SWITZERLAND has so much more to offer than cheese, chocolate and snow-covered mountains. It also has some of the very best universities in the world. says international student Kate Istead.
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SWITZERLAND is a tiny country with just eight million people. Yet it is truly diverse in language, culture, industry, geography and climate. The vistas are unbeatable, the food delicious and the lifestyle one of prosperity, appreciation and balance.
World class universities
Switzerland is the only European country apart from the UK whose universities are ranked among the world’s top 20.
ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne are ranked 12th and 19th respectively in the QS world rankings.
And five more Swiss institutions are within the world’s top 200 - that’s some achievement given that the country only has 10 universities and two federal institutes of technology.
The offering of educational programs mimics the diversity of the entire country – Switzerland is a destination for the study of many subjects including the applied and social sciences, international affairs, public administration, finance, hotel management and teacher education. Most notably, Switzerland’s business education system is highly regarded as among the best worldwide, with seven business schools from the country making it onto SMBG’s annual ranking of the Best 1,000 Business Schools in 154 countries.
An international outlook
With such a variety of exciting options and an incredible reputation for education, it is no wonder Switzerland’s universities are filled with students from all over the world. More than a quarter of students in Swiss universities are from outside the country and that number jumps to over half when you consider PhD students. In fact, the top three schools on the Times Higher Learning’s list of the 100 Most International Universities (2014) in the World are located in Switzerland.
Lower tuition fees but higher cost of living
Tuition at Swiss universities, even for foreign students, is often quite a bit lower than you’d expect when compared to schools in the UK or the US. Switzerland's investment in education and research is among the highest of all OECD countries. The savings on tuition fees won’t go unspent though as three of Switzerland’s biggest university cities (Geneva, Zurich and Bern) are on Mercer’s Most Expensive Cities in the World List. Depending on the city, living expenses in Switzerland can be estimated between CHF 18,000 and 28,000 per year. That’s about $20,000-30,500. To help ease the burden, scholarships are available directly through Swiss universities or through the Swiss government, which offers scholarships to foreign students on the basis of reciprocity with their country of origin.
Language is no barrier
Switzerland has four official languages, and while English isn’t one of them, the country is nevertheless full of Anglophones. Undergraduate study in Switzerland is usually in the national language of whichever region hosts the university (German, French or Italian), while many graduate programs are also offered in English. Some universities offer programs for those who wish to learn a second language by having instruction simultaneously in two languages. In these classrooms, a question may be asked by a student in French and answered by the professor in English!
Student visas
Swiss visa regulations can seem pretty strict, but don’t let that scare you off. It’s done to protect the integrity of their identity – the Swiss are very proud to be so – and the diversity of this great country should give rise to feelings of inclusivity, not restriction.
A student’s view
Kate Istead is studying for an International Organizations MBA (IOMBA) at the University of Geneva.
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Placed around the South West end of Switzerland’s biggest lake, Lac Léman (known to most as Lake Geneva, with its grand Jet d’Eau), and under the shadow of the picturesque Alps and Jura mountain ranges, the city of Geneva is a gateway to truly magnificent Swiss explorations. The city is French-speaking, but if you listen carefully, you can easily hear more than 10 languages in a single tram ride. It is home to more than 35 International Organizations (IOs) and more then 250 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) so it really is the internationally diverse epicenter for development, innovation and education.
The International Organizations MBA (IOMBA) at the University of Geneva is a further microcosmic representation of the bigger international picture that is Geneva, which itself is a tiny magnification of the diversity of Switzerland. The program runs from September until June and requires a minimum of a three-month internship. Our classes are broken down into 24 intensive modules, each a total of 24 hours of class time, which are taught by prestigious and highly qualified faculty members from all over the world.
Our class is small, about 15 of us in total, making us sometimes feel more like family than classmates. Like any family, we have both our good moments and our dysfunctional moments, but at the end of the day, we all support each other in what we’re here to do. We, too, are an international bunch. We come from India, Palestine, Lebanon, Korea, China, Isreal, Canada, the US, the UK, the Philippines, Singapore, Romania, Switzerland and France. The diverse nature of our backgrounds gives us the opportunity to learn not only from the program we engage in and the country that surrounds us, but also from the varied experiences we each bring into the classroom.
The best advice I can give to someone looking to study in Switzerland is, just do it!
Sure, you might have to dig through a lot of information to get here, but all that stress will melt away like the cheese in a fondue pot as soon as you arrive in one of the world’s most unique, and yet simultaneously, globally representative countries.
