Studying Abroad Application Failure and a New Challenge
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1. Cause
2. Opportunity
3. Strategy
4. Additional Plans for the Year
5. Passage that Inspired Me to Rise Again
To become a lighthouse for those who have lost their way on my rough journey.
1. Cause
⑴ Unable to find suitable major and PI for myself
⑵ Strategy misstep focusing on fields I like, excel in, and should do, resulting in a somewhat misplaced Statement of Purpose (SOP)
① Reasons for choosing microbiology major in previous study abroad application
○ Felt potential in food (white bio) and environmental (green bio) research instead of medical (red bio)
○ Ability to validate various hypotheses and theories through microorganisms
○ Confusion between metagenomics and microbiology
○ Fit didn’t align well, however
⑶ Mistake of applying to departments that don’t select foreign students or have limited intake
⑷ Obsession with a uniform academic plan instead of preparing a department-specific one
⑸ Failed to implement strategic support like upward application, pre-contacts, and networking
⑹ Some bad luck as well: Unable to identify the reason for rejection from Scripts Research Institute, which still has a considerably high interview acceptance rate
⑺ Not the cause: Publications, patents, experience, and recommenders
2. Opportunity
⑴ Portrai
⑶ Blog: Also served as a positive factor for successful pre-contacts
3. Strategy
⑴ ✅ Focusing on the US and applying parallel to European universities: Considering UK, Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden.
① LSZGS
○ Document application (23.06.29)
○ 1st round acceptance (23.07.14)
○ Interview offer (23.08.24, Received interview offers from one lab at ETH Zurich and two labs at UZH)
○ Department Interview (23.09.06)
○ 1st Interview (23.09.07)
○ Cancelled 2 lab sessions (23.09.07, one was cancelled by the lab and the other was cancelled by me)
○ 2nd Interview (23.09.11)
○ Final Interview (23.09.29)
○ I decided to focus on the U.S. grad admission because I thought I was in an infinitely waiting state. (23.10.14)
○ Document application (23.07.29)
○ 1st round acceptance (23.09.26)
○ Failed (23.11.07)
③ Oxford
○ Document application (23.11.21)
④ Max Planck Institute (IMPRS-CBSC)
○ Document application (24.01.06)
⑤ Max Planck Institute (IMPRS-GM)
○ Document application (24.02.10)
⑵ ✅ Customizing SOP instead of using a standardized one
① Actively utilizing ChatGPT 4.0
⑶ ✅ Applying to both higher-ranking and lower-ranking universities
⑷ ✅ Minimizing pre-contacts → Maximizing pre-contacts (Success rate: 61.11% - 11 replied / 18 sent)
① Marketing theory suggests sending letters up to 3 times to the same person
② Aiming for at least 5 successful pre-contact cases
③ Pre-contact History
○ 23.04.03 → fail
○ 23.04.05 → success (WashU)
○ 23.04.10 → fail
○ 23.04.11 → fail
○ 23.04.13 → fail
○ 23.04.18 → success (Stanford)
○ 23.04.20 → success (UCLA)
○ 23.05.01 → fail (cf. UCL)
○ 23.05.01 → success (WashU; Cont’d)
○ 23.09.13 → success (UCLA; Cont’d)
○ 23.09.26 → fail
○ 23.10.03 → fail
○ 23.10.13 → success (WashU; Cont’d)
○ 23.10.13 → success (Harvard Faculty; in-person)
○ 23.11.02 → success (Gerstner Sloan Kettering Faculty; in-person)
○ 23.11.15 → success (Gerstner Sloan Kettering Faculty; in-person)
○ 23.11.30 → success (UW-Madison Faculty; in-person)
○ 23.12.07 → success
⑸ ✅ Actively utilizing connections with foreign PIs
① Introduced to one member of the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (23.09.05).
① Introduced to a Faculty of the Harvard (23.10.11).
⑹ ✅ Increasing the number of applications: 11 → 18 (ref)
① ❌ If admitted to ETH Zurich or University of Zurich: I will apply for 7 US grad schools and others in non-US grad schools.
② ✅ If not admitted to or not interested in ETH Zurich and University of Zurich: I will apply for 10-20s US grad shools and others in non-US grad schools.
⑺ Increase in publication records: From 3 (1st author 1, co-author 2) to 9 (1st author 4, co-author 5)
① The target includes preprints (e.g., bioRxiv, Research Square)
② LSZGS (Zurich Tech) application: 9 cases
③ ETH Zurich × Roche application: 10 cases
⑻ Increase in patent records: From 3 to 8 (cf. including PCT application; however, selected according to the department)
① LSZGS (Zurich Tech) application: 8 cases
② ETH Zurich × Roche application: 8 cases
⑼ Increase in publication records: From 3 to 3 (cf. a work in progress is mentioned in my PHS)
① Sci-Fi (SF) novel release (March, 2024): Aiming to reflect in PHS. Intending to provide solutions for environmental issues through NGS technology.
