Life in Switzerland

Eric Grigorjan and Artyom Maklagin (G1)

What do we know about Switzerland?
Switzerland is a land of mountains,
cheese, chocolate fondue,
mechanical expensive watches, and
eternal neutrality in politics. Also,
many people have heard about
Nestlé, the company that owns
Nescafe and the very popular cereal
Nesquik. Yes, of course, everything
is true, but this is mostly
stereotypes everyone knows. What
about the life of the local citizens?
This is what we will talk about!
Prices in Geneva
The languages of the Swiss people
Multiculturalism
Life of pensioners
Kindergarten
In Switzerland, children are accepted into
kindergartens from the age of four, so before that, a
baby is being watched by a dad, mom, grandparents,
or in general any relative. A private kindergarten for a
child under 2 y. o. will cost 125 euros (or 140 francs)
per ONE DAY! So in total, it will cost parents 2740
euros (or 2887 francs per month). It’s expensive even
with local salaries! So, even if someone does not
spare money for kindergarten, they leave children
there for one or two days a week. In public
kindergartens, a child will have to pay 23 euros (or 25
francs) a day for lunch!
School education

At first, children study for 6 years in elementary

school. All of the students study the same thing.
Then the student has a right to choose: he can
either go to a gymnasium for 6 years or go to the
secondary school for 2 years and after go to the
gymnasium for more 4 years, or maybe for 3 years
and then go to college for another 3 years, so
totally is 12-14 years.
An interesting feature is that the student always has his own desk, on which there is a
plate with his name, and the desk itself is specially adjusted for him. For example, the
height of the desk depends on the height of a particular student.

Public schools are completely free, but all electives, counseling, and extracurricular
activities cost parents 370 euros (or 400 francs) per month.
Universities
For the main public universities you need to pay
500 francs, but in private universities you need to
pay from 5-25 thousand francs per semester.
Local residents don’t recommend going to private
universities, because teachers in paid universities
teach worse than in free ones, because they
already get a lot of money. Teachers first need to
study to be a teacher and undergo a one-year
internship, and it’s not a fact that after it they will
be hired, and if they do, then initially only in
kindergartens. It is much easier to get a job at
private universities.
Financial responsibility
In high school, teenagers have a special subject
called “Money management”. There they teach
the basics of how to handle your money and plan
your personal budget.

“After all, they have adult life ahead and they

should be able to use banking services
correctly and not get bogged down in debt.
(võlgades olla/влезать в долги)” - Tobias
Bopp, one of the Swiss schools principal.
Bureaucracy
Salaries
Health care system
Cheese making
Prices for Swiss cheese can be 35 euros (40
francs) and 45 euros (50 francs) per
kilogram, but cheese maker Phillippe
Lippuner explains this by the fact that good
cheese can be infused for several years, and
you need to monitor it every day.
Cheesemakers study this business in special
colleges. In total, there are about 10,000
cheese dairies for 8.6 million people. This is
probably why cheese makers work really
hard to feed the whole country.
Restaurant business

According to the owner of the restaurant in

Geneva, he comes out in a small plus from
his business. Because he has to pay the
staff at least 4,000 euros, regardless of
whether they have a higher education. And
he must also buy products that are very
high quality, but very expensive. But it is
for the quality that he loves Switzerland
very much.
 Sources we’ve used:
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=nfpKRjHe5I4
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=xFqhcdkIDOc&t=1853s
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=3shHO_OAVoY&t=771s

Thanks for watching!