Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - EPFL
(Reviews)

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is located in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the French-speaking side. EPFL is associated with its sister institution ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) (in the German-speaking side of the country) and both from the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain (ETH Domain), directly dependent of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. This institution offers studies of all levels, undergraduate and postgraduate and it is divided into seven schools: School of Basic Sciences, Engineering, Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer and Communication Sciences, Life Sciences, College of Management of Technology and the College of Humanities. Besides this seven schools, EPFL counts with a nuclear reactor named CROCUS, a Tokamak Fusion reactor, a Blue Gene/Q supercomputer and P3 bio-hazard facilities. The campus consists of about 65 buildings on 136 acres (55 ha). Built according to the growth of the school, the campus includes different types of architectures. EPFL offers different facilities for its students and staff which includes libraries like the Learning Centre, travel agencies, banks, cafeterias, Museums: Musée Bolo (an exhibition at the School of Computer And Communication Sciences) and Archizoom (an architecture museum), and Student housing (Quartier Nord and Les Estudiantines). The language Centre is a facility design for international students and staff to learn and improve their international language skills covering French, German, Italian and English. It also counts with a Tandem program called Tandem Program of the Arts Faculty/EFLE, which includes two people that speak different languages and reunite regularly to teach each other the different languages. EPFL holds many music festivals yearly, being Balélec Festival the largest one. It is organized in May each year. The tradition comes from 1981, and the festival welcomes more than fifteen thousand visitors from around the world to around 30 concerts.