trip

I had a week before school started, so I went on a trip to Bergen! (to be published).

In the next part, I’ll cover the start of the semester. Stay tuned! 📻

1. Generated by convert -delay 100 -loop 0 $(ls) views.gif ↩︎

2. Not toilet, not restroom, but washroom 🇨🇦 ↩︎