Learning about exciting careers at ETH Zurich

The girls and boys seemed rather shy and subdued as they entered the vast lecture theatre in the HPH Building on the Hönggerberg campus. It was there, in Room G1, that they were given a short introduction and then divided into various different groups.

Martin Ghisletti, Head of the ETH Career Center, explained the purpose of Future Day: "There are typical careers that mainly attract either boys or girls, but in fact there are no careers that are gender-specific. It's just in our heads," he said, giving as examples male midwives or female builders. "In choosing your career, don't be put off by the fact that you may be the only girl or the only boy in the group."

The schoolchildren, aged between 10 and 13, had a wide range of topics to choose from on Future Day. There were also events taking place in the ETH Main Building and at the D-BSSE in Basel. Depending on what they were interested in, the children could program robots, learn what makes bridges strong, or find out in the simulator what an earthquake feels like.

In the Laboratory for Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) on the Hönggerberg campus, participants learned how dams work and what can be done to stop fish getting caught and killed in the turbines: a screen in the river is supposed to divert the fish into the right channel as they swim down the river so they are guided safely past the turbines.

 Experiments in the laboratory facilities

Some of the children joined in enthusiastically and were interested in finding out why renaturalising waterways is so important for the animal world. "I think it's really exciting here," said one of the girls during the guided tour of the experimental facilities which followed. However, at the moment she could not see herself studying Civil or Environmental Engineering with a view to one day having a career in those fields.

In the big laboratory facilities, researchers at VAW use models to study how rivers behave in the event of natural disasters. A helical water flow is simulated in a model of a river to show how quickly it can pull a rubber dinghy under the water. The children were also very interested in a model where they could use measuring rods to work out for themselves the point at which waves would break. "That was really cool," summed up one of the boys afterwards.