oh... this is SOOO WRONG. I did not get a Phd, mainly because I find the local Phd not worth my time taking, although my MEng Supervisor kept asking me to take.
I am a local grad too but I always feel slightly inferior to my overseas grad classmates. Just went for my classmate's wedding who graduated from MIT phd. On my table got TWO other people from MIT with phds....
Well none of them are working in singapore.... why... nobody in singapore can pay them well enough compared to the jobs in US. Well, one of them is working in BP, another in a management consulting firm, and another in a internet startup. Ok so these are where 3 MIT phd grads went.
The British very much favour their traditions. When it comes to tertiary education, the older the uni the more established is its academic tradition, the bigger and stronger its alumli, the more endowment fund it got for recruiting and retaining star professors. In many ways, this is a virtuous circle. In short, the older the better.
If I remember correctly, there are 5 groups of universities in terms of age.
(a) Old Universities (rough years)
Oxford - 11XX
Cambridge - 12XX
(b) New Universities
London - 18XX
Durham - 17XX
(c) 6 Red Bricks (Old manicipal colleges established in 18XX promoted to Uni status in early 1900)
Birmingham
Manchester
Sheffield
Leeds
Liverpool
Bristol
(d) Modern universities (1960)
Warwick
Loughborough
Leicester
(e) Polytechnics converted to University (1980)
Coventry Poly -> Coventry Uni
Poly of Central London -> Westminster Uni
Manchester Poly -> Manchester Metropolitan Uni
Birmingham Poly -> Uni of Central England
Liverpool Poly -> Liverpool John Moore Uni
etc etc
I think (a), (b), (c) are equivalent to the Ivy leaque (personal opinion only)
P.S. The above are English Uni only.
There are Old Uni in the British Isles as old as Oxford and Cambridge (1100-1200), or as London and Durham (1700-1800)
- Edinbrough, St. Andews, Dundee (in Scotland)
- Trinity College Dublin (now called Dublin Uni in Ireland).
I also from one of the "C". In my uni days, PhD was very precious and very rare and I did not have the finance and time to do it, nowadays I found that PhD are everywhere and so common.....I am from one of the "C".
I was also in a similar situation, I was offered a PhD scholarship with fully paid fees and living expenses. I rejected the offer due to limited career options in the future... On hindsight, If I have taken up the offer. I may be lecturing in some university by now....
The viscious cycle thingy kind of reminded me of Singapore's political scene!!!
No real research is being done here. M.Eng just wash test tubes. PhDs do power point presentation. The EAs do the real work... Just need to OT OT OT to try try try until they get something.. ;p
My post stated "virtuous" circle.
Do you also mean "virtuous" ?
Thank you for the advice. Consulting firms don't deem academic consultancy as "concrete" enough; neither do I have the means to gain them since I'm shut from entry-positions... it is a catch-22 situation, which makes it all that fustrating :cry:
I am into system science, applying concepts like fitness landscape, cybernetics and to a large extent, social systems theories onto socio-technical systems. I would best situate my studies onto the areas of change management, (socio-)knowledge discovery, IS policy implementation. While the Europeans seems to take these in a fair bit (hard vs soft), it is still quite raw elsewhere.
Regarding doing a PhD and speaking from personal experience, do it by all means if the subject areas interest you and you like toying with concepts and theories. It is a satisfying experience though I am now questioning if it is a prospectful excercise :think:
Couldn't agree more!!!! but then they will argue back with "help us to help you" thing... but then it contradicts what follows...is for one scientifically incompetent administration trying to dictate researchers what to do,
and for the other the same administration seeing it as their job to create red tape to tie down researchers in the office (leaving little time for doing research) rather than doing the administration part for them.
I am from one of the "C".
I was also in a similar situation, I was offered a PhD scholarship with fully paid fees and living expenses. I rejected the offer due to limited career options in the future... On hindsight, If I have taken up the offer. I may be lecturing in some university by now....