An inside look: graduate school at EPFL. Part 2

Unique and stunning Rolex center: cheese on the top, against the backdrop of the foothills of the mountains.

So, in the previous article we examined the aspects of entering EPFL postgraduate school, but upon arrival to the country, rhinestones raise many everyday issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible.


Happy and satisfied, having a ticket, a visa and a contract, you need to consider at least the first two months of your stay in Switzerland. The first month - before the salary, the second month - to get used to the new habitat and exercises with various government agencies and insurance companies. The following description is briefly described on the EPFL website itself , but I would like to present an extended version with a lot of useful links, and share my own experience during the play.


Satisfied ?! Well, who will be pleased with such a climate? (photos taken with a period of a day)

Housing or where does GASPAR?

The first thing you need to understand for yourself - the first month will be the most difficult and most costly. As I already described in the previous part , housing searches remotely - compare the construction of sand castles on the seashore in a storm. No matter how lucky you are at the beginning, everything is likely to end at the “come and get acquainted” stage. In addition, you usually can never meet a true homeowner, talking only with agents who do not always want to speak English.

Therefore, I would recommend puzzling this question with either the professor’s secretary, or living a month in a kind of dormitory, and then again transfer this problem to a special EPFL unit - Logement. It’s enough just to politely ask by e-mail to find a home. Since if a university vouches for you, this will give a certain amount of points in your favor when making decisions by real estate agents (other parameters are a personal impression, a certificate of income, which is sent monthly by the university, rental stability or the term of the contract). It is also useful to ask the secretary to make paper for you that you are here thoroughly and for a long time.

In addition, upon arrival, each employee, student and so on receives a so-called GASPAR account (only in French), which is used everywhere: to receive a CamiPro student card , purchase licensed software and computer equipment with certain discounts, purchases in a specialized store (in my case, this is a store of chemical reagents and supplies), university-wide mail, an electronic system of accounting for courses and teacher practice, and so on and so forth. That is, almost everywhere. In particular, for access to its own university (UNIL + EPFL) housing search base .

In principle, you can subscribe to similar information received from the Logement website, but in pdf format, simply, as I have already noted, by sending an email to this unit explaining the situation. Like, you are a future graduate student and want to look for housing, but you can’t find anything yet.

For example, my statistics are as follows - out of 78 requests, 26 at least some answers were received (i.e., a third), and there really are no more than 5 offers to come and see. Depressing statistics.

Ultimately, you can find the right housing if you spend some time. Moreover, the cost depending on the area, floor and number of rooms varies from 500-700 francs (1 CHF ~ 34 rubles) to almost infinity.


University base for the search for housing: no unnecessary information, everything is strictly in the case

Another feature - a deposit for housing. Opens in the bank. The amount deposited on this deposit can vary from 1 to 3-4 monthly housing fees. He returns after leaving the apartment. It is clear that at the beginning no one has such money, therefore there is a special service: about 100 francs per year and a third party will vouch for you.

Work Permit or Permit

The first thing that needs to be done is to submit documents for a work permit (or vernacular permits) to the office of Contrôle des habitants. This will require:

• photo 3.5 * 4.5 cm,
• it’s better to immediately fill out the Rapport d'arrivee form, which you can download and fill out at home,
• the OASA form that the professor’s secretary will send you in the form of a scan,
• a copy of the work contract and the contract itself,
• a notarized copy of the birth certificate,
• copy is overseas. passports
• payment (~ 150 CHF) is made directly on the spot upon submission of documents

However, first you need to undergo biometrics in a special center and by invitation, which again will be sent to you from the secretary. Cost - 20 francs. This price includes photos, fingerprints and an electronic signature.

2-3 months after the submission of documents, the premium will be sent by mail.





Unfortunately, Swiss laws are so harsh that not only will you have to redo every 4 years of postgraduate study, but it also limits your possibilities a bit, because it BL (although permit B is printed on the card) is a mixture of temporary work permits and permits for students (students, for example). In addition, the contract says in small print that years in graduate school do not count when receiving Permit C, that is, a permanent residence permit. In Germany, for example, it is enough to work from the age of five on a more or less permanent basis and - voula - one step closer to citizenship.

