- Hey everyone, so this is probably been my most requested
video in the last like two months, and I've only been
running this YouTube channel for like six, five months.
So, I wanted to make a little video today
about how I got into ETH.
Okay, so I guess I'll just start with all
of my qualifications that I had when I was applying.
What I did, was I did honors mechanical engineering
at McGill University in Canada.
In Canada, our last year we have to do a year-long project,
probably with industry, sometimes with a professor,
and instead, in honors, you do research with a professor.
So you don't do it with four people in a group,
you do it individually under the supervision
of a post-doc or a masters student or something like that.
So I did research for a year in a lab, right off the bat,
I did really good work, I worked really hard,
I made a really good impression and I made really
meaningful relationships, and so my professor,
I'm pretty sure he wrote me like a phenomenal
letter of recommendation .
So right off the bat there, I have a year of research,
and I have a year at the time because I applied
by December but I started in January that full year.
So I had a year of research, and submitting my
master's thesis, or my bachelor's thesis, and so because
I was already doing this research for a year,
in my letter of intent for application,
my motivation letter, I already knew what I liked,
I knew what I wanted to do at ETH, and I was able
to communicate what I knew, like what I learned,
and how I wanted to apply that because I had already
worked and figured out what I like.
The other thing that really helped is that,
and I would really suggest that you do this,
in any university you apply to, you should really
first of all, figure out what you like of course,
then figure out what other labs in the world,
work on what you do.
So when you're applying, say you wanna apply to Caltech
in the states, let's just take that, you should go through
every professor in the department that you want to apply to
and see if their research relates to anything you like,
and then even before you apply,
you go and email that professor.
I even mailed physical letters when I didn't get
a response back for an email, I would mail them
a physical letter and then like two months would go by,
and I would get a response to my email because
they would see my letter.
So that's what I would do, and then even in your
motivation letter, now that you know what you like,
what your passion about and this university
has what you want to do, and you know which professor
works on that stuff, you put all of that
in the motivation letter, and you say this is why
I want to go to ETH because you have this prof,
he works on this, this is what I did in my undergraduate
research experience, and we're a perfect match.
So that's pretty much what I did and what you should do too.
So that's the research part.
The other thing was that I had really good grades,
not really good, I didn't have a 4.0, I had a 3.83,
so a 3.83 out of 4.0.
So most of my grades were A's, sometimes I had A minuses,
and then I have like two B's, or something like that
on my transcript.
Yeah, they were good grades, but obviously they weren't
the best, I know people that had way better grades than me
that don't have that much success in applying to university,
like for masters programs at some of the top schools,
so grades aren't everything.
I would say that your research experience and how much
professors vouch for you, is way more important.
For example, the professor that I worked with at McGIll,
he's very very well known in the combustion community,
so I would say that having him write me
a letter of recommendation was very useful
for my application.
Oh, the GREs, my GRE scores were so bad.
I don't really remember but like if this is the scale
of like zero to 100, like 100 is the best grade
you could have and zero's the worst grade you could have,
for English, I was like in the middle somewhere,
like smack in the middle, which is terrible because
English is my first language and I know there's tons
of people that apply that have phenomenal GRE scores
that don't even speak English.
And my math was like somewhere around 75%.
I'm an engineer, like my math, find the area of the circle,
ya know it should be a lot better than around 75%,
but that just goes to show that like ya know, these tests,
like these ridiculous, I think the GRE is total BS,
these ridiculous tests don't determine your future.
So that's just what you should keep in mind.
You should always apply to that job, apply to that school,
really like think about why you want it, don't just apply
because just applying means nothing, like why would you just
apply for something if you're just like,
"Oh I'll see if I get it."
Like figure out what you want,
figure out what you're good at and like try to match
what you're good at with what the job
or the university or the lab has.
In everything that I'm saying, what I do,
even if you do it exactly the same way that I do,
it doesn't mean you're gonna get in.
You might even have worse grades than me, worse GRE scores,
and not even do that much research, and get in.
It's always a bit of luck, it always depends on who else
applied that year, like did other people that were way
better than you apply, then they're probably gonna get in.
Or did I just apply in a year where there weren't that many
good people, ya know what I mean?
So there's always a bit of luck.
The other thing that I had was, I had an internship
at a company called Pratt & Whitney Canada.
Now, my internship was actually in the business unit,
but while I was there, I went out and seeked for anything
that could be related to engineering,
so I was working with spreadsheets.
I didn't want to just say, oh I played
with spreadsheets whatever, like I seeked out work,
so what I did was I actually learned VBA,
which is the programming language for Excel and Access.
It's actually really easy, I just Googled the commands,
like if you can code, if you can like write scripts
in MATLAB, then you can do it in VBA.
I just like automated a lot of the processes for people
because they were just like punching in like line by line,
the same thing in Excel, and I was like,
"What are you doing?"
They're like, "Oh, I don't know VBA,"
and I'm like, "You can just like Google, how to do a loop."
Anyway, so that's what I did, and then I was able to sort of
relate my work experience to being like,
I'm problem solving.
So I have my grades, my GRE score, my motivation letter,
oh I had a lot of extra curriculars, but it doesn't mean
that it's gonna help you, like out of all of this,
I don't know what got me in, probably a little bit
of everything, but my extra curriculars were like,
I was on the like student council for mechanical engineers
for two years at McGill.
I was also, I organized, this is gonna sound really intense,
I organized an international kayaking competition
on the St. Lawrence in Montreal, where like kayakers
from literally all over the world came to compete here.
It sounds like yeah, it's a little crazy,
but it doesn't mean that you have to do that (laughs).
Actually I don't even know if I put that
on my resume when I applied, sorry.
I was also, this is gonna sound also kinda funny,
I was also on like Team Canada for whitewater kayaking
for like four years, or six years, so I also put that down,
but I don't know if that helped.
I think it just like makes my application pop out
'cause they're like, what's whitewater kayaking?
Anyway, that is how I think I got into ETH,
but out of all of that, I would say the main thing
is reach out to professors.
So actually it's a funny story, I was in another lab,
now I love the lab I'm in, I actually applied
to a different lab and in that lab I emailed the professor
before I submitted my job application in December
and I wrote him like this short and sweet email ya know,
saying like you do what I do, blah blah blah,
I'm applying, whatever, because sometimes it's like
the admission committee says, "Okay, she has this grade,"
da da da da da, "She passes into the pile
"for the professor to look at."
And because you apply to a professor
in mechanical engineering for example, I don't know,
all the different programs are different,
but you apply to like a tutor, and they only pick
a certain number of students.
So then the professor gets this pile of students
and they have to go through them and they have to pick
like three or something like that.
He's going through them and he's just like,
"Oh Jessica, I remember that name, but I don't know,"
ya know it just makes him stop for that split second
and like it makes me seem more human and less like
I'm just another student.
Actually when I emailed him, this was his reply;
he was like, "Okay, see you in September."
I was like, "Okay, so does that mean I'm gonna be accepted?"
And then I saw him in September, but then I switched labs
'cause I didn't like his research,
and I really like my research now.
Did you even think that you should be emailing professors?
Yes, you should be.
They're gonna get a pile this big.
They're gonna have to go through, everyone is probably
just as qualified as you, so how are you gonna make yourself
stick out to them, how are you gonna make yourself
not just another number?
I know that was a lot of information,
but I think it was really, really, really good information
and I really hope you like it,
and thank you so much for watching this video.
If you have any more questions about getting into ETH,
please leave them in the comments below.
Like this video if you liked it, and please subscribe
if wanna know more.
(jazz music)