② LSZGS (Zurich Tech) application: 6 cases
③ ETH Zurich × Roche application: 6 cases
⑽ Increase in conference performance: From 5 to 6 (cf. they seemed not very important, so they were deliberately omitted from the CV.)
① LSZGS (Zurich Tech) application: 6 cases
② ETH Zurich × Roche application: 6 cases
③ 2024 AACR Abstract Submission (23.11.16)
⑾ ❌ Increase in awards: From 5 to 6 (cf. selected according to the department)
① LSZGS (Zurich Tech) application: 6 cases
② ETH Zurich × Roche application: 6 cases
③ ❌ Samsung HumanTech Paper Award: Thought I would be eligible to participate after passing the Swiss entrance exam, but it became impossible due to time constraints (23.09.12)
⑿ ✅ Increase in certifications: From 4 to 6 (cf. selected according to the department)
① LSZGS (Zurich Tech) application: 4 cases
② ETH Zurich × Roche application: 4 cases
③ ✅ Big Data Analysis Engineer Written Test (09.23.23) → Written Test Passed (23.10.06) → Practical Test (23.12.02) → Practical Test Passed (23.12.15)
○ Since the deadline for a significant number of CS programs is December 15th (local time), the Big Data Analysis Engineer certification, with its results coming out slightly earlier, can be effectively leveraged as an achievement.
④ ✅ GRE Physics (23.10.08): It’s classified as a certificate
⒀ ✅ Improving English proficiency
① My english grades are gradually decreasing, so I have to finish the grad admission as much as possible when my English grades are valid.
② ✅ Took the GRE Physics instead of TOEFL, IELTS, GRE General. (23.10.08)
4. Additional Plans for the Year
⑴ Completion of in-house major project
① Project start date: 23.03.06
② Project renewal: 23.08.24
⑵ Preparation for acquiring a technical qualification
① Possible time for technical qualification exam: First half of 2025
② ✅ Big Data Analysis Engineer Written Exam (23.09.23) → Passed Written Exam (23.10.06) → Advanced Exam (23.12.02)
⑶ ✅ Translating the Blog: Releasing 200 posts within the year
① ✅ Step 1: Establishing a fully integrated GitHub ↔︎ Tistory system (23.06.06)
② ✅ Step 2: Translation Project Completed (23.08.17): Python crawling → Markdown conversion → ChatGPT API → GitHub commit
○ Python crawling: Using Python requests library
○ Markdown conversion: Using BeautifulSoup library
○ ChatGPT API: Need for text preprocessing due to the decline in translation quality with lengthy instructions
③ ✅ Step 3: Considering introducing LLaMa2 (late 2023 ~ early 2024)
○ Advantage (vs. ChatGPT2): It’s installed, so it’s free and has a reproducibility. Enables more efficient fine-tuning. ollama makes the use of llama2 a lot easier.
○ Remark (vs. ChatGPT2): Using the LLaMa2 API key also incurs costs (Replicate)
④ Direction of the translation project: Envisioning a system where making changes on the original site triggers changes on all other foreign language sites
○ Other foreign language sites: Established or planned to be established on GitHub. Languages include English, Japanese, Spanish, etc.
○ Step 1: Make edits on the original site (e.g., Tistory)
○ Step 2: Detect modification events in JavaScript and transmit to the LLaMa2-based AI assistant
○ Step 3: LLaMa2-based AI assistant sends commands to internal server to execute Git Clone and Git Commit
○ Step 4: All other foreign language GitHub sites are changed collectively
○ In the future, LLM is expected to evolve through projects like this AI assistant project
⑷ ✅ Profiting the Blog: Establishment of a publishing company
① Co-establishment of a publishing company, izgrimean: 23.06.07
⑸ ✅ Animating the Blog: Establishment of a YouTube channel
① Establishment of a YouTube channel: 23.08.29
5. Passage that Inspired Me to Rise Again
○ What starts here changes the world.
○ You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging at times. It will test you to your very core. But if you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of them.
○ There are a lot of sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim, you will have to deal with them. So if you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharpest.
○ At the darkest moment of the mission is a time when you need to be calm. When you must be calm. When you must be composed. When all your tactical skills, your physical power and your inner strength must be brought to bear. If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moments.
○ One person can change the world by giving people hope. So if you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.
○ All you have to do to quit is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o’ clock. Ring the bell and you no longer have to be in the freezing cold swims. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs the obstacle course, the PT and you no longer endure the hardships of training. All you have to do is ring the bell to get out. If you want to change the world, don’t ever ever ring the bell.
○ I think failure is bad. I don’t think it’s good.
○ But if something is important enough then you do it even though the risk of failure is high.
○ You know it’s always a little bit frustrating to me when people have a negative relationship with failure.
○ Fail early, fail often, fail forward.
Input: 2023.04.10 01:54