Another minor dirty trick is moving from a commune to a commune (read - from village to village, from city to city). In this case, the permit must be "updated", i.e. submit the whole set of documents again and wait for the above time - a couple of months. And two communes can be separated only by a small street.

Bank account

After submitting documents, usually immediately (from the commune to the commune the rules may differ) an attestation is issued, with which you can safely go to the bank and open an account there. Usually everything is done within 10-20 minutes. The main thing, then do not forget to enter the account number in the questionnaire and enter it in Human Resource .

Switzerland is a country of banks. Exaggerating, each store has its own bank. The most popular: Credit Swiss and UBS (both have representative offices in the Russian Federation), PostFinance (a very convenient bank for domestic use, since there are a lot of offices in every post office, there is an ATM, but otherwise not), COOP Finance and MIGRO Finance (both names are supermarket chains) and so on.

For the first time, they will only make a salary card - Visa Electron or Maestro, but when the permit is on hand, you can safely apply for a credit card. Again, the matter is 15 minutes and the card will be sent by mail.

Enrollment in a doctoral school and student card (CamiPro)

Another formality on the way to obtaining a local student card is admission to graduate school. To do this, it is necessary to provide diplomas (naturally, originals and translations into English) to the secretariat of the relevant school, the consent of the professor or supervisor to take patronage over you.



After that, you can safely go for CamiPro - a local student ticket combined with an NFC wallet. It takes about 10 minutes - photographing and printing the card itself. After a couple of weeks from school, confirmation of enrollment arrives, which means it's time to visit our little Oscar to print the "validity period" of this graduate student - it's funny!

In addition, the presence of CamiPro allows you to use scanners / copiers, rent a car for short trips or a bicycle - a complete list is here . Finally, to provoke a bit of envy, there is a CamiPro application for iOS and Android with a huge list of features: from the metro schedule and restaurants / canteens on campus to the campus map.


CamiPro in action. All photos taken from official EPFL sites

Pleasant bonus for EPFL employees

I never cease to be surprised at the countries of Europe, the countries of the victorious capitalism of socialism. So in a sketch about an internship in Germany a couple of years ago, I gave some costing / income estimates for an average student and why we, the builders of communism, never built it.

In short, I’ll say that a travel card for all types of transport in Moscow costs about 350 rubles for students, about 2,000 for graduate students (I'm afraid to make mistakes with exact numbers). Yes, you heard right, graduate students have absolutely no benefits, and the scholarship until September 2012 was 2,500 rubles (no allowance, with an allowance of about 3,500-4,000), now it’s 6,000 (but this is a miserable consolation, for allowances were cut).

In developed countries (Germany, France, Switzerland, etc.) there is a special travel card for students, the cost of which rarely exceeds 40-60 euros (that is, no more than 2,400 rubles), while this expense item does not exceed 5% of income of students and graduate students, rather than 50, 70 or 90.

For example, my monthly Mobilis pass to two zones (the so-called Greater Lausanne) costs 45 francs per month. However, EPFL, together with SBB (local Russian Railways), provides a free demi-tariff card (all trips are at 50% of the cost, this also includes public transport in some cities, and water transport) or a discount of several hundred francs per GA (annual unlimited travel card).

Having a half price card on hand, you can buy a 7 way card for 130 francs, which gives the right to travel from 7 pm to 5 am absolutely free, without even getting a boarding pass, like ours, with a “zero” cost. True, only a person from 16 to 25 years old can buy such a card.

Mandatory safety training

Upon receipt of CamiPro, an invitation is issued for mandatory training in fire safety and first aid. This is useful, I do not argue, it’s rather boring, with the exception of the practical part:

Health insurance

In Switzerland, there is one small but extremely significant nuance: the supremacy of cantonal laws over federal ones. That is, you can’t just take and insure yourself and your health. It is necessary that this insurance and this insurance company be approved by the cantonal !!! by the authorities. And this means that do not even think to buy insurance in the Russian Federation for more than one month.

