I did pretty good at ETHZ so I cannot feel you pain However it is true that even a few months after the completing my final exams, I would wake up in the middle of the night, panicking for not having studied enough... Then I would calm down and realize that I had already submitted my thesis...
I agree with lucy_sg that you shouldn't underestimate the impact of the different teaching style at ETHZ and Cornell (and more in general between Swiss and US universities). E.g. I noticed that I really don't like the teaching style at the UK university where I did my PhD. Then again, I doubt that that is of much comfort... In the end you do need to put your stuff together.
A point I should make is that in my understanding from discussions with US professors (Maths/Physics) is that at most US universities things start to get serious only with graduate school (Ivy league universities apparently are another story -- I guess that includes Cornell?). The situation is different in many European universities, where things get serious right from the first year of undergraduate studies, and ETHZ is certainly one of them. Furthermore, it might comfort you to know that I believe that Engineering is one of the toughest studies at ETHZ. E.g. in my maths Übungsleiter experience for undergrads, the level of maths in engineering at ETHZ is better than that of maths/physics undergrads at the (non-Loxbridge) UK university where I did my PhD.
My only advice is work hard, study hard. Once you're finished you'll kick ass.
Btw, did you check whether your student association (I think it's called AMIV) has copies of the past written exams? This way you can have an idea of what to expect (especially if you find exams prepared by your own professors).
I am not sure if this allowed in this part of the world, but i have learnt a great deal by asking to have my exams revised. Basically, i would sit with the teacher, and she would walk me through the exam, explaining why i had lost points, or why the answers was incomplete, inaccurate... If you can have the chance to do this, take it. It is a bit hard to see your flaws and mistakes, black and white, but once you aknowlegde you have a problem you will be better prepared to handle it.
There used to be in the past whole lot of dispute ongoing on the topic which represents higher level of education in terms of sciences and engineering in Poland. There were two schools optionally for higher education e.g. University and Technikum (Technical University). The difference was that the fomer one catered more for humanity orientated subjects, economy, philosophy, geography and etc. and also strict subjects as maths and physics. Whereas the latter one included all the engineering departments e.g. civil, mechanical, electrical and electronics and etc. but also applied mathematics and physics. There used to be sort of fight ongoing towards which one of the two schools is tougher in terms of maths and physics. There were always divided opinions. All I can say that we used to have kick ass standards in terms of the theory and exercises and far before MATLAB/Simulink or MAthCAD was commonly known as a tool we had to go thru whole lot of infinitesimal calculus, differential equations, control theory, numerical methods, digital signal processing (Fourier transforms and Laplace'a, discrete "z" and continuous "s" domain) on the paper, artificial intelligence with neutral networks and fuzzy logic..., program in low level languages and high level lang. C, VB were introduced later and etc... just to name a few.
One thing I can say, engineering is difficult and one has to go thru this entire rigmarole of understanding basics. You might not use all of this stuff in the prospective workplace but definitely you will get a good brain exercise and headstart which will make the future tasks easier for you.
When I took some subjects at University of Pretoria and WITS Johannesburg, btw they have Commonwealth's countries recognized education system, they are more practicals orientated and do not feed as much theory (as I used to had in Poland), thus some might say it is a bit easier but they prepare well for industrial jobs.
it normally works but, having been at the other end of that practice, ie, as a marker, I can tell you that such students are not popular. Typically the students who do that are not the good ones but the marginal ones. Sometimes it was clear from the questions they asked that they hadn't really understood the issues at hand and were just trying iot on by randomly picking mistakes and bickering about them. I couldn't help wondering whether they wouldn't have had better marks in the first place if they would have spent the time and energy they invested into quibbling into actually learning. There was one particualrly notorious case who was skimping most of his his lectures and not doing his homework because of the time he was investing into quibbling and seeking second and third and fourth opinions over minor details. It was little surprise that after the next set of exams he'd be there again.
And I must say that despite the number of students who talked over their results with me I can only remember one occasion that I actually found a faulty markup, and that was a very minor fault and it failed to convert a fail to a pass. This was because my style of marking has always been very generous and I usually gave the students the benefit of the doubt when things were ambiguous. Most other assistants followed a similar policy.
I must say that if you haven't done that stuff on paper I very much doubt that you've really understood it. As far as I know they still do it on paper when it's first introduced and are very strict about it.
Since leaving the ETH I've had to work with people from other universities who could do a FFT mith MATLAB for example but obviously hadn't a clue about the maths involved and it was precisely because they didn't see this that they didn't realise they were dealing with a special case or an exception or an aliased signal and spent a lot of time wondering why their results were rubbish. Nothing beats a good theoretical foundation in this type of Maths, even if you do later have computers on the job to do it for you.
