Canada
USA
Germany
UK
I was quite torn between pursuing the opportunities from the First Pot (cool, non-mainstream, great panorama, delicious chocolate) and chasing the prestige from the Second Pot (mainstream, huge reputation). I finally decided to simply follow all paths that appeared in front of me, did my best, and I shall follow whichever path that bears result.
Based on the countries wishlist, later I moved forward a bit by creating university wishlist. Although a country is in my First Pot and a university has a good worldwide rank (I consulted the ranking to Times Higer Education, QS, and ARWU), I still had to check either the department or professor availability. For example, Karolinska Institute is in Sweden (First Pot) and it has good rank, however it is only for Medical studies; therefore, it did not suit me.
Some super prestigious universities such as Cambridge and Oxford also do not suit me. They can never be included to my wishlist, no matter how much I do wish to enroll. Why? Well, for example, Cambridge accepts Ph.D. students mostly from its own M.Phil program (it means I will have to re-take Master’s degree). Suppose I tried to apply directly for a Ph.D. position, the chance is even slimmer than Indonesia’s chance to qualify for World Cup 2050 (kidding!). According to Cambridge’s website, only 1 or 2 direct applicants per year are accepted. After reading it, I was like… kByeThx (okay.bye.thanks.). Same thing happened after I read Oxford’s requirements. It had made me very soberly realize that those requirements are never meant to be within my reach. It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be (Franklin & Houston, 1987).
After clicking university websites, checking the available departments, scrutinizing professors’ research topics and publications (also googling the campus’ and their cities’ pics, to be honest), here was the university wishlist in First Pot:
Swiss: ETH Zurich, Basel, Lugano
Denmark: Denmark Technical University
Austria: Universitat Wien, Vienna Technical University
