Jiaqi - University of Zurich

Master of Tourism, Hotel and Event Management
Winter 2023

Personal Development 

Gained friends from all over the world, explored some of the most beautiful places in the whole of Switzerland, learnt German and developed my communication skills. This experience has made me more confident.

Academic Development 

Academic knowledge is broader, not only limited to the tourism and hospitality and MICE industry aspects, but also to understand the development of the banking and insurance financial industry. What I like most is their academic atmosphere, relaxed with rigour. Teachers are very serious in class and often interact with students, who are also very active in answering questions. Compared to uq, the workload is much heavier because it is a short-term programme so the schedule is very tight.

Professional Development 

I developed teamwork skills and time management skills. These skills will enable me to better improve my efficiency in the workplace in the future. There were a lot of challenges, for example, in the investment return simulation game, our team did not understand the whole market environment at the beginning and made the wrong investment portfolio, resulting in the second last place. However, after consultation within the group, we were able to increase our returns in the second and third market changes and achieved fifth place.

Budget

It's important to keep your budget in check because it's more expensive here. Overall it probably cost around $4,000. Accommodation is provided by the school and transport is provided by the school. Food eat cafeteria with student discount. Travelling spends a lot of money, it is recommended that you can buy SWISS PASS youth ticket can save money.
Suggestion is to try to eat school canteen, can save money, buy living goods and ingredients to the local supermarket to buy such as LIDl, do not go to COOP small supermarkets to buy, will be very expensive.

Highlight

The highlight of this experience was that in addition to interesting assignments their programme also featured an outdoor CASE STUDY, a sustainability gallery to show us current Swiss environmental and energy-saving technologies, and a wealth of extracurricular activities such as hiking or day trips to Bern, and BBQ dinners in the evenings. The Swiss speciality dinners in the mountains are good.