Everything changes, everyone changes, even we do…
I have been thinking to do master’s degree in Software Engineering for a long time. At first, I wanted to do my master’s degree in the USA for several reasons. Firstly, the opportunities of the American universities are much better than the Europeans and my country. Secondly, my ex-girlfriend was living in Miami and I was trying to go up to her. However, the conditions have changed; I couldn’t afford the American universities’ tuition costs, I didn’t have enough time to prepare for GRE test, and the last but not the least my girlfriend broke up with me. They forced me to wake up from the American Dream and I did! Anyway…
Then, I have decided to look for the universities, which are located in Europe and Russia, because they were cheaper than the Americans and there was no additional test for entering the universities like GRE. Thus, I have applied some universities which were from Sweden (University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology), Finland (Lappeenranta University of Technology), and Russia (National Research University – Higher School of Economics). My applications, which I made to the Swedish Universities, has been rejected due to the absence of my enrollment verification certificate (I missed this document while applying!). On the other hand, I have been accepted by both the HSE and the Lappeenranta Universities. The curriculum of the HSE was much better than the Lappeenranta, HSE was awarding me with a full scholarship, and the programme was providing their students with an opportunity to earn a second degree from the Eindhoven University of Technology. These reasons were effective for me while choosing the HSE.
Afterward, I have started to learn Russian but I had no intention to learn it deeply because my thought was that I would study in the HSE for a year and then I would go to the Eindhoven University of Technology for the second year. However, when I checked the web page of the master’s programme after three weeks passed from accepting the HSE’s offer, I realized that the page has been updated and it didn’t contain information about the double degree any longer! I have sent an email, which tells my concerns regarding the double degree opportunity, to the coordinator of the programme immediately and he said that the HSE terminated the double degree agreement with the Eindhoven University of Technology. It means that I will study in Russia during the whole time of my master’s degree and I have to reassess my plans for the future. Of course, I am a bit surprised but not disappointed, this may be better for me. Now, I have to learn Russian deeply to communicate everyone in Russia and this is my new challenge for a while.
If there is something I have learned in my short life, as I said at the beginning, it’s this: everything can change, everyone can change and If we don’t adapt to the changes, we may fail and have to give up on our dreams…
Lastly, I want to end this post with some quotes which are significant for me;
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw
“All failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation.” Max Mckeon
“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” Stephan Hawking
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