I genuinely love the way ETH teaches, and it feels fundamentally different from my experience at Bocconi. At Bocconi, there was a strong emphasis on breadth: a lot of material was covered, and understanding was reinforced through exercises that closely mirrored the lectures. The problems were challenging, but they rarely demanded a real leap of insight - you could usually solve them by applying what had just been taught.

At ETH, the approach is almost the opposite. You’re given only a small set of carefully chosen core concepts, taught very deliberately and sparingly. From there, the burden shifts to you. The exercises force you to uncover the consequences of those concepts on your own, and most problems hinge on a non-obvious trick or insight. Without truly understanding the fundamentals, you simply won’t get there. I feel like this method doesn’t just teach you how to solve problems - it builds an exceptionally deep and durable foundation.

Although I say this with the naïveté of someone who hasn’t taken any exams yet, so there’s a very real chance I’m still in the honeymoon phase. It’s entirely possible that once exam season hits, my admiration will be replaced by a deep respect mixed with mild panic and a sudden nostalgia for “friendlier” problem sets.