Dominic and Nadja Keidel in Denmark

What country are you currently living in, and what motivated your decision to move there?

We moved to Denmark in October 2020. Dominic just finished his PhD at ETH, and Nadja was ready for a change in jobs. Due to the pandemic still going on, we decided to look for a place in Europe with a good health, social and economic system. We were curious to learn more about Denmark, particularly Copenhagen, as it is constantly ranked very high on happiness ratings. Finally, the Danish modern approach to equality, sustainability and work ethics combined with great career opportunities convinced us to move.

Can you describe a typical day in your life? How has the country you're living in influenced your daily life?

Dominic is currently on parental leave, hence focusing on activities like baby swimming or baby gymnastics. On some days he meets with other young parents in dedicated play groups. As a young family, Denmark is a very attractive country. The parental leave conditions allow for both parents to take several months of leave. With well-organised, affordable options for daycare thereafter, we both will be back to work after our child turns one year old.

Otherwise, a typical day is evolving between 8am and 4pm at work - whereto we both commute by bike in typical Danish manner. Afterwards, we enjoy the afternoons as a young family, one of us takes to sports or we are meeting friends. This bigger block of free time was definitely not a given before we moved to Denmark, and something we value a lot. Here you rarely meet someone in the office after 5pm, which gives a lot of freedom to make the most of each day.

What is your current job, and what does your typical workday look like?

Dominic will return to work in February, where he works as a product design consultant at RD8. He is involved in various customer projects, implementing a robust design perspective into their products. Robust design is a discipline developed and refined here in Denmark, which aims to minimize the impact of variation and maximize the functionality of the product. In his daily work he does a lot of hands-on design of products, such as medical devices and automotive components, as well as contributing on a project management level to ensure all robust design aspects are planned for and considered.

Nadja works as Data & AI Lead for ZeroNorth, a SaaS scale-up supporting the maritime industry to make global trade green, for instance by optimising routes to reduce carbon emissions. She leads a cross-functional team developing the machine learning model to predict fuel consumption of merchant vessels for all sorts of sailing conditions. Her average day is a mix of strategic work as well as meetings with customers, internal stakeholders, and her team. She switches between high-level abstractions when bridging to the rest of the business, and deeper technical discussions with the team around modeling approaches.

Were there specific courses or activities during your time at ETH that have proven to be particularly valuable for you?

In both of our cases, it is for sure several courses that are valuable until this day in our day-to-day jobs. But a key benefit we see to date is how we learned to think very structurally and analytically about a problem.

Moreover, we both did some volunteering at ETH like engaging with student organizations or co-organising events at ETH, such as Polyball, SoNaFe, and Challenge. These extra-curricular activities alongside studying taught us to organise our time in an efficient manner, while not forgetting the social aspects of (student) life. We met many of our ETH friends in these committees - and it is actually also how the two of us met.

The Danes are all about an efficient work day. With only 37 hours a week, even the coffee chats are efficient. Here it helped to know how to get work done on time, while still finding time to build friendships.

How do you stay connected with ETH and your university friends?

Many of our friends from ETH are by now spread across Switzerland and abroad - so even before we moved, we built a habit to connect holidays or weekend trips with a visit whenever possible. What helps now is that people like to come visit in Copenhagen, as it's a lovely city for a short trip.

Other than that it is strongly driven by Social Media, texts and occasional video calls. We were lucky to find great friends at ETH and the time studying bonded us very deeply. So even if we do not meet that often anymore, we connect easily whenever we meet again.

What is a «typical» word of the country?

«Hygge» is a very classic Danish expression. It can be roughly translated as cozy or comfort, and can describe a feeling, a place, a relationship or simply a moment. Especially during the darker winter times, you cuddle up, get cosy, read a book, and families and friends come together for a hygge time. Hygge builds on the concept of leaving problems and worries at the door for a brief moment to focus on the good time you spend together and making nice memories. This consciousness of enjoying a good moment is a very Danish quality that we learned to nurture more since we live here.

What’s your favorite traditional dish?

The Danes are famous for their pastries. Probably most people know the cinnamon roll, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. They have pastries in many flavours, shapes, and for different occasions. Even holidays come with their own custom pastry, like fastelavnsboller for Carnival in February. There are some very specialized bakeries only making pastries, and they make multiple different fastelavnsboller with different fruit flavours. If you visit Copenhagen in February (why not visit off-season for once), keep an eye out for them. They are dangerously delicious.

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