A Few Words of Explanation#

If you’ve been following my posts, you might have noticed a pattern of increasingly long breaks, especially since the second half of 2023. But a 7-month gap? That’s by far the longest pause yet (my last post, dated here, was that long ago).

Originally, this post was meant to mark my blog’s revival in the fall of 2024. At the time, I had written an opening about my increasingly long breaks—especially the seven-month gap (see above) since my last post. But as you can see, seven months quickly turned into nearly a year (just two days shy).

That doesn’t mean life stood still. Quite the opposite—a lot has happened! However, I’ll resist the temptation to recap an entire year and instead stick to the original intent of this post: reflecting on my summer between high school and university and outlining a new direction for this blog.

Of course, I’ll leave the explanation of the new direction to the final thoughts, at the very end. But for now, consider what follows a, by no means, exhaustive snapshot from the past.

Let’s dive in.

Longest summer#

For many, finishing off final exams marks the end of their high school journey - they’ve done their best and now is the time to gather the fruits of their hard work in the form of the acceptance to their program and university of choice (hopefully). These people need to just wrap up a few formalities and they are good to start their summer.

However, that’s the ideal, unachievable for many, including me.

That may sound like unjustified whining, but it’s true. After being rejected by the US unis, I tried my shot at a few European. Choices were limited by money constraints and date (I received the rejection in March by which time many unis in, e.g. Netherlands had closed the application process).

Nevertheless, I was able to determine five options: the Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), the Technical University of Munich (Germnay), Poznan University of Technology, the University of Warsaw and the Jagiellonian University (all three in Poland). Now, I would like to go over all of them in the above order.

Sapiezna#

The Sapienza University of Rome is one of the most renowned technical universities in Italy. It offers several degrees in English, including the one that caught my interest: Applied Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.

The name of the degree is long, but it speaks for itself. After reviewing the syllabus, my belief in its relevance to my interests—broadly speaking, computer science—was only reinforced.

The application process itself was straightforward. I simply registered on Sapienza’s online platform, paid the application fee, submitted my SAT scores, and asked my IB Coordinator to send my IBDP results electronically to the university. Then, it was just a matter of waiting for the acceptance list, which was released earlier than those of other universities I had applied to.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t accepted. Even if I had been, though, finding an affordable place to live in Rome—considering the city’s high cost of living—would have been a challenge.

TUM#

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of the top universities globally and the best in Germany. The only downside is that German universities tend to prioritize their language, leaving limited options for studying in English.

However, after some research, I discovered two degrees at Campus Heilbronn that were somewhat aligned with my interests and offered mostly in English (though there’s more to that in a minute).

The first option was Management and Data Science, which is conducted entirely in English (awesome!). However, the curriculum wasn’t quite what I was looking for. The program focuses heavily on management—about 70%—while only 30% covers data science, the part I found most relevant.

Luckily, there was another option: Information Engineering. This degree is essentially a typical computer science program with some added management and economics courses—no big deal, maybe even an advantage. The catch? Not all of it was in English. While the computer science courses are conducted in English, some of the management and economics classes are partially taught in German.

As a result, one of the application requirements was a German A2 language certificate. That presented a big challenge for me, as I hadn’t studied German since my freshman year of high school. Worse yet, I had just one month between my final exams and the language test date. So, while I applied for the Management and Data Science program as a fallback, I decided to go all in and try for the A2 certificate.

The timeline was tight, but thanks to my prior experience with German, rigorous study, and the help of my high school’s German teacher (who let me join the sophomore introductory classes!), I managed to obtain the certificate. It was a wild ride, but I pulled it off.

Now, you’d think everything was sorted, right? Well, there’s another hurdle when applying to German universities: getting your foreign high school diploma recognized.

Most German universities require foreign applicants to go through uni-assist. TUM uses the uni-assist services for generating something called the VPD (Vorprüfungsdokumentation). Essentially, you submit documents related to your grades and final exam results to uni-assist, and if everything checks out, you receive a VPD, which translates your grades into the German Abitur system. Then, you send the VPD to the university, which evaluates your application based on that.

The tricky part is that the VPD takes 3–4 weeks to process during the busy application season. If any documents are missing or something is incorrect, you’ll only find out after a month. To make matters worse, I received my IB results on July 6th, and the TUM application deadline was July 15th. I had to submit a declaration saying I had already applied for the VPD and would send it as soon as I received it. My VPD finally arrived near the end of June.

Thankfully, TUM processed my VPD quickly, and I received a response in just 3–4 days. I was even more fortunate because I didn’t have to participate in an interview (which is required depending on your final exam scores). But seriously, the waiting time? I’d heard rumors about German bureaucracy, but this was my first real encounter with it.

Things didn’t get any easier afterward. I had to send proof of insurance and handle several other tedious administrative tasks.

And to top it all off, I never ended up going. Despite sending around 50 messages to landlords in Heilbronn, I didn’t receive a single response regarding available housing.

Considering the effort I put in—not just meeting the admission requirements, but also wading through endless paperwork—it feels like the embodiment of the phrase, “all that work and nothing to show for it.”

