EPIC GuideLeisure
EPFL associations
There are many associations at EPFL that focus on leisure activities, such as specific games, cultures, or events.
In particular, PolyDoc is the association for all PhD students, who will regularly send you emails about their events such as apéros, and EPIC is the IC PhD students’ association, who will do the same for IC-only events such as board game nights.
One unique association is Satellite, a.k.a., “Sat”, the EPFL bar. It is entirely run by student volunteers and organizes various activities, such as concerts, coffee-theater sessions (café théatre), board/card games nights (soirées ludiques), or jam sessions. The calendar of events organized by Sat can be found directly on their webpage. The list of upcoming concerts can be found here.
Check out the full list of EPFL-recognized associations!
Museums
Here is a short selection of interesting museums among the many ones that Lausanne and its area has to offer:
- Alimentarium in Vevey is a museum from Nestlé about food, entry is 11.- for students
- The Art Brut Collection in Lausanne is all about “art brut”, a.k.a. “outsider art”, entry is free for students
- Maison d’Ailleurs in Yverdon is a science-fiction museum with permanent and temporary exhibits, entry is 10.- for students
- Maison Cailler in Broc is a museum from Cailler about chocolate, entry is 12.- for students
- Musée d’art de Pully is, as its name implies, an art museum in Pully, entry is 8.- for students
- Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne is an art museum with permanent and temporary exhibits, entry is 20.-
- The Olympic Museum in Lausanne has everything about the Olympics (Lausanne is where the OIC is headquartered), entry is 14.- for students
- Palais de Rumine in Lausanne has free permanent exhibits including a geology museum and an impressive taxidermy collection, as well as temporary exhibits at low cost
Note that entry to many museums in Lausanne is free on the 1st Saturday of every month (list), sometimes also for under-25s, and once every year around September there is a “museum night” around Lausanne where one cheap ticket gives you access to lots of museums.
Given Lausanne’s location in Europe, you can also visit all kinds of museums easily, such as the French National Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
Cultural Events
There are plenty of festivals and other events taking place around Lausanne and Switzerland in general. You may find the MySwitzerland website generally useful for events in Lausanne and events in Switzerland.
EPFL has partnerships with cultural institutions, and offers free tickets for cultural events offered by these institutions. The website offres-culturelles.epfl.ch is accessible to anyone. Competitions are only for EPFL students and staff members and accessible via an Intranet login. Competitions are open for 24 to 48 hours and there is a draw among all participants for the winners. As soon as the competition closes, the winners are notified by e-mail. The winners are required to honour their commitment by actually attending the event for which they have won tickets. In case of last-minute problems, they are required to excuse themselves by notifying the theatre as well as the EPFL Cultural & Art Affairs. Persons failing to comply with these instructions may have their entries withdrawn from future competitions.
If you are 25 or younger, you can get a free OSR (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande) Youth Card, which gives 4 free entrances to any concert of the OSR. You can share the entrances with another person, as long as they are also under 25. Register for this card here.
ACIDE, the association of EPFL staff, organizes events such as visiting CERN, the worldwide known Particle Physics center in Geneva. More information here.
If you are 25 or younger, you can get a “Carte Cultissime”, which grants access to half fare for shows and free for communal museums. Find more informations here.
If you are getting subsidies for health insurance, you can get a “Carte Culture” which allows you to take part in various social and cultural events at reduced or no cost. More information here.
If you get a membership in any one of the four “Grand Huit circuit” theatres, Arsenic, Grange de Dorigny, Théâtre 2.21, and CPA, the tickets for the other three are 8CHF.
The Vidy Theatre offers an unlimited pass (half season and full season) at special rates for the young. More information here.
Sports
The UNIL-EPFL sports center offers a lot of activities that you can find listed here (in French). To access the sports center, you need a membership card that costs 120 CHF/semester or 200 CHF/year for EPFL PhD students. You can find more information on their website. The annual cards are valid from the 1st of September to the 30th of September of the next year. You can get that membership card at the “Villa des Sports” which is indicated on this map.
The sports center also organizes sport sessions over lunchtime on the EPFL campus, supervised by a trained instructor. Two types of sessions are organized and the themes are often varied: short sessions are 30-minutes sport sessions from 12:00 to 12:30 and 12:30 to 13:00, and campus sessions are 45-minutes sport sessions from 12:15 to 13:00. Find all the information about the sessions and the registration (sessions are free, but registration is mandatory) link on the Sports Center website.