Hello, I'm 31 years old, and am a Engineering PhD holder. I got Bachelor (Uni Malaya), Masters (NUS), PhD (Uni Tech. Sydney) and PostDoc (Uni Tokyo).

May I know what's salary will I expect? Thanks!

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 21 2010, 03:36 PM

8 ISI ranked JOURNALS (you mentioned papers)? There are highly ranked and lowly ranked ISI journals, how do you differentiate among themselves? For instance, some ISI ranked journals are ranked at level A, B and C by Australian standard, there are good and bad journals in ISI ranked journals you know?

How about conference papers? Highly ranked conference papers have acceptance rate <15%, how do you count that?

What do you mean by HIGHly ranked? If impact factor below 1 is HIGH, I'm utterly speechless.

In Australia, High means grade A journal articles. I have journal articles with impact factors 3.00 and above, which are among the highest in my field. It's published by IEEE in US, rather than those unknown publisher like Taylor Francis or River or Clown!

Here's the journal ranking in Australia:
http://core.edu.au/index.php/categories/journals/12

An article with impact factor 3.0 is many times better than those below 1.0. Why? High impact factor journals are
1. Reviewed by Prof. or Academicians in US where PhD takes 5 years, rather than 3 years in other countries.
2. Have to go through multiple stages of reviews. For my articles, at TWO stages and it takes more than one year from first submission to final publication.
3. Highly regarded in US, UK, HK, Singapore, Australia, Japan and NZ. NOT Jaguh Kampung, the best in Malaysia!

In Singapore, the PhD graduation requirement is to publish at least ONE high impact journal. It's NOT quantity that matters, but QUALITY!

Here's the journal ranking in Singapore:
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~wang06/SoC%20J...l%20Ranking.htm

We researchers know how to judge the quality of the publications, Malaysian lecturers could deceive the parents and students, but don't pray pray with us at overseas though.

futuristicwiz

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 22 2010, 08:33 AM

achong88, I bet to differ. Let me share my observation:

1. Malaysian universities spend about RM200,000 per year sending their BUMIPUTRA staff to do PhD at overseas. NON-BUMIPUTRA staff are only considered in rare cases.

2. If you are a staff in a public university with a Master degree, chances are you remain as a tutor, the BUMIPUTRA students that you taught several years ago becomes lecturer with a PhD degree from overseas sponsored by the university. Are you willing to take this???

3. Hence, promotion are only given to BUMIPUTRA. Non-Bumiputras are only promoted in rare cases.

4. What I mentioned above are RULE OF THUMB, the unspoken events happening in public universities although non-Bumi are NOT DISCRIMINATED as according to the Universities.

Don't even compare Malaysia with US, not even our close neighbour in Singapore. Far be it for us to achieve their accomplishment. We are just syok sendiri! Look at the high impact journals from Singapore yourself please.

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Added on April 22, 2010, 1:16 pmDreamer,

What make you think that NEP is the root cause? Nah... there are too many unspoken rules where the Vice Chancellor, Dean and Head of Department are biased against Non-Bumi. I have seen this myself. NEP abolished or stay are the same!

Malaysia has been getting worst since early 2000. We are heading nowhere.

This is the reason why I choose to remain overseas, an dhope to move to Singapore someday.

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 22 2010, 01:25 PM

Dreamer,

Nowadays, the baton is passed among the Bumis who benefit the Bumis. NEP is irrelevant anymore. Having said that, even private universities like Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Universiti Tenaga have their own set of unspoken "NEP" to benefit the Bumis through sponsoring them to do PhD at overseas!

My CGPA at Uni Malaya was close to perfect and first class, however, I was applying for a PhD scholarships, I was rejected because they only sponsor through JPA that has been racial biased.

There are too many unspoken "NEP". Like it or not, you gotta suck it up and move on if you are in MALAYsia.

I can't wait to move to Singapore next time! I felt sorry to Dreamer though due to the racial bias.

futuristicwiz

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 22 2010, 01:41 PM

f4tE,

Don't you know the university is sponsoring Bumis to do PhD overseas? For each sponsorship, it covers:

1. Salary as lecturer in Malaysia (e.g. RM5,000 per month)
2. Allowance at overseas (e.g. Australian Dollar $2,000 per month)
3. If bringing family to overseas, extra allowance is about AUS$500 per month

This is for 3 years with possible extension of 6 months.

Research officer in USM earns RM2,000 per month or less, right?

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 22 2010, 03:20 PM

Dreamer,

NEP is supposed to help the poor Bumis. Using it against academicians is a form of abuse. Being selective on certain race to pursue PhD at overseas is a clear form of human right violation. I have seen this countless times! Even my friend was complaining. He is a non-Bumi and was a tutor with a Masters degree teaching an undergraduate Bumi student. The university then sponsor the student to do Masters, and subsequently PhD. Few years later, my friend remained as tutor, while his own student was PhD holder and holding higher position.

Such an unfairness MUST BE CONDEMNED! Blatant unfairness!

futuristicwiz

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 22 2010, 06:57 PM

It is so wrong to quash my point without good justifications from your side. It's by international standard researchers use Impact Factor (that covers citation) to justify the qualities of the journals.

You FAIL to understand the problem.

PhD holders MUST understand who is their employer aka the universities. In Australia, NZ, US, Singapore and HK, you are judged based on the ranking and impact factor of your journals and conference publications!

In Malaysia, impact factor is NOT considered well or any at all!

Human nature, you have no experience at overseas. You never know!

Who bragged? Read my previous mails to find out when I mentioned about humbleness! I have my own preference to choose not to tell, please respect.

FuturisticWiz

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Added on April 24, 2010, 4:38 amDreamer,

You have enlightened us for another time. Thanks. I truly believe we have been cushioned by the oil money thus far in any untoward economic crisis. Now that our oil is depleting in less than a decade, the real disaster is about to happen. Oil money has been contributing to more than 50% of the subsidies to 'help' the people, imagine what would happen when we no longer able to enjoy this: No more luxury scholarship packages to pursue PhDs and Masters at overseas for certain race. This is a good news as this has been clearly racial biased!

So far, the oil money has only benefited a certain race, clearly portrayed by a certain race domination in Petronas.

Our oil reserve in running out in 6 to 8 years from NOW. What's next? VSS? Government adsorbs