(res) The website "International Students of ETH" (ISETH) (1) from the Academic Association of Scientific Staff at the ETH Zurich (AVETH) (2) has recently undergone a thorough revamp and now provides easily accessible and useful information in English for non-Swiss undergraduate and graduate students. The site currently has around 100 visitors a day. A year ago, three graduate students from foreign parts–Christine Najar (USA), Arthur Janssen, Rik Harbers (the Netherlands and Giancarlo Pigozzi (Italy)–began to redesign the site. It was brought up-to-date, supplemented and adapted to meet the needs of ETH's foreign students and interested scientists.

Rik Harbers head of the project and Webmaster of the ISETH website. large

The original idea of the Canadian graduate student, Jenny Cox, has thus come of age. She conceived the idea of a website as a way of helping foreign students to find their way through the administrative jungle of Swiss public offices and agencies. The website offers a wide range of clearly arranged information about the country, ETH itself and provides useful links to sites like the one of the personnel department, which is also currently working on an English version of its website, or the prorector for international relations' office, the Student Exchange Office or the Academic Calendar.

AVETH's newly designed International Website offers foreign students more clearly arranged information. large

Apart from a host of in-house information, says Rik Harbers, ISETH also offers practical advice on various aspects of living and studying or working in Switzerland, on the country and people, customs and everyday life (such as how to get rid of household refuse and the rules that govern the sharing of the washing machine in rented accommodation), information on flat hunting, childcare, public transportation or how to get in touch with compatriots. Another important page is the one with links to German language courses, as ETH no longer subsidises such courses. Although ISETH Webmaster Harbers thinks that on the whole the ETH Website provides a wide array of information–some of it very good–it was only partially accessible for foreigners who often found themselves surfing around in circles. Even he had to "google" his way through the thicket of the ETH site to find what he wanted. This is why AVETH wanted to design and set up a site in such a way that it would be really useful to newly arrived foreigners and to people in other countries who intend to study or work at ETH in the future.