Hello everyone,

I'm a new forumer here.
I live in France and from September 2012 to June 2013 I will study to the university in St Gallen.
I read some things of the cost of living in Switzerland so I'm asking if I should live in CH or if Germany or Austria could be good choice - as a student, money is one big concern.
I don't know (almost) anything about CH unfortunately, that's why I'm asking some advices from your part.

I don't speak German so maybe a "big" city (St Gallen) is better than small town of borders.
Maybe I'll buy a car but let's start with the worst hypothesis : is it practical to live in DE/A and study in CH with public transports ?

Sorry if the topic was already discussed but I read some things on borders but usually people talked about insurance and taxes but as a student, I'm not sure it's very relevant.

If you have any other recommendation, don't hesitate !

Thank you!

You should definitely live in St Gallen. It's a great city and you can spend your time enjoying it instead of travelling to/from your lectures.
Live in a shared house, that's much cheaper (and much more fun!) than renting alone. There are lots of students so it shouldn't be too hard to find somewhere. Especially if you have more than a year to look!
Don't get a car. The public transport in and around the city is excellent, buses go everywhere and are very affordable. Commuting by public transport from Germany will quickly get annoying and time-consuming though.

Hey,

I just moved to SG a few weeks ago.. will be completing the MBF degree. You can find shared housing starting around 400CHF/month - rent is reasonable here in my opinion. The biggest expense is probably food.. which seems very expensive so far compared to the USA. I have a nice room, furnished in a 3 bedroom flat for 600CHF... walking distance to the university, though it's a tough uphill walk (~20min).

Yes, I agree with others that you should live in St. Gallen if you study here. I did consider to commute from Zürich initially but it would be just too tiring. Give me a shout when you are here then maybe we can organise something for other EF members in St. Gallen too?

Hi,
I'm looking into the mbf degree as well. Was wondering if i can get some 'insider' info abt the program from you... for example how well are the students placed (especially for those who don't know german...). have most of your classmates already found an summer internship?

Hey guys,

I'll be doing MiQEF at St. Gallen starting in Fall 2012. Also will be looking for a place to live, doing the visa stuff, etc.

get a shared place at wgzimmer.ch . St. Gallen is one of the cheapest towns to live in in Switzerland. Food is cheap(er) if you can make the local speciality Bratwurst a large part of your diet. You may need to spend some extra money on winter clothes though, as it gets pretty chilly there. Commuting makes no sense as you will spend on transport what you make on rent and the choice of shared flats is better in St. Gallen.

Any other advice for food besides eating Bratwurst? I mean I don't want to get a heart attack at the age of 30, seems pretty healthy to eat Bratwurst all the time (even though right now in Germany I ear Döner EVERY SINGLE DAY so kind of being a hypocrite here, heh)...I was thinking of getting a car to make trips to Germany for groceries, but what if I just took a train instead to Konstanz to stock up groceries up to the limit?

as a single person it is not worth it to go grocery shopping in Konstanz. Maybe some students getting together to buy groceries there would be a good idea - no doubt some enterprising HSG folk already have such a scheme going. You can eat German style Doner Kebab at Dedi. Not eating meat will also save you a lot of $.