Hallo! Bonjour! Ciao! Hello!

My girlfriend and I moved to Lausanne a while ago. She got accepted to study her master degree in Photograpy at the arts university ECAL and I got accepted to continue my master in Psychology at the University of Fribourg.

We now live in a comfortable room in Crissier, but plan to move to a flat in the center of Lausanne, somewhere close to the station, so that I can commute to beautiful Fribourg easier.

We are both originally from Poland, but moved around quite a bit. My girlfriend speaks English, Italian and Polish (natively). I speak English, German (natively), Polish (natively) and Spanish. We look forward to learning French!

We are both looking for a job, my girlfriend for a summer job, me for a full time job that I can work full time, combining it with my studies (remote, hybrid or flexible). So far, with no luck, but we try to stick to the plan.

We are happy that we found this forum! It is a goldmine!
Thanks for all the past posts and...

See you around

Hello, and what a nice, chatty introduction. Welcome to the Forum!

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to Switzerland and the Forum.

Please know that as a students you are limited to 15 hours of work per week. Your student permit will not allow anyone to employ you for more than that, as your primary purpose in Switzerland is to study.

Am not sure about the situation for your girlfriend as she's on summer break, I'm not sure if a student can work full-time between semesters?

In the past there have been several threads about employment for people on student permits, it would be worthwhile to search the forum.

Thank you @Bossa Nova. I have just found out by searching this forum that there are hourly limits for people on student permits. This of course would make it even more difficult.

I hope though, and will try to find out with the Migration Office, that I will just loose the prospect of getting a student permit status (with its insurance benefits), but instead be able to get permit that allows me to work (based on a signed contract).

My girlfriend is on summer break, so should be able to work full time with her student permit.

This gives me hope that I my thinking may be correct:
https://www.englishforum.ch/2520827-post5.html

But then you will just end up with the reverse problem: if you are a foreigner with a residence permit based on having a full-time job, you normally can't also be enrolled as a full-time student.

I am reasonably familiar with Swiss university/student life and the various permit issues. Please be aware that unless you are specifically enrolled in a part-time program (which are not the norm in CH), pursuing a MSc degree is considered a full-time commitment, and you will have a LOT of work to do. The MSc programs I am familiar with all require >40hours/week of class time + practical work + assignments + exams. Someone with a full-time job would never be allowed through the door, no matter how much they promised to work hard and keep school/work separate.

Your sponsoring university will require a copy of your residence permit, and if they see you have residence based on having a full-time job I am highly doubtful they would also allow you to study full-time. Regardless of whether or not it's legal, at least in my experience, such a candidate would not be accepted. Personally, I think it's already tough to work 15 hours a week if you're studying full-time (there are reasons there is a legal limit), and working 40 hours per week on top of your MSc, this would be a recipe for failing your program and having a burnout at the same time.


EDIT: Do you have a student permit already, or are you here as a tourist?

Again, thank you very much for your advice. What you say actually made us seriously rethink our plans!

I started my degree part-time abroad and am only obliged to take half of the number of subjects, but since I managed studies with work before, I planned to take more.

I thought that if I find a flexible job that will allow me to combine what I study with what I do professionally (marketing), I should be fine.

But what you say, made me doubt my plan in terms of:
- the amount of work the degree actually will take,
- whether the uni will allow this/will want to go into the details of my situation,
- and, whether it will be legal in this case.

We went through the alternatives, studying + working 15 hours seems to be most reasonable, at least for now.
I applied for a jobseeker permit over 3 months ago, but am still waiting. Not sure what the answer will be. Why do you ask?

PS can I somehow move the topic to another section? I am worried that I am breaking the rules by continuing the discussion in the introductory section.