Poland#

At this point, I’d like to shift focus to my home country, Poland, and share a bit about the university application process here.

I applied to three universities in Poland: the University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University, and Poznan University of Technology (PUT).

The reasons for choosing the first two were straightforward—they are the highest-ranked universities in Poland and both offer a Computer Science program. Although these programs are taught in Polish, it wasn’t an issue for me as a native speaker. I figured I’d challenge myself by applying to both for Computer Science. After all, why not aim high?

My third choice, PUT, was more of a “safe option.” It’s located in the same city as my high school, just about 2 km away. Studying there would mean I wouldn’t have to move, which would significantly cut down on living expenses. Besides, I was confident I’d be accepted, thanks to PUT’s favorable International Baccalaureate (IB) to Polish Matura conversion factor.

At PUT, I applied for the Artificial Intelligence program, which stands out for several reasons. Not only is it the only undergraduate program at PUT offered exclusively in English (most others have Polish equivalents), but it also has the highest admission threshold among all PUT programs. A score of over 900 out of 1000 is required, compared to 800 for the second-place program, Computer Science. I hoped this would attract smart, motivated peers (perhaps that’s a bit idealistic, but what other criteria could I rely on?).

The application process in Poland is relatively streamlined in some ways but not without its quirks. All Polish universities require electronic applications (to the best of my knowledge, there are no exceptions). You register on the university’s website, fill out your personal information, upload exam scores and relevant certifications, select your desired majors, and submit.

However, there’s no centralized system for university applications, so you need to repeat this process for each university individually. To complicate things, while many of these systems use the popular IRK framework, the design and user experience can vary widely between universities. Despite these inconsistencies, the process itself is simple enough, and you can do everything from the comfort of your sofa.

Once you’ve applied, the next step is to wait for the acceptance lists to be published. Here’s where it gets tricky: each university has its own schedule for releasing these lists, and the dates can vary by as much as a month (or more, though that wasn’t the case for me).

Why is this a problem? Once the acceptance list is out, you typically have about a week—or sometimes less—to visit the university in person and submit the required documents. The specifics vary by institution, but all of them demand your official exam results for verification against the information you entered online.

For me, the process went something like this (though I don’t remember the exact dates): I received my acceptance letter from PUT on a Friday during the first week of July. By Monday, I had to show up at the university with my documents. At that point, I still hadn’t heard back from the University of Warsaw or Jagiellonian University, so I had no way of knowing if I’d been accepted there.

Fortunately, after submitting my documents to PUT, I didn’t have to wait long for a positive response from Jagiellonian University. However, I was still waiting on a decision from the University of Warsaw.

In the meantime, I managed to visit Kraków with my girlfriend (a nice addition to the story, wouldn’t you say?) on the very last day of the deadline. And, as fate would have it, it was only while waiting for our return train that I finally received the acceptance message from the University of Warsaw.

Seriously, why can’t all Polish universities agree on a unified results release date—or at least extend the document submission deadlines? Better yet, why not create a centralized application system, like the Netherlands’ Studielink, where you can apply to all universities with a single account? Damn it.

Anyway, getting into the University of Warsaw meant yet another trip—this time to Poland’s capital. Luckily, I wasn’t alone; I traveled with my high school friend Piotr, who had applied to SGH.

That was the last university I had to finalize.

Ironically, though, after all that effort, I ended up staying in Poznań anyway.

The main reason? Financial constraints. I simply didn’t have enough savings to start fresh, even in dormitories. The exhaustion from my final exams also played a role, along with lingering doubts about whether studying in Warsaw or Kraków was truly worth the extra effort.

However, enough whining—let’s finally wrap this up, a whole year later!

Final Thoughts#

So, here I am in Poznań—just a few steps away from my high school—studying Artificial Intelligence. I do have some regrets about not pursuing the TUM opportunity further, but nothing is set in stone. For now, I’m okay with where I am, though doubts occasionally creep in. That said, I don’t feel like diving into them now—or anytime soon, really.

On a brighter note, I’m very satisfied with the student organization I joined, GHOST, and the project I’m involved in, GHOSTxIRIM. I’m also enjoying a biomedical engineering course I signed up for, which focuses on signal processing.

At this point, we can smoothly transition to my vision for this blog moving forward.

My plan is to shift toward shorter-form posts—not covering entire projects in one go but rather focusing on specific aspects, like adding a new feature or, better yet, tackling a problem I encountered while implementing it.

Most of my posts will likely revolve around the two topics I vaguely mentioned above, but now is neither the time nor place to elaborate on them.

I aim to set aside Friday mornings for writing and stick to that schedule. I actually meant to start last week, but International Women’s Day (which fell on Sunday) got in the way.

That said, the next two weeks won’t bring new posts just yet. Instead, I’ll be updating the blog—bringing things up to speed. My “About Me” page still reflects my high school self, so it needs a refresh. The same goes for the “My Projects” section and a few others.

So yeah, that’s about it. I know this post took forever, but it evolved over quite a long period. Now, I’m itching to get back to writing—I’ve really missed it. It’s fulfilling, and I hope I can stick to my promise this time.

Anyway, cheers, everyone and happy Pi Day!