Back to school and already thinking about the future!
© Alain Herzog / EPFL
To welcome this year’s new students, EPFL’s alumni have come to share their experiences and talk about their career choices. The campus will be receiving fewer Bachelor students due to new admission criteria. As for the m1 metro line, which was disrupted following an incident, it is fully operational starting today.
Since the early morning of September 15, students were greeted at the two most impressive buildings in the campus. The freshmen went to the Swiss Tech Convention Center while the new master students met the school’s alumni at the Rolex Learning Center. The inaugural day let new bachelor students to get acquainted with the latest activities and services developed by EPFL. It is their opportunity to obtain valuable information and meet the teachers.
Meeting the alumni
This is the first year that students have been able to look into their foreseeable future. Several alumni shared with them their diverse experiences on the opportunities that might become available should they decide not to pursue an academic path. 
Guests included Bertrand Cardis, who graduated in 1981 and is now the head of Decision SA. His company specializes in new materials and collaborates, among others, with Solar Impulse. There were also young alumni, such as Deborah Heintze, freshly graduated two years ago and already co-founder of Lunaphore, the first start-up to receive the PERL prize for its unique method of detecting antigens. Another former student, Pascal Uffer, became a consultant at McKinsey & Company . In five years, he has already traveled the world and worked for about fifteen companies worldwide.
Subway, work
10’000 EPFL students could get to the campus smoothly. Everything was implemented in the m1 metro line so that commuters could quickly arrive at their destination. The Dorigny station, affected by the fire that took place last August, has already been repaired. The metro is now servicing its entire route.
Fewer Bachelor students
According to provisional figures, 1’500 students enrolled in the first Bachelor year, compared to 1’706 last year, which corresponds to a 12% decrease.
This difference is due to a reduction in the number of students applying to EPFL with a European secondary education degree. Indeed, new admission criteria, which took effect starting this academic year, require at least a grade of 80% for European students with a scientific high school diploma, which is equivalent to 16/20 for French applicants. Such conditions are in line with current practices in French and English universities. In contrast, the number of students that graduated from Swiss high schools joining preparatory courses remained stable as they are admitted without stricter criteria.
The most popular fields this year are computer science and micro-technology, with increasing student numbers despite the overall decline in enrollment. Mechanical engineering, life sciences and architecture are still very popular.