"It’s much more difficult to spend every day working alone at home than it is to come to ETH."
Max Reinhardt is a mathematics Bachelor’s student in his sixth semester and is the vice president of the VMP, the Association of Mathematics, Physics and CSE Students at ETH Zurich. In this interview, he talks about what it has been like for him and his fellow students to have to stay away from ETH, and what his experience of switching to remote teaching has been.
On 12 March, the ETH Executive Board decided that students would no longer be allowed access to ETH buildings from 16 March. What was it like to be suddenly “barred” from ETH like that? How did you and your fellow students take the news?
We knew it was probably coming, but it was still a real blow when it did. I didn’t give it too much thought at first – I just accepted the fact it had to happen and that it was ultimately the right thing to do. It wasn’t until the months following the decision that we really started to see the impact in areas like our social lives.
What did the VMP do to support students through it?
We said from the very beginning that we’d offer presence hours on Zoom, and we also created a small survey to find out what kind of issues students might be facing. We didn’t receive much feedback from this, unfortunately, and there wasn’t much uptake of our offer to chat via Zoom either. That’s when we decided to start taking the lead by organising lots of online events, including online board game evenings, a chess tournament and online speed dating. We also began acting as a coordinator for people who wanted to set up study groups. Like every year, we organised the exam preparation courses (PVKs), plus the online core subject presentations for physics.
Lectures and exercises switched to online formats. Were the students happy with how this move went?
There were various combinations of recordings and online teaching – for example Zoom lectures almost as normal, where we could ask questions live, or videos recorded in advance, with the lecturers available in a chat room to answer questions during the regular lecture time. I thought this was an awesome way of doing things, and overall it worked really well. I heard hardly any negative feedback about the switch to the new format, only that a couple of lecturers had gone over the time allotted for their lectures.
The change to the exercises also went really smoothly, or that was my experience anyway. The assistants handled it all extremely well and they got great support from ETH.
Did the students manage to stick to the timetables they had before?
I personally developed my own schedule, but I heard that some students did try to stick to the usual lecture timetable and watch the lecture videos at the time when they would normally have taken place.
What is it like to study at home or in student accommodation?
I haven’t heard anyone say that they’re currently having a better learning experience just now than they would have had in a normal semester. Students have been at home for three months and we’re now moving into the long summer study period, so things aren’t likely to get any better and the situation will get more and more challenging.
Why do you think it’s so difficult to study at home?
I think it’s primarily the fact that it just doesn’t have the feel of a working environment. Many of us had been used to studying at ETH and then having leisure time at home. It’s much more difficult to spend every day working alone at your own desk than it is to come to ETH, meet up with your fellow students there and study together. Although we all have our own separate maths problems to work on, we’d always been able to ask each other for help if we’d had questions. We could theoretically still do that on Zoom, but I don’t think it’s really taken off.
ETH has made efforts to offer study spaces for students, but I’m worried that there aren’t enough of them – not by a long way. I totally understand the need to restrict the number of them, but there are so many people who find they get much more out of their studies if they can be at ETH itself, and if there are only a few spaces available over a longer period of time, more students might struggle.
The next stage after the long study period is the examination session. How well prepared do students feel?
My impression is that students are a lot more nervous about exams than they would be in a normal semester. The PVKs, which the VMP offers for each study period, showed a good example of that. This semester, we prepared the same amount of courses as we did in previous years, but they were fully booked instantly – so we opened a few more, almost all of which are now also completely full. That really shows how uncertain students, especially in the first year, are feeling.
Are there any other important points you want to mention?
Yes. If students are struggling, no matter in what aspect, I’d strongly encourage them to get in touch with whichever point of contact is appropriate for the situation – whether that’s the VMP or the ETH advice centres.
Further information
VMP
The Association of Mathematics, Physics and CSE Students at ETH Zurich was founded 75 years ago and, with around 1,800 members, is ETH Zurich’s second-largest student association.
PVK (Prüfungsvorbereitungskurse)
Exam preparation courses review the content of first-year lectures. They last four to six days and cover all the material taught in a subject, as well as providing dedicated exercises. The courses are organised by the VMP and are generally run by students in more advanced semesters. Participants must pay to attend.
Advice centers
ETH Zurich student advice centers