News from Zurich in Down Under
Chapter Sydney Alumni
On 15 December, a small group of us took the chance to meet with the current ETH Rector, Professor Sarah Springman, at the exclusive venue of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron in Kirribilli.
Prof. Springman visited Australia for just a few days, yet made time to meet with the ETH Alumni here in Sydney. She provided us an intriguing update of ETH’s course, which she is navigating as the captain.
In particular, it appears that ETH is developing its offering further, in order to prepare its students for a lifetime of learning and a high probability of several changes in their career paths. In engineering, for example, an intensive one-week team project has been created so students can experience a real world teamwork environment.
Increasing emphasis appears to be placed on the so-called soft skills, such as managing projects and working in multi-disciplinary teams. ETH also appears to position itself more to post-graduate education of professionals.
Moreover, we learned about the fascinating new world of opportunities that has been opened up by the new Medicine Bachelor at ETH, that aims to equip students with a strong technical background to take advantage of all technological aids that are available nowadays to medical practitioners.
Further, during the introduction and our informal conversations we also heard a little bit about Sarah Springman’s impressive track-record as an athlete, in particular as a world-class triathlete who has won numerous medals at international competitions and who has finished the Ironman five times!
It was a great honour and pleasure to meet Prof. Springman in person. We also very much enjoyed the presence of Rosie, a former world-class rower and director of British Rowing. We also had the pleasure to have the company of the Consul General of Switzerland in Sydney, Bernadette Hunkeler-Brown and her husband Nigel.
And last but not least it was great to see some of our dear Alumni friends returning for this event. Special thanks are due to Jeffrey Bentley-Johnston and Erik Aslaksen, some of our most experienced Alumni here in Sydney, for joining us!
We all look forward to more events in the New Year!