The most famous companies in EPFL are SwissCare and CSS insurance . The differences are minimal, everywhere the monthly fee is about 80 francs. But this is basic insurance, for example, it does not include a dentist who costs a certain amount of francs a month.

In general, getting sick in Switzerland is not pleasant, because insurance covers only what is higher than the so-called “deductible” (usually from 100 francs and more). That is, for the treatment some amount of your karma will have to pay.

The main difference between the above companies is that CSS itself pays the doctor directly, while in the case of SwissCare you have to pay yourself, send the bill by mail and in a couple of weeks the bill will be refunded.

Home Insurance & ECA

Yes, insurance of everything and everything is a rather substantial part of the expenses of the family budget. Health insurance, health insurance against accidents at work, pension insurance, home insurance, fire insurance. In the end, you sit all reinsured ...

There are at least two types of home insurance: ECA (against fire) and RC privee (if you suddenly want to break the wall with your head). As far as I understand, RC privee is required to cover expenses if something is broken, broken or broken at the time of leaving the apartment.

Phone and Internet

There are no big problems with communications here. A 250 Mb pre-paid mobile Internet costs 7 francs per month (enough for the eyes, since both at home and at work Wi-Fi), and 8 Mb / s home Internet will cost 30 francs plus 5 for a set-top box with wireless Internet.

Nutrition

Most importantly, I forgot!

How and what to eat:

1. You can eat fully in the dining rooms and cafes on the territory of EPFL / UNIL. CamiPro gives some discounts of 1.2, rarely 3-4 francs out of 10 francs for lunch. Lunch is usually a side dish (and much more varied than in Russia - green beans, vegetables, peas in pods, antrishoks, etc.), a piece of meat (from horsemeat steak - yes, I tried it - to the corny chicken). There are a huge number of "thematic" cafes or "stalls" - from Indian and Thai cuisine to pizza (real Italian, which is untwisted with you) and kebab (shavarma or shawarma).
   
   Unfortunately, soups - in our understanding of borscht and cabbage soup - are absent as a class in European countries. There is goulash soup - an excellent lunch in the mountains, and mashed soups - from pumpkin to cabbage. This is a big minus, but no one bothers in the market to find the products necessary for cooking rich borsch.
   
   
2. The food in the store is not much different in price from Moscow (if you do not dig it in Auchan, but chain supermarkets at the ABC of Taste or Crossroads level).
   
   Lucky fruits can be bought cheaply: bananas and apples from 2-4 francs per kilogram, Chinese lychees (something like grapes with a hard skin and a big bone) at 5-6 francs a pound, Pineapple can be grabbed for the same 3-4-5 francs.
   
   Juices. Quite calmly, you can buy really freshly squeezed juices (with pulp, sugar-free and short shelf life) from 4-5 francs per liter.
   
   Chocolate and cheese. A lot of manufacturers and varieties. There are budget and luxury options. The average price of a bar of chocolate is 1-2 francs, cheese at 20-30 francs per kilogram.
   
   Wine. Swiss wine is absolutely not known outside the country, because it is produced exclusively by local, often family, distilleries for the domestic market. However, the wine is quite tasty, the price varies from 5-6 francs per table to 20-30 for the "semi" -collection bottles.
   
   
   They filled all the slopes - these vineyards ...
   
   
3. Markets. In Europe, in general, weekend markets are very common. And it’s not even about some farm organic products. Local people come to the market to talk trite. For example, it is very difficult to imagine a native Parisian without a Sunday market - it is decidedly impossible.
   
   
   Lausanne has its own, combined with a flea market, on Wednesdays (a little less) and on weekends (Saturday and Sunday) more. Everything is for sale: from vegetables and fruits to “sausage finger” (s) . The same sausage costs about 15-20 francs per kilogram, which is not so expensive. Pork can be found for 15-20 francs, chicken a little more expensive - fillet from 20-25.
   

Leisure and sports center UNIL-EPFL. useful links

To begin with, EPFL organizes a Welcome Party for graduate students . I can’t say anything concrete about this event so far - I will have to visit it.

