Compulsory elective GESS

The Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (D-GESS) is responsible for the courses of the compulsory elective GESS. These are compulsory for all students of the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich).

The aim of the compulsory electives is to critically analyse and put specialist knowledge from the natural and technical sciences into a social context. They encourage holistic and future-oriented knowledge communication as well as competition with leading international technical universities. At the same time, a knowledge of and the process of getting to know other ways of thinking and unfamiliar scientific approaches contributes to the personal development of the students.

The courses fall under the three departments Behavior, Governance and Knowledge. Courses in the following disciplines are offered:

Language courses are offered in conjunction with the language centre.

All courses are listed in the lecture directory of ETH Zurich.

The acquisition of ECTS credit points in compulsory subjects is mandatory for all students of the ETH Zürich. There are eight credit units. In tiered courses of study (BA, MA), six credit points must be acquired during a Bachelor's and two during a Master's degree.

Language courses are worth the same as other compulsory subjects, although a maximum of four credit points may be acquired through language courses. In the case of European languages (German, English, French, Italian, Spanish), only language courses above level B2 (advanced) will count. German language courses will count only above level C2. Courses recognised by ETH as compulsory subjects have a D-GESS code (851-xxx-xxx) as well as the course number allocated by the language centre.

Dual matriculation: for registration to be valid, students must enrol for language courses which form part of the compulsory course programme of the ETH Zürich both with the language centre and the ETH Zürich.