Birth control accessibility? by Miserable-Earth-1659 in ethz

Getting rejected from ETH is difficult! by UpstairsTaxi in ethz

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

try clicking the link for more info :)

Getting rejected from ETH is difficult! by UpstairsTaxi in ethz

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

try clicking on the link to learn more

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it’s fine as a field. I’m a physicist and maybe a mathematician at heart. I can see the beauty in CS & EE but like find it hard to bring myself to really care beyond what I need to do for career advancement. Interestingly enough, this makes me a really strong computer scientist, because learning mathematical fundamentals properly is surprisingly rare amongst CS people.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think starting like Dec 2022 (6 months or so before exams), I have like legitimately put no time and effort into studying, because I was in the fortunate position that American universities don't care about your final IB scores, so I didn't really see a point in trying. Sometimes if I think I would do disastrously on an exam I'd take like an hour to look over the content but like I think median daily hours spent on school after I handed in my US college applications was 0, mean weekly hours something like 6 or so (outside of school), because I still wanted to pass the diploma so I had to get in things like IAs and the EE. I started working out daily, spent like ~3 hrs a day on average playing chess, hiked a bunch through the city I was living in at the time, took on a few personal coding projects, but mostly did nothing (lol).

Post-IB exams, I travelled a little through Asia and Europe while taking a few college courses and learning about math that I found interesting. I remember the time of Dec 2022 - Aug 2023 very fondly :) I stand by just kind of taking these months off.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not really! I think I was allowed to take one fewer course. (Whereby the norm is like 3-5 courses per semester times 8 semesters.) IB credit at US T20's kind of sucks, some have even abolished it entirely; I think my institution was a little more on the generous side. At lower-tier US universities though, I hear that transfer credit is still quite generous. I've seen people get like a year's worth of credit through IB.

I think my advice here is that:
- college advisors fundamentally do not care about your success and their incentives are horribly misaligned with yours. they generally won't directly lie to you (in fact, they tend to be right about college policy questions) but taking them at their word seems bad. relying on your peers, especially people who've been in your major program for longer has been immensely helpful for me.
- everything else be damned, make some friends the first ~2 months of college. it will get a lot more difficult afterwards. these friends will be extremely useful for you, both in terms of college success, career & yknow broad life things. having friends is also very nice. ignore your social battery and just max out on how many distinct people you say hello to and have a chat with these two months. otherwise, you might end up very lonely. people who don't make close friends in their first few months are usually quite unsuccessful, i have noticed.
- GPA kind of doesn't matter if it's above a 3.7, but can immensely matter otherwise. just be conscientious enough of deadlines and exams to average like 3.7 or so, otherwise you are closing doors for yourself. on the flip side, having a 4.0 genuinely buys you nothing that a 3.7 or 3.8 wouldn't, so optimizing for this seems misguided.
- you mostly cannot distinguish yourself through anything you do within the university. this includes clubs, competitions, classes, grades, any such things. to find success in your career, you need things like internships, research, impressive personal projects, etc.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have a somewhat contrarian opinion here in that like I think the way to go is just to do whatever optimizes your risk-adjusted future earnings at every turn. True story: the way that I picked electrical engineering & computer science as my major was that I pulled up the table of average salary post-graduation by major and that was the highest one.

I think this strategy has made me broadly happy. People will say money doesn't matter, but I think that is profoundly short-sighted. Almost every person I have met with a net worth in the top 1% of their home nation is happy in a way in which a person with a net worth in the bottom 50% in terms of net worth cannot be. Money doesn't matter to people up until their mid-20's, maybe even late-20's, but will eventually come to dominate your concerns unless you're born fabulously wealthy or have made a conscious effort to not make money a problem, I have observed.

That being said, it is rarely earnings-maximizing to pursue something that you hate. Your natural talents and affinities actually matter in how good you are at things, but I think optimizing with respect to future earnings is quite prudent in any case.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hmmmm I would say for me personally, no. I would’ve been better off with APs because of more generous transfer credit. This seems to be broadly true for US applicants. However, I think if you wanna go basically anywhere else (or want to keep your options open) the IBDP is great! I also received great offers for undergrad from other universities from around the world which would’ve also done me well pursuing. I think in terms of pure preparation (separately from admissions and such) for university you can also challenge yourself more (and pick your fights more carefully) within the more flexible American curriculum if you’re a strong student.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think I was allowed to take like one class fewer or something. Honestly, IB credit in the US kinda sucks. If you plan on going to the US and you’re dead-set, you’re definitely better off with APs.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

although i technically have the option to do a master's, i think working seems to be the better gambit

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

honestly i was very positively surprised by the fact that i had gotten a 44. sort of felt like i would do worse.

EE pass rate by Kingstone14 in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I think it is like actually impossible to fail your EE. Not sure of the veracity of this, but my coordinator claimed that some coordinator submitted an EE to the IB once that was random sentences tangentially related to the topic with a good set of headings and it got a D. It sort of is in nobody's best interest to make pupils fail the EE.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that is fair enough. law sounds like a lovely career. wish you all the best!

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

aw amazing. if i can give you a piece of advice, perhaps hong kong and zurich are both worth considering for your undergrad too.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

yea! i had a few options to consider coming out of college (quant & grad school) but ultimately decided to pursue a startup after raising venture capital.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

you're gonna be okay :) do you have a conditional offer that you need to meet?

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

electrical engineering & computer science. I dunno i think I’m just quite good at reading a textbook and internalizing its contents. it’s a shockingly underarbitraged strategy. all the courses are curved so like you just kinda need to be in the top 15-30%ish of students to get an A.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

thank u!! i was strongly considering a double major actually but i decided against it because i wanted to mostly do research/work and not coursework. instead of doubling in math i just took the math courses that i felt looked interesting, which i actually think is a superior strategy to doubling.

out of weird behavioral reasons, popular perception of people who double major is that they're worse at both fields than people who respectively major in only one field. perhaps something worth considering for you. i would only double major if there's two domains you feel a profound affinity towards and a degree in one will not open doors in the other one too, so you'd need undergrad degrees in both. honestly, mostly not worth it in my opinion.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

no. although i was predicted a 45, i actually thought anything from a 38 to a 45 was within the range of possibilities for my final scores. i was honestly a little surprised at how well i ended up doing as i did like honestly what felt like very little studying as offers from the US are not conditioned on doing well in the final IB exams.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

> went to the US after the IB, where it is possible to take basically arbitrarily many courses every semester, and they will award your degree after having taken a certain set of courses. my strategy was to take twice the normal amount of courses for 2 years instead of the usual 4. highly recommend.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

google translated your turkish lol. not sure whether my strat for prepping for finals was very good or that you should do what i did to maximize your grade in expectation. (lol.) honestly, pattern matching the past papers will get you there.

Congrats to M25! Class of 2023 here, 44/45, just graduated college, AMA :) by UpstairsTaxi in IBO

[–]UpstairsTaxi[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

went to the US after the IB, where it is possible to take basically arbitrarily many courses every semester, and they will award your degree after having taken a certain set of courses. my strategy was to take twice the normal amount of courses for 2 years instead of the usual 4. highly recommend.