Whether subtitling films, designing technical documentation or interacting with people who have sensory impairments, the BA in Multilingual Communication opens up a wide range of career profiles at home and abroad. You will be called upon to combine human creativity with technical expertise, and to mediate wherever communication takes places across linguistic, cultural and specialist frontiers. Your future career prospects are as broad as your interests.

In the BA in Multilingual Communication, you will learn to use language in a targeted, efficient and professional manner. You will acquire outstanding expertise in three languages and gain a wide-ranging skill set that allows you to mediate between languages, cultures and contexts and to creatively and professionally design multilingual communication. Our degree programme focuses on:

• Formulating texts in your languages of study
• Knowledge of the cultural areas of your languages of study
• Translation and language technologies
• Accessible communication
• Public service and court interpreting
• Social media communication
• Event design
• Subtitling
• Technical documentation
• Single-source publishing
• Localisation and much more

Your choice of specialisation will reflect whether you would like to take a closer look at oral or written communication. You also have the option to specialise in the digitised preparation of complex specialist content.

You will focus on oral communication in a variety of different contexts and develop appropriate cross-cultural skills. You will also learn key project-coordination and event-management skills and how to communicate on social media in a professional and multilingual manner.

You will deepen your skills in written translation and learn to use AI-based language technologies in various areas of language mediation in a professional fashion, be it in the area of online translation, subtitling or accessible communication, to name a few.

You will specialise in information design in the digitised working world, optimised usability and how to prepare complex subject content for a range of target groups and media.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long played a role in the language industry and recent developments in generative AI naturally have implications for how we train language experts. AI-based systems can now generate texts, translate, and even write creative content. Successful use of AI in a professional context involves knowing how to use the relevant systems and being familiar with legal framework. The BA in Multilingual Communication will provide you with a solid foundation in prompt engineering and prepare you to take on a multilingual communication consultancy role within companies seeking to introduce or optimise their use of AI-based language.

To be admitted to the programme, you will need to meet the following requirements:

1. You will need to be in possession of either a Swiss higher secondary education certificate (Matura) – which may be either a Swiss general baccalaureate (in German, “gymnasiale Maturität”), a Swiss specialist baccalaureate (in German, “Fachmaturität”) or a Swiss vocational baccalaureate (in German, “Berufsmaturität”) – or an equivalent qualification from another country.
2. You will need to successfully complete our aptitude test.

You are not required to demonstrate practical professional experience (e.g. a year of work experience) in order to be admitted to the BA in Multilingual Communication.

The aptitude test consists of several language tests.

You will be tested in the languages you intend to study, i.e. your language (mother tongue) and at least two foreign languages. You may take tests in a greater number of languages than can be studied in the foundation course. The level of proficiency required for admission is equivalent to an above-average baccalaureate grade in your main language and approximately C1 under the Common European Reference Framework in your foreign languages.

To pass the aptitude test, you must pass each unit (approx. 60% pass mark). If you pass the aptitude test, you are entitled to enrol in the degree programme in the year you take the test or in either of the two years thereafter. If you do not pass the aptitude test at the first sitting, you may resit the test one more time, the resit being no earlier than one year after the first attempt. You must only resit those units of the test which were failed.

As a rule, you study the combination of languages you entered on your application form. When the grade achieved in a language test is only just sufficient, we reserve the right to determine the language combination on the basis of the admissions assessment results (with the stronger foreign language being the first foreign language and the weaker foreign language the second one).

You must sit a language test in your main language. No exemption from this requirement can be granted for any candidate.
If you have a recognised language certificate at level C2 in a foreign language, you can be granted a exemption from the test in that language provided the certificate was awarded no more than two years before the date of your application.

German as a foreign language
Goethe-Zertifikat C2: Grosses Deutsches Sprachdiplom

English as a foreign language
Certificate of Advanced English, Grade A
Certificate of Proficiency in English
TOEFL (Internet-based), score: 115
IELTS, Band 8.0

French as a foreign language
Diplôme Approfondi de Langue Française DALF C2

Italian as a foreign language
CELI 5 Certificato di conoscenza della Lingua Italiana
PLIDA C2

Spanish as a foreign language
Diploma Superior de Español DELE C2

Depending on your language level and the type of learner tha you are, you can prepare in different ways for the language tests. We recommend that you spend time in the countries where the relevant languages are spoken, either taking a language courses, doing an internship and/or working. We also recommend that you consciously and actively use the language in the run-up to the language tests and consume content in your chosen languages via television, newspapers and podcasts.

The following demo versions of the language tests give an idea of the level required:

The deadline for applications is 30 April. The aptitude tests take place in May during calendar week 21 (overview of dates and deadlines). The exact dates will be communicated to you in person once your application has been received. All language tests are usually completed on a single day. If you take tests in more than one main language or more than two foreign languages, you may be asked to attend on a second day.

If you are in possession of a foreign qualification (e.g. Abitur or International Baccalaureate), obtained either in Switzerland or abroad that allows you access to higher education, please submit the documents requested by the academic office responsible for the degree programme you have chosen so that your qualification can be checked for equivalency. This equivalency recognition process follows the Guidelines on Equivalency Recognition for Bachelors Degree Programmes and takes place after your application has been submitted. If you have any questions, please contact the academic office. There are no quotas on international students.