the rolex learning centre, library of my new campus!
It's been a while, dear friends of the web. During the past 3 months, I returned to visit the streets of my home country, came back, turned 18 years old, then moved to another country for university...
the rolex learning centre, library of my new campus!
Now a new chapter of my life has started: I'm wholly studying the subject I love the most—physics (with a very generous serving of mathematics on the side, unfortunately)—in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by new people... So far, I'm enjoying it. Uni life is nothing like high school life: having lectures in an amphitheatre (auditorium) is really different, there's 300 people in the same room as you and nobody is going to check if you're listening to the professor or playing on your computer. I have learned that to you need to actively ask questions/reach out if there's something you don't understand in your lessons. Also, I feel like I have a parasocial relationship with my professors, lol.
Currently I'm co-renting an apartment with my friend C, who is also from my high school and is in the Electrical Engineering section of EPFL (I'm in the Physics section, ofc). We used to be only friends through mutual friends, but she and I both studied for the Oxford PAT together and after graduation, she reached out to tell me she had decided to go to EPFL as well! Fast forward a few months later, we are living together in a frankly very comfortable apartment 15 min away by bike from campus. Finding accomodation in Lausanne, Switzerland is actually very difficult because of the price and the student-to-housing ratio, and EPFL does not provide accomodation for any of its students. The Swiss are just kinda snobbish (take this as light-hearted banter from a French person hehe).
I find that I do not miss my parents as much as I expected I would; I suppose it's a sign that I've become mature and independant to lead my own life—it was the right time to leave the familial nest. This means that I have to learn to cook for myself now: my flatmate and I are taking great pleasure in coming up with various food combinations. Honestly, I'm getting pretty good at it. A few days ago, I made a mango sticky rice dessert and it was absolutely scrumptious. Recently an air fryer entered my possession, so I've been using that to grill various meats such as the salmon pictured below as well.
I'm trying to think of more interesting stuff to tell you guys, but frankly my days are too filled with actually doing stuff (mostly physics and maths exercices, help) so I have trouble finding time to sit down and properly reflect, write down the things that happen, etc. Especially because of the ‘60% failure rate’ I mentioned before: the Physics section is one of, if not the hardest section of EPFL—all of our subjects are the ‘advanced’ versions of core curriculum (advanced linear algebra, advanced mechanics etc) and at the end of each semester you need a rather high weighted average to pass into the following semester; if you don't succeed they send you to do one semester of ‘cram’ classes, and if you pass the cram exams, you redo your first year, which is your second and last chance, before being definitively excluded from the school. In the Physics section, only around 30% of first-years pass into the second year on their first try, so yeah...
Don't worry though, my life is not just stress and studying: the student life here in Lausanne is as rich as it can get. I joined the astronomy club (we've already done an stargazing session, complete with free hot chocolate) and recently applied to join the EPFL Rocket Team, which I think is hands-down the coolest association on campus. Those guys are legitimately doing rocket science, researching and designing bi-liquid propellant engines and drones and GNC algorithms (how many words do you understand in that sentence?!). Fingers crossed that I get accepted to join the team!
Lastly, I promised I'd reply to some questions to mark 100 followers of this website, so here they are:
3 favourite poems:
in line with the science-theme of my life lately, here are some really nice science/astronomy-related poems:
- forevertron by norman finkelstein
- black hole by virginia konchan
- the more loving one by w.h. auden
something i've been excited about/really interested in recently:
so much, man. I recently made a little game console (the indie console espgirl, to be exact) from scratch during a workshop; I welded by hand around a hundred little holes on a pcb board. It was my first time welding anything, so it was really fun and I learned a bunch about wiring and electrical components.
I hope you guys, wherever you are, are also having a nice transition into autumn and/or a new academic year. Lots of love and see you next time ♡
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