EPIC GuideGetting started
Welcome! You just accepted your EDIC PhD offer—what’s next?
In your first year, you will get used to doing research, and are not expected to be fully productive yet. In most fields, you will probably not publish a paper in your first year. It’s all about showing that you can do it. Depending on your lab, you may or may not have an office yet, but in any case, you should hang out in the common room (INR 012 and adjacent rooms). It’s a great way to meet and socialize with other students in your cohort.
Checklist
- Within a few days of your arrival, start some administrative formalities to get a residence permit.
- Get health insurance within 3 months. It must be back-dated to cover you from your first day in Switzerland.
- If you have a foreign driver’s license, you can exchange it for a Swiss one, but only in the first 12 months.
- If you are a fellowship student, find a professor for a semester project as soon as possible.
- Pass a depth course with a grade of at least 5 out of 6 within your first year.
- If you did a Master’s at EPFL or ETHZ, you do not have to do this. Talk to EDIC about it.
- TA a course starting from your second semester. As you wrap up your first semester, consult your advisor and look around for a course you’d enjoy TAing.
- Organize and pass your candidacy exam at the end of your first year.
Where to ask for help
In general, you can always talk to your buddy for personal assistance, your contact person or advisor for academic questions, the EDIC staff for administrative questions, and of course the student representatives.
Also check out the “getting started” websites of the EPFL IC doctoral school, the EPFL-wide doctoral school, and the EPFL student affairs.