New enrollment at EPFL rises by 15%

On Monday, 14 September, 1,726 new students will begin the first year of EPFL’s Bachelor’s degree program. This provisional figure reflects a 15% increase – 226 more students – on last year’s figure.

The disciplines with the highest increase in new students, 29% of whom are female, are mechanical engineering (+50%) and environmental engineering (+49%).In total, new first-year BA students are 259 in Mechanical Engineering, 222 in Architecture, 214 in Microengineering and 207 in Life Sciences, for the most popular sections. In total, some 10,150 students will attend EPFL this year.

Interest in the school goes beyond the borders of the campus, however, with the number of students registered for the school’s online courses now topping one million for the first time. Students in more than 185 countries have taken the school’s Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which were first offered in October 2012 and are available free of charge.

A global campus

Many students who take the online courses do not follow through, but more than 55,000 have obtained the certificate of achievement. The certificate does not count towards EPFL’s Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees.

EPFL currently has a portfolio of 37 MOOCs. They cover a wide range of course material in French and English and are especially popular among African students, almost 50,000 of whom are registered. With its MOOCs for Africa program, EPFL is pioneering the development and delivery of online courses in collaboration with African universities and institutes.

In additional to their international following, MOOCs also serve an important need for Lausanne-based students. 4,048 EPFL students have already opened an online account, and they have taken an average of 2.6 MOOCs per person. Many professors have integrated MOOCs into their own curriculum, a practice that is likely to expand in the future, in part to help students transitioning from high school to EPFL.

Most people who sign up for EPFL’s MOOCs are adults seeking to further their training or change careers. Two-thirds of them already hold a degree and are looking to the MOOCs to expand their knowledge. EPFL would like to develop tailored courses for these people in the future.