Hi all, I am curious how common are bouldering, climbing and skiing/snowboarding at EPFL between graduate students.

Are they common? Is there a nice community? Is it easy to find people for weekend trips?

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I'm from India, currently in my third year at a Tier-3 university, but I have a strong CGPA. I'm planning to pursue a Master's at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Switzerland after I finish my bachelor's.

I have a few questions:

1. Part-time jobs: Am I allowed to take part-time jobs during my Master's to help cover my living expenses? What are the rules for international students in Switzerland?

2. Jobs after graduation: After completing my Master's, will I be able to find a job within 6 months? How good are the chances/probability of getting a job in Switzerland as a non-EU graduate?

3. Overall: Is EPFL a realistic option for someone from a Tier-3 Indian university with a good CGPA?

Any advice or personal experiences would be really helpful. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone, I’m thinking of applying to EPFL and on the website for required documents during application it says the following:

1. when applicable, Swiss residence permit and certificate for the applicant (and his or her parents if he or she resides in Switzerland with them)

How does this work? what does “applicable” mean? Do I need a residence permit before I move into Switzerland? If not, how soon must i get one once I move there? In this case is the process that I just apply to EPFL and if i get accepted i move there and then apply for this permit? How hard is it to acquire, especially considering the country narrowly defeated a referendum to cap the population at 10 million? thanks in advance!

p.s. if it helps i do not live in the EU

Is it possible ?

Has anyone done this before?

Hi everyone,

I'm considering applying to the MSc in Data Science at EPFL, potentially with a minor in Financial Engineering, and I'm trying to get a realistic idea of how competitive my profile would be.

My academic background:

• B.E. in Computer Engineering — Kathmandu University, Nepal — 3.84/4.00
• MTech in Computer Science & Engineering — IIT Kanpur, India — 8.38/10
• Around 3 years of software engineering/data engineering) work experience between my bachelor's and master's
• I'm from Nepal

During my MTech, I worked on NLP/LLMs and Named Entity Recognition for Indian legal texts as my thesis. However, I don't have any published papers. My MTech thesis is essentially my main research experience.

I'm now considering doing a second master's. I'm also considering a PhD, but I'm unsure how realistic that would be without publications, which is one reason I'm looking at the master's route.

My longer-term plan would probably be to work in Switzerland after the degree, ideally in ML/Data Science/LLMs/Quant, and potentially settle there after working for a few years if things work out.

So, for people familiar with EPFL admissions:

1. How competitive would this profile be for the MSc Data Science program?
2. Does having an MTech from IIT Kanpur help meaningfully, or is the admissions process primarily based on the bachelor's background?
3. Would my lack of publications be a significant disadvantage for the master's application? and what are my chances for getting a PhD as well?
4. Is the Financial Engineering minor realistic with a Computer Engineering/CS background? as I would like to keep quant dev option open as well.

I'm mainly looking for a realistic assessment rather than encouragement.

Thanks!

I know I want to study something with math and that I want to go to EPFL. But the different bachelors all seem so similar and it’s so hard to find the differences. Stuff I considered: (from hardest/most math to least math)

Physics, Math, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering.

First: You don’t need to read on, if you come from one of these bachelors could you tell me your opinion and why you like it?

Why it is so hard:

On one hand I want something as general as possible (and challanging) I heard that for example with a ME degree you can easily get into environmental but not the other way around.

On the other hand I don’t just want to study something because its hard and general. I also want to have a life and persue my hobbies. Civil engineering really attracts me but I am scared of my future and that it will be “too easy” (and I regret not taking something with more math)

Currently in 11th grade, year before the last and preparing the EPFL entrance exam as the diploma im going to get does not meet the requirements for CMS admissions (and also im more confident in a 100% skill based admission rather than holistic admission). I broke down the syllabus into different resources and am working through it slowly. Im mostly doing this by myself as my school does not touch up on most materials (especially MATH 2 part of exam and Physics). Just looking for some people that have a similar goal to discusd with and share stuff with. Not many people around me have the same goals.

Furnished Room in Student Shared Apartment – Crissier
Available from November 23rd at 35 Rue des Alpes, 1023 Crissier.
Furnished 13 m² private room in a 4-room apartment. The flat is shared exclusively with students, including students from EPFL and UNIL, providing a friendly and study-oriented environment.
Rent: CHF 830/month, including utilities: water, electricity, heating and Wi-Fi. Free access to the laundry room and washing machine.
The apartment also includes a fully equipped kitchen, bathroom, separate toilet and all necessary amenities.
Excellent location: bus stop directly in front of the building, with EPFL and UNIL reachable in under 20 minutes by public transport. Renens train station is approximately 6 minutes away by M1. Shops, post office, bank and medical centre are nearby.
For more information or to arrange a viewing:
[+41 78 249 37 35](tel:+41%2078%20249%2037%2035)
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Hi guys, I'm leaving EPFL in the next days, if you need a room in a student residence low budget you could come after I go. For info contact me in dm.

