Middle School / High school (6 years)

I was addicted to the Steam video game “Team Fortress 2”. I invested some of my pocket money in the game item “Earbuds” (they worth ~$50 each) at that time and eventually had to give up all my “Earbuds” when they worth $9 each.

Then later on I got addicted to the Steam video game “CSGO”. I did not buy any CSGO capsule stickers at that time (Back then it was very cheap and now they worth like $60,000).

I finish my classes with minimum average score (~50/100), passing the bare minimum of graduation. I found myself cannot pay attention to the class.

Failed my university entrance exam (HKDSE) with a grade of 2/3/4/2/3/2 (Best 5 = 14), Where most of my friends got Best 5 >= 20. Most of my friends went to university, I didn’t. I never thought of what would happen after high school, and was panicked.

I worked as a cheeze and ham sales in the supermarket and I hated it. Quited after couple months. Then I decided I want to go back to school.

Associate Degree (1 year)

I picked Multimedia Production as my major. My grandparents didn’t like the idea of me going back to school, and the major I chose seem unprofessional. They think I am an disappointment and think I am wasting parent’s money. They asked me when am I going to work everyday and I cried quietly in bed sometimes.

I almost failed a class because I did not know there was a last page in the exam.

Applying to university with my GPA in assoicate degree, I get the one and only interview from PolyU. I felt I messed up the inverview and at the very late August I got my offer. My grandparents say I was purely lucky.

Undergrad (4 years)

I started my degree program in “Internet and Multimedia Technologies”, which it should have called Signal Processing. I almost failed my calculus class and I found math equations difficult to read.

Taught myself computer vision and deep learning through some udemy courses and applied for research internships everywhere. Never got accepted to anywhere. My background was too weak.

I missed the deadline to apply CMU RISS exchange program in my 3rd year which I thought I would have a decent chance of getting it. When I realized such opportunity and I sent a email to the Prof incharge (who was the CMU graduate) he told me that I was one day late of applying.

Was not able to publish anything after staying in a prof’s lab for 4 months as a summer research intern.

I wanted to study aboard and pursue a research master degree. My friends thought I was too ambitious when they saw my list, and they don’t think I would get in.

Had to took twice IELTS twice to achieve 7.5 overall but still cannot surpass 6.5 in both speaking and writing.

Had to took GRE twice and still cannot get >320 in total score. (169/170 Quant, 150/170 Verbal).

Eventually I applied to ~10 schools and only got the taught master offers from USC, UMaryland and UWaterloo. They are very top school to me, but I wanted to conduct research.

TBA

The journey is many times better than the end.