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It may be hard to believe, but someday, your time at ETH Zurich will be behind you. That day will be too late to finally look up and ask, “what’s next?” Do it now.
Of course, I’m exaggerating for effect. My goal here is to help you avoid, or at least to some extent dampen, the effects of one of the core canon events of our universe – the post-graduation blues. You’ll know it when you see it, but it’s a mixture of multiple emotions and states of being, with symptoms including identity crises, meaninglessness, and hope experienced in waves, job-seeking when you don’t really know what you’d like to do or even what you’re good at, and worst of all, feeling stuck in a line of work where you justify your unhappiness (!) with a slightly-above-average salary at an allegedly prestigious company. I know you’re thinking, “how terribly silly”, but I’ve seen it happen to the best of us, over and over again. Here’s my take on your way out.
Student Clubs: Where Real-World Education Happens
The single-most important piece of advice anyone can give you about your time at ETH Zurich is this – join a student club. This single action can lead to multiple high-reward outcomes for you. First, it forces you out of the “[insert-your-department] bubble” where everyone is taking the same classes, struggling with the same projects, and going to the same parties. Student clubs are an equaliser across majors, ages, and cultures. You get to meet folks who are doing different things in the same place as you are, and by struggling repeatedly through mundane club event management and admin together, I bet some of them will even become your closest friends. You’ll collect stories about creating somethings from nothings. Raising money from corporate sponsors, planning a weekend retreat for 50 students, and dealing with interpersonal conflicts – student clubs put you in positions to pick up and practise basic leadership, communication, business, and social skills that leave you one step ahead when you eventually compete in the job market. There are about a million clubs at ETH Zurich to choose from, and if you can’t find one you like, build it yourself. Interviewers are suckers for stories, so do it for the plot.
Fail Forward: Career Edition
I contend that it’s almost impossible to truly know what kind of work you’d like to do and what kind of environment you’d like to do it in without experimenting. Try to envision what an ideal workday looks like for you. When does your alarm ring? Do you need to suit up? Do you commute over an hour? Do you care about the work you do? Does it challenge you? In what ways? Does your work have a real impact on the people or world around you? Are you accountable for the quality of your work? Do you need to continuously learn in order to do your job well? Do you get constructive feedback in time for it to matter? Can you give constructive feedback, and does it matter? How large is the team? How small is your voice? Do you like your co-workers? Are they different from you? What’s the latest in office politics? How do your parents describe your work? Does it make you proud to talk about what you do? Oh, and how’s the rest of your life outside of work? The smallest things add up to create your overall workplace experience. Make yourself a list of factors that matter to you today. Look for short-term internships or part-time work opportunities at places you hypothesise are a good fit. While (true) reflect on your list, update it, and try the next thing. And DIY-ing is not the only path to wisdom – talk to people about their experiences, learn from their mistakes! Before you know it, you will find that you have succeeded in initiating somewhat of a serendipitous domino effect in your career that takes you from one great opportunity to another.
A Hot Take on Job Applications
The worst time to apply for jobs is when you need one. I strongly believe in continuously applying to opportunities as they arise – jobs you’re interested in, jobs you might not feel fully qualified for, but that genuinely excite you, jobs that perfectly match your background but sound kind of boring, apply to the whole universe of jobs out there! You’ll very quickly get a sense for the type of companies and roles that take an equal interest in your profile, and, best case, you’ll stumble upon a job offer that’s too good to refuse, and you’ll figure out a way not to refuse it (see next section). Worst case, you’ll get a chance to practice telling all those good stories you’ve been collecting. Truly, pitching yourself as a good candidate is one of the most obviously underrated skills. The only way to get good at it, like most things, is practice. A consequence of this approach to job applications is that it stops being such a soul-crushing burden. It becomes one of the few productive things you can do on LinkedIn and doesn’t need to be tracked on an Excel sheet. Seek out companies that deeply value knowing their candidates for full-time roles well (and vice-versa). Startups are a great example. Spend a couple of months here, spend a couple of months there. Odds are that when you finally do need a job, you can tap into the network you’ve built over multiple stints as a student.
Where There’s a Will…
The exam system at ETH Zurich makes it excruciating to squeeze in summer internships or part-time work. Excruciating, but not impossible. And there are ways to lighten the load – take an extra semester, take fewer credits, take a break. However, there are often ways to internalise the externalities, so to speak. Check if you can get credits for internships, check if you can do your semester projects at companies that interest you, check if you can do your thesis at other academic institutions or with one of the many student organisations building incredible machinery at ETH Zurich. I personally spent as much of my ETH Zurich time away from ETH Zurich as possible, in a very positive way. ETH Zurich is a platform through which you gain access to an unimaginably large range of opportunities – just start knocking on doors you’d like to enter, you’ll see.
One massively underrated tool for opening doors you didn’t think existed for you is cold emails. Turns out you can just ask people for what you want, and sometimes they say yes. It’s a phenomenal feeling. Cold emails got me a semester project at the hottest AI start-up in Zurich, a thesis at MIT, and more. This is a good moment to mention that I did not have great grades at ETH Zurich. I didn’t let myself be judged or limited by the way ETH Zurich judges and limits. I’m so much more than my average grade, and so are you.
Your Network = Your Net Worth
Clickbaity title, I know. You’ve heard this before, so I’ll keep it short. I like to think of my network as the list of people with whom I have exchanged value. Value can be anything from a simple conversation to employment. These are people I can reach out to when I have questions or need help, and who know they can do the same with me. Grow your network and nurture it. Put yourself in positions to meet new people regularly and stay in touch with the people that help you reflect and grow. Ask questions, ask for advice, ask how you can help. Relationships grow from small exchanges of value repeated over time. In the long run, a good network collapses timelines. What might take you years to stumble upon alone, you can get to in months through the right people. Jobs, projects, ideas, opportunities – your network makes them show up sooner and stick around longer.
In the end, what you really want to invest in during your time at ETH Zurich is a sense of direction and momentum. Try things now, build things now, meet people now. The small steps you take as a student compound into the kind of career – and life – that doesn’t just happen to you, but happens because of you. Don’t walk out with just a diploma.
Aashna Majmudar