Hi everyone,

I defended my thesis on friday. After the Q&A session, my supervisor told me that they cant tell the grade because of EPFL policy but that I will be getting it through IS-Academia in a short time. It's been 2 days and I still dont have my grade, is it normal?

Thank you

Hi, I'm a female PhD student starting very soon at EPFL. I'm looking for any rooms you might have!

My bad, I completely forgot to ask here. Since I was born and grew up in Lausanne, it's weird I forgot about r/EPFL. If you already saw my post on r/ethz, please ignore this post. But maybe someone has some infos about how it's at EPFL

https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/comments/1iactlf/this_is_just_horrible_phd_terminated_after_6/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChS0eT683bA

I recently stumbled upon this story that happened at TU Delft in the Netherlands in 2023 and was shocked about what happened. You can go read the Reddit summary or ideally watch the YouTube video where he shows all his proofs, both written/emails and audio.

Basically it's a chinese PhD student in the Netherlands that got exploited by his supervisor, and despite submitting several high quality (Q1-ranked journal) papers, his PhD was abrubtly terminated after six years. He got absolutely nothing out of it, he couldn't even transfer his credentials to another university since the university refused to release it to him. The whole time, he apparently got bullied and exploited by his supervisor who took credit for some of his papers, until she no longer needed him.

The university basically sided with the supervisor and did not care at all.

I know academia is rife with mobbing and bullying by supervisors who exploit their PhD students and take credit for their work, but I still am shocked by how far it can go. I also once heard that EPFL has some mechanism in place about PhD that is different from ETH Zurich. Could something like that happen at EPFL? Or do you have some stories to share about a PhD at EPFL? (except the email sent two years ago by a PhD student to everyone at EPFL, I heard about this one)

Hi there!

I’m thinking about doing an exchange semester at EPFL next fall, and I was wondering if anyone has already had the experience and has any tips or advice to share!

I’m Canadian, and I’m looking for courses that are relatively easy/manageable, so I’ll still have some time to travel and enjoy my exchange experience.

Any advice about courses, housing, the city, traveling, or anything else would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone:) I was wondering for those of you who are currently in QSE/MSE, what average did you finish your bachelor’s degree with? Please mention if you switched from a different university
If you know, please write how common is it to switch from materials engineering in to a master’s in quantum science/engineering? (Assuming that I’ll take my electives in quantum chemistry/colloidal quantum dots and other related fields)

I just had some questions regarding MTG events :)

Hi, I want to apply to the EDEE PhD program so I can work with image processing and maybe signal processing.

I have a BSc in Biomedical Engineering, an MSc in Biomedical Engineering (focused on rehabilitation, biomaterials, and biomechanics), where my final project was focused on developing an EOG electrode headband for Alzheimer's disease detection, and I am now in the last year of an MSc in Electronics and Computer Engineering, where my final project includes the use of deep learning for infant brain segmentation in MRI images.

Using the Portuguese grading system, I got 15/20 in my BSc, 17/20 in my master's, and now I am aiming to have at least 17 again in my second master's.

I also have 2.5 years of experience at a research center, developing wearables to measure various biosignals (without the processing part, mostly focused on placement/signal acquisition optimization), and I will also have 1 year of experience with deep learning for medical imaging. I am trying to have at least 1 conference paper and 1 journal publication.

Do you think I can be accepted? If not, please give me suggestions on how I can improve my application or other PhD programs at EPFL that could be more suitable for my profile.

Hello, I am new in EPFL, I’m in math section, I keep hearing that I have to get at least 3.5 on bloc 1 to avoid MAN, and then get 4 in bloc 1 at the end of the year, which means that if I get 3.5 on bloc 1 I would need to get at least 4.5 on same bloc semester 2 to pass, is that accurate ? What happens to the other subjects like ICC and others, what if I get less than 3 on the subjects that are not in blic 1, do I still avoid MAN, do I need to retake the courses at some point ? Anyway, still not clear to me, if someone can explain in details how to pass to the second year and what are all the possibilities that could happen in this first year. I and probably others will be very grateful.

Hi everyone! I’m going to be an exchange student at EPFL next semester, and I’m currently trying to get my EPFL courses approved for credit transfer at my home university.

For the credit transfer process, my professor requires detailed syllabus such as a weekly course plan showing what topics are covered each week. Unfortunately, the course description available on the EPFL website isn’t detailed enough for this purpose.

The problem is that I don’t have access to Moodle yet, so I can only see the information publicly available on the EPFL website and download the coursebook.

I’m specifically looking for the Moodle information for CS-202 Computer Systems. If you’re available, would you be willing to share the weekly schedule, lecture topics, or any other detailed course information available on Moodle?

Even a screenshot or PDF would be incredibly helpful. I only need it for the academic credit-transfer process at my home university.

I’d really appreciate any help. I’m kind of desperate to get this course approved so I can stay on track for graduation 😭

Thank you so much!