"It was an intensive period, and I learned a lot."

Agnes Rupacher has been an assistant in the Institute of Process Engineering for ten years. As a matter of fact, this young lady of 28 has already spent over a third of her life working for ETH. As soon as you enter her office, the half-Cypriot smiles at you from her desk. Stuck on the wall next to her are numerous postcards and souvenirs from visitors. There's also a diploma certificate - from an SAP course that she attended at ETH Zurich in 2006.

More responsibility

Rupacher laid the foundations for her career at ETH more than ten years ago. While she was still at commercial college, she used to help her predecessor on Wednesday afternoons and during the school holidays, earning herself some extra pocket money. However, this was no ordinary schoolgirl's job, as she recounts. In the mornings she did her work in the classroom, in the afternoons she took telephone calls, dealt with her principal's correspondence and helped to organise conferences. And not only on account of her new duties.

At a stroke, she was no longer only responsible for her homework, but, as soon as school was over, for dealing with her administrative tasks as well. And she found herself in a very dynamic environment, where the staff are involved in decision-making and often question procedures. "It helped me in school, at work and at home too, to think ahead and question certain decisions."

Conferences, finance and many challenges

It was ten years ago that Rupacher finished her studies at commercial college. Today she is a permanent member of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-MAVT). One job she particularly remembers is when she was working in Department Coordination in D-MAVT at the time of the first Synthetic Biology conference in Europe in 2007.

Rupacher was responsible for preparing, planning, organising and managing the conference, and had to organise the funding, catering, timetables, support, logistics and hotel bookings for more than 600 people. She worked on the conference for a year. "It was an intensive period, and I learned a lot."

She has more responsibility now that she is overseeing the finance and personnel relating to a grant from the European Research Council (ERC). She is also Deputy Budget Manager for her managers¡¯ cost centres. This is not a task that she takes lightly. Especially the exchange rate slump while the Swiss franc was very weak shook her. "That gave me quite a few sleepless nights."

Preparing for the move to the LEE building

It's not in her nature to stand still. That's why, a few years ago, she took a part-time course in marketing at an advanced technical college. Her managers have appointed her as the user representative for her department in the new LEE building on Leonhardstrasse. The D-MAVT will soon be occupying some floors of that building. In this role, Rupacher is helping to organise the plans for room allocation, moving out and closing the old building.

She is also working as part of a signage team with architects, ETH property experts, builders and graphic designers on the signs for the new building, and helping the professors to identify the requirement for information pillars, video projectors in the entrance hall and screens on the landings and in seminar rooms.

A little piece of home found at ETH Zurich

"I've also rediscovered a little piece of home at ETH Zurich," she says. She has been involved with the Greek student society at the university for a long time. She has found a great many friends and like-minded people there who share her longing for her homeland.
This has been an important experience, she insists: "As a Swiss-Cypriot woman, until now I only knew about my mother's country from my holidays. Through the society, I've found out more about its customs, traditions and way of life."

She may not be thinking of moving away from ETH Zurich just yet, but: "I can certainly imagine myself living in Cyprus one day and really getting to know the country."