Congratulations, you have been admitted to the CBB master! We, the Committee for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics are your student representation. Any questions about the program or your study situation can be asked to us and we will either answer you directly or tell you whom to contact.
One thing you will have realised early on is that this master takes place in two locations, Zurich (with the ETH and UZH) and Basel (with ETH D-BSSE and Uni Basel). It might seem therefore a bit confusing where to take up residence. The CCBB would like to assist you in this regard and has gathered some information about both locations so that you can make your own informed decision. These points are nowhere complete and are just for you to get a feeling for what it might be like.
It is completely possible to live in either of the two locations and obtain all of your credits. Most professors are pretty flexible and you can discuss your situation with them and certainly still do a lab rotation/internship/thesis in Basel living completely in Zurich or vice-versa. You can also commute some days a week and spend the remaining days working remotely. Some students even change locations for lab rotations and/or master thesis if that works better for them. There are many possibilities and it depends on where you are doing your lab rotation or internship, what works best for them, what works best for you, whether your work requires your presence in your lab etc.
The cultural/living atmospheres of Basel and Züich are somehow different. If this is something that matters to you, then you should do a little research and check out for yourself what living in Basel is like, what living in Zurich is like and factor this into your decision.
For more detailed questions to specific aspects please drop us an email at ccbb@vis.ethz.ch.
If you've been living in one or the other city for some time now, please feel free to send us your own observations / experiences so that we can add them to the pages below!
