Understanding climate change in the oceans
Understanding climate change in the oceans
Supported by an ETH scholarship, Janine Schmitter delves deep into questions about our earth and its oceans in her Master‘s degree in earth sciences at ETH Zurich.
“My path to ETH was not a direct one at first. During my apprenticeship as a carpenter, I realised that I wanted to explore things in greater depth and developed a huge curiosity in the connections between scientific phenomena. After completing my apprenticeship, I therefore decided to take the supplementary examination that allowed me to study at ETH. I was originally attracted to astronomy; and then one of my teachers, herself an ETH graduate, told me about the Bachelor’s in earth sciences. Choosing this degree was the right decision; I can fully develop my potential in earth sciences and ETH has been ranked among the world‘s best universities in this field for years.
Besides the universe, I’m passionate about the oceans. This was ignited by an internship at sea on the research yacht Eugen Seibold, funded by the Werner Siemens-Stiftung. We collected data which I was then able to analyse at the Max Planck Institute in Mainz. Like my Bachelor‘s thesis, my Master‘s also addresses the question of what we can learn about the climate from the oceans and how this knowledge can help us deal with climate change.
It fascinates me that we can gather data below sea level from times gone by to understand and improve our climate now and in the future, and I’m grateful to be able to play a small part in this.
After completing my Master‘s, my goal is an internship at the Alfred Wegener Institute in northern Germany. I’d love to take part in an expedition with one of their large research ships and learn all about the data acquisition processes. The plan after that is to do a doctorate at ETH and a postdoc at a university in Germany or England, so that I can continue with marine research. My long-term dream is to return to ETH as a professor and pass on my expertise to the next generation. I owe so much to the scholarship. Without it I wouldn’t be able to study at ETH, and I feel very pri vileged to be able to study at a top university. Through my involvement in the Earth Sciences student association and my work as a tutor, I can already give something back.”
