Skilled workers for Switzerland's industry
The Department of Physics of ETH Zurich currently trains 40 apprentices in the vocational areas polymechanics, physics laboratory technicians, electronics engineers and design engineers. Graduates of these programmes will work in research and industry as skilled workers, which Switzerland as a place of work and creativity will urgently need to remain competitive in the future.
Oliver Schmid, Project Leader Apparatus Engineer, and ten members of the Aargau section of FocusMEM (Swiss Vocational Training Association) and the Swiss association of electrical and mechanical engineering industries and associated technology-oriented sectors (Swissmem) visited the Department of Physics as part of their annual meeting on 25 May 2018, to get to know the vocational programmes of ETH Zurich in the so-called MEM professions. The MEM industry already has a shortage of skilled workers in central functions and at various levels.
Varied insight into education and research
The guests were welcomed by the Department Coordinator of the Department of Physics, Prof. Leonardo Degiorgi. Afterwards, the apprentices themselves gave an insight into their education. They had prepared the visit together with their trainer Cornel Andreoli and Fabienne Jaquet, responsible for vocational training at ETH Zurich.
After that Dr. Urs Ramsperger, senior scientist in the Microstructure Research group of ETH professor Danilo Pescia in the Department of Physics, guided the guests through their labs at the Laboratory for Solid State Physics. In doing so, Ramsperger made the transition from the training workshop to the future work place of future professionals in an research environment.
One can only chose something one knows
Youngsters and their parents may not think necessarily about the Department of Physics and ETH Zurich when choosing a direction for their vocational training. This is why, for example, also the BIZ centres for career advice and information and the ChagAll project, which promotes young people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, visit the Department of Physics in similar events to get an overview over the vocational programmes offered.
Professional fields from dough to microstructures
For the visiting SwissMEM group it was a day full of impressions — from the big to the small, so to speak: from the large-scale production during the visit of the Jowa AG industrial bakery in the morning to the microstructures of ETH Zurich in the afternoon. At the same time, it also illustrates the wide range of field where MEM professionals are working, which makes these professions so interesting.
Links
- Photo gallery
- external page Swissmem Berufsbildung (in German)
- external page BIZ centres for career advice and information (in German)
- external page ChagALL project (in German)
- external page MEM professions (in German)
- Vocational Training at the Department of Physics of ETH Zurich
- Vocational education and training at ETH Zurich