Lausanne, as the inscription on the building of the railway station says, is the capital of the Olympic Games, and therefore almost every village in the district has its own sports club and a small stadium.

UNIL-EPFL Sports Center is located in UNILand formally owned by the University of Lausanne. The annual subscription to the sports center itself costs 100 francs per year, while for the gym you will have to pay an additional 20 francs and undergo mandatory training on the rules for using machines for pumping biceps, triceps or something else. For comparison, in the Russian Federation I had to officially pay 150 rubles for visits, but I did not pay officially - 100 rubles. Yes, almost everyone is obsessed with safety here, though ... It's


peeped at the chem. store: chemists are joking ...

After drawing up the card, you can enroll in different sections (some are paid, but the fee is small, some are free), including for training ski weekends. It costs about 130 francs, this price includes training for two days, a lift (usually 40-50 per day) and dinner with breakfast in a chalet (i.e. the price is fully justified). You will have to pay for ski rental (92 francs) and travel (27 round trips - 50% of the cost), but it's worth it:






Stunning views of


Fondue - for everyone, like a ritual of visiting a chalet ...

The EPFL has its own union - ACIDE , which organizes, in particular, trips to CERN, skiing, various parties and so on.

By the way, while I was collecting this material, I discovered that ACIDE had prepared just the most informative and information-rich brochure for those who would like to study at EPFL (I mean graduate school), but do not know how to approach it.

One way or another, during the story about life in the EPFL, I mentioned some figures from personal experience, some generalized cost of living is given on the site dedicated to student life .

If it was not possible to find housing through the EPFL-UNIL database, then ImmoStreet , ImmoScout or Home.ch is at your service .

At 15 minutes from Lausanne have town Allaman village with 3 huge shopping complexes IKEA, Outlet andCOOP Litoral .

I always check the equipment with TopPreise and mostly buy at Digitec (prices + 2-5% to the minimum Moscow prices), sometimes you can see the local Ricardo flea market .

If you still have time for cultural life, then welcome here or here . Movie lovers can find a show for themselves here .

To start a new better to leave aside such Russian forums like Ladoshki Russian and Switzerland, and go straight to EnglishForum and Glocals .

On the advice of comrad noittom , I add a couple more useful links: anibis.chIs another good flea market, and cuso.ch are useful workshops for swiss romande uni.

Thank you for reading to the end! If you have any questions, please contact, I will try to answer!

Video sketches about life in Switzerland can be found here:


PS: There was a proposal to add the following information: that the years of postgraduate studies “can be taken into account” (potentially, but not obligatory) as necessary for permits S Proof .

PPS: NASA publications periodically skip in which there are stunningly beautiful nighttime images of the earth from space. On them, Russia has several large cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Yekaterinburg and so on. I didn’t believe it. Departing from Moscow, I photographed an octopus, the weather allowed, I had to believe: Moscow plus one more diameter of the capital is light, and everything else is darkness ... Whereas western Europe is a bird's-eye view - the lights of small villages and the spots of million-plus cities. Sad, comrades!

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Firstly , a complete list of published articles on Habré:

Opening the Nvidia 8600M GT chip , a more detailed article is given here: Modern chips - an inside look Inside
view: CD and HDD
Inside view: LED bulbs
Inside view: LED industry in Russia
Inside view: Flash -memory and RAM
Inside view: the world around us
Inside view: LCD and E-Ink displays
Inside view: digital camera arrays
Inside view: Plastic Logic
Inside view: RFID and other marks
Inside view: graduate school in EPFL. Part 1
Inside Look: Graduate School at EPFL. Part 2
Inside view: the world around us - 2
Inside view: the world around us - 3
Inside view: the world around us - 4

and 3DNews:
Microview: comparison of displays of modern smartphones

Secondly , in addition to the HabraHabr blog , articles and videos can be read and viewed on Nanometer.ru , YouTube , as well as Dirty .

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Sometimes it is possible to read briefly, and sometimes not so much about the news of science and technology on my Telegram channel - we are welcome;)