Freshmen

Einstein's plans to go to the Zurich Polytechnic Institute in 1895 were thwarted by messing up his entrance exam. Although he passed the scientific components with flying colors, he failed the general courses on literature and foreign languages. Einstein had no interest in that, so he put little effort in it. He decided to try again a year later. In 1896 Albert Einstein took yet another entrance exam for the Polytechnic Institute Zurich and obtained a score of 5.5 out of 6. He was admitted. Einstein was educated to become a teacher and specialized in mathematics and physics. However, his independence and original thinking began to pose a problem. Although he excelled in theoretical subjects - the thermodynamics or the electromagnetic theory of James Clerk Maxwell - he rarely appeared on practicals. If he did, he did not follow directions and developed his own methods, much to the annoyance of his teachers. Once things got out of hand when Einstein caused an explosion and injured his hand.

Lazy dog!

It was not long before the teachers in Zürích began to treat Einstein as they did in Munich. When Einstein failed to pass the entrance exam in 1895, Heinrich Weber of the physics department asked him to stay in Zurich and attend the department's classes, even though he was not enrolled as a full-time student. Einstein refused. It was not long before this contrary attitude further damaged the relationship between the two. "You're a smart boy, Einstein," Weber said, "but you have a major flaw, you are not doing what is being asked". The bitterest comment came from Einstein's math teacher, Hermann Minkowski, who labeled him "lazy dog". Minkowski would later swallow his words when he became a great admirer of the theory of relativity, to which he also contributed.

Graduation

Einstein graduated from Zurich in 1900 as the fourth of his class of five. His aversion to experimental physics undoubtedly played a role in this poor result, as did his aversion to anything that didn't really interest him. Part of the final mark was awarded to his research report. Einstein wanted to investigate how the Earth moved through the "ether", a substance that light waves were once thought to propagate in, like waves on the surface of a pond. Weber was not impressed, however. That is why Einstein submitted a report on heat, in which he said he was totally not interested in. All in all, he was lucky to pass at all.