Student once more (or, "Aussie hip-hop isn't what it used to be!")

I'm a student again! I'm now just over a month into my PhD at EPFL. It's going well. Apart from the research work I'm taking one course, and it is surprisingly strange to be attending lectures and tutorials again. It's made me realise that it's been eight years since I was an undergrad, and put into shocking relief the fact that since then, Facebook was invented! iPhones appeared, too, and laptops became a lot more common. There's not an overhead projector to be seen. What's going on!? It's suddenly dawned on me that this is what happens as you get older. I'm already saying things like "Australian hip-hop isn't what is used to be!". It seems only a small leap before I'm at "get off my grass!!". This is a worrying trend.

A corridor between buildings at EPFL.

In any case, I'm enjoying studying again. I'm also enjoying just being at EPFL, which is as efficient and futuristic as I had hoped a technical university in Switzerland would be. There have been exactly zero administrative hassles. The day after I arrived I already had an accurate profile page on the EPFL website. My student/employee card contains a chip and you can charge it with cash using a teller machine that also rewrites your status on the card if it changes. With the card you can then buy stuff at any of the university shops or restaurants, borrow a bike for free for three hours (presumably not a minute more), use the Mobility car sharing service, get into and out of restricted buildings, and borrow books at the library. The restaurants update their menus every day and they can be viewed online. All buildings are organised in the same way. Floors numbers use zero-based numbering. All the urinals are individually numbered and labelled! Never again will the question "which urinal did you just use?" need a vague answer.

This is not my subject, but I kind of wish it was.

EPFL also has a smartphone app that displays all the restaurant information, course information, the directory of people, and your card balance. The best thing about this app is that it supplies live information about when the next train will leave from the station to go back to Lausanne.

The incredible view from the campus.

There is a wonderful view over the lake to the mountains from the campus, but the campus itself is not particularly inspiring. The buildings tend to be gray and blocky and built in a style that probably looked futuristic 30 years ago but now looks aged and, at times, harsh. The exception is the Rolex Learning Centre, a beautiful building that contains as few right angles as possible. Thus the floor isn't flat and inside you walk uphill to the library. There are full-cross-section holes through the building which give it more interest and house a few sculptures, and provide light to the inside which gives it an airy feeling. From the outside you can walk underneath where the floor lifts to access an internat coartyard, and the curved roof above plays with the sound of voices from the other side of the space. I've heard people describe it as beautiful but non-functional, but actually I think it hits the mark; it is interesting and the space is well used and aesthetically pleasing.

The beautiful Rolex Learning Centre at EPFL.

Finally, there comes Satellite bar, located so close to my building as to be distressingly convenient. It is outrageously busy on a Thursday or Friday night, but for good reason; it has an interesting selection of Euro beers and plays good music. All up I'm very pleased to be at EPFL and I couldn't ask for more, except perhaps for better Aussie hip-hop, like it used to be.