How's life in: Zürich

HOW IS LIFE IN...

Zürich, Switzerland

WRITTEN BY LISELOTTE VAN WISSEN

After a long search for a suitable internship my advisor suggested an internship at the ETH in Zürich. I didn’t know much about the place or the university. And even though it wasn’t what I was originally looking for, it did suit my situation and sounded nice. So, I decided to just go for it. In the end, it worked out well and I had an amazing time and experience, and I can look back on it with joy and with lots of great memories.

Project and University

The project I worked on was executed by the ETH but commissioned by CERN. It focusses on reinforcing epoxies to be suitable for the impregnation of superconducting magnets. Superconducting magnets are very strong magnets which can reach a magnetic flux of 16 Tesla. Due to the large Lorenz forces acting on the coils local stresses and strains occur, which will result in energy release in the form of heat. Since the operating temperature of the magnet is around 10 Kelvin, this heat release will make it shut down. So In an attempt to counteract this effect, the coils are impregnated with epoxy to serve as a buffer to prevent local stress and strain. The epoxy used to impregnate the coil needs to be tough and strong enough to withstand the forces that are being put upon it. If this is not the case it can be that the epoxy starts fracturing which will lead to energy release in the form of heat, and thus defeating the initial purpose of the epoxy. For my research I investigated the influence of certain fillers on the fracture toughness of different epoxies. With the ultimate goal of increasing the fracture toughness. This meant I spent most of my time in different laboratories mixing and preparing epoxies, making different types of samples and preforming a variety of tests to determine the fracture toughness and other important material properties.

As said before I did my internship at the ETH. Which is one of the two main universities in Zürich, Switzerland. I did my research at the Material science faculty within the soft materials group. It was a very diverse group with regards to both the people and the projects. Which meant there was always enough to discuss during lunch and coffee breaks. Besides working hard and discussing research topics and struggles, there was also time for fun group activities. From more officially organized activities like a 3-day ski-trip and a dinner. To the regular and spontaneous drinks in the faculty pub.

Life in Zürich

Since this was my first experience with Zürich and Switzerland as a whole, I had very few expectations on how it was going to be to live there. I expected everything to be more expensive than what I was used to back home. Which was indeed true, most things were a bit more expensive, but nothing to crazy. The only thing that really caught me by surprise was how expensive it was to buy meat in the grocery store. Which lead to me trying out and learning to cook a lot of delicious vegetarian and vegan meals. But on the other hand, the chocolate was cheaper, and more delicious than back home so that was a big plus. Furthermore, I expected to be able to practice my German a bit. But this turned out to not be the case. Since roughly 1/3 of citizens are expats and at Uni about half of the people were expats, I almost always spoke English. And even if native Swiss people spoke German, they spoke Swiss German which is about as close to German as Frisian is to Dutch. Which meant it was still mostly incomprehensible for me. Other than those two assumptions I went there completely blank as to what to expect. And one of the most positive things which I didn’t expect, since it is a big city, was how outdoor focussed it would be.

There are a lot of parks and forests and a few mountains around, all of them well maintained and with public campfire/ BBQ places and drinking fountains all scattered throughout. Same goes for the lake which ends in the city centre. It has swimming areas all around with public changing rooms and showers free to use for everybody. And even though I was there during (the end of) winter and thus was not able to go swimming in the lake, I was still out hiking and exploring the city or the surroundings almost every weekend. As did most people. Especially on Sundays the parks and forests were crowded with families walking around or enjoying a picknick, or people running and mountain biking.

Another reason for the Sundays being extra busy in the woods, is probably because a lot of shops and cafés are closed on Sundays. Because, although it is a big city with lots of international citizens, there are still some cultural habits which shows the conservative and Christian history of the city.

I really loved the fact that this city was so versatile. It was an old big European city with a lot of shops, landmarks and tiny cosy streets. But at the same time, it has a lot of beautiful nature and outdoor activities all in or near the city centre. Unfortunately I had to leave very promptly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but this city has surprised me in a positive way and I will definitely go back there in the future to explore and do the things I didn’t got a chance to do so this time around.