Definitela good advice. The AMIV (at least in my day) had an invaluable store of old exams, both written and oral. The AMIV also had a lot of other good stuff and it was well worth joining up and talking part.
I did my master's in the US, then came here (Uni, not ETH) to finish my PhD. Look, not to minimize the differences between the two academic systems - they're very real - but also: welcome to grad school. You would have been hit with a large portion of this no matter where you had gone. I know I felt stupider oftener in my first year of grad school than I've ever felt in my life - and I was one of the ones supposedly doing 'well'!
From here on out, you can expect getting an average grade to be, well, the average outcome. Half your colleagues are doing worse. And you're all studying your brains out to earn whatever grades you're getting, because you're the serious academic-minded types who get into a school like ETH in the first place. The coursework is designed to challenge you and people like you, not the average Cornell grad. (I mean absolutely no disrespect here to the average Cornell grad, who I'm sure is a charming young person.) If you're making average grades in grad school you're not failing; you're right where they want (most of) you to be.
You'll also have to let go of "finishing the exam" as a measure of success, I'm afraid. Again, if they really wanted students to finish the whole exam, they're perfectly capable of making it shorter, right? Their goal is to assess accurately what level you are at, and if you finish the exam early, you have exhausted its capacity to assess: fine for you, but a FAIL for the exam. (This is one of the reasons for giving oral exams too: no matter how good you are, they can just keep asking harder and harder questions. Do not expect to walk out of an oral exam feeling like you aced it.)
Hang in there, though! It does get better. The coursework itself gets easier after a year or so, your expectations become more realistic, and - particularly if you go on for a doctorate - coursework starts to matter less than research anyway.
Aghh, yes I remember the torture of my first year of graduate school in the US , utter hell, this is why I wussed out and got my masters instead of a doctorate. And I don't remember many multiple choice questions in graduate school...
This is not exactly related, and I'm new to posting on forums and all the proper etiquette of threads, but has anyone undertaken entrance exams at ETH-Z and can comment on the level of mathematics background of the incoming students? I'm looking to apply for a bachelor's in computer science, and it seems that right in the first semester, you take the equivalent of real analysis, something that we wouldn't see in the US until after lin alg/diff eq and multivariable calculus, i.e. 2nd or 3rd year.
Are the exams all that much harder, or do you think it's more of a graduate phenomenon?
I did electrical engineering at the ETH. This was more than 10 years ago and the syllabus may have changed but we did both real and complex analysis and linear algebra as well as 1st and 2nd order diff equations in the first year. This was considered fairly basic and indeed some students had already covered much of it at school. We also did a lot of discrete math and some simpler 3d stuff (field calculations and the like).
Multi-variable differential calculus we did in the second year (stuff like heat conduction in three dimensional objects and waves on membranes etc). First year maths I found fairly straightforward but the second year was tough and extremely packed with information.
From the third year onwards there was practically no maths any more but more specialisation.
Unfortunately I cannot comment on the entrance exams at ETHZ, but I can say that when I started my studies in physics about 10 years ago, I only new how to take derivatives and integrate real functions. I knew pretty much nothing about differential equations. In addition I had had a brief encounter with matrices, I knew how to multiply them and -maybe- how to calculate eigenvalues and eigenvectors in the simplest cases. Of course, the high school curriculum may have changed in the meantime...
While at ETHZ I did some math teaching assistant work for first and second year computer science and electrical engineering students, and I pretty much confirm what amogles has said.
If you understand German (which I assume you do, if you're planning to do a Bachelor at ETHZ), the following webpage might be of help to get an idea of the level of first year maths for engineers: http://www.math.ethz.ch/~blatter/ . This was a (very good) maths professor who retired around the year 2000. Of course, I can't guarantee that the curriculum is still the same.
I have read all the posts and considered, that the entrance exams are fiendish hard.I am now in 8 grade at primary school, I study well and I have been learning German for a year.So, my question is - Are there any preparation courses for the entrance exam, that I will be able to take later. For example to enter MIT, you should take the SAT or other preparation course. What about the ETHZ, how did you personally prepare for the exam?
I also got to experience the joys of the ETH oral exam. Although I can see the benefits of being able to answer questions on command in front of an audience, I do not think it's an adequate way to assess someone's knowledge.
Many professors agree with you, but some student leaders are in favor of the oral exams (because they think it is easier).
I did my undergrad in Hungary, pretty much all my exams were oral, but in a different style: after getting my topic I had an hour (or even more) to prepare before presenting it. Here (at least in math) the students get 15-20 minutes in total with essentially no preparation time.. it doesn't really make sense to me. There is no way to test the knowledge and understanding of the course material in such a short time and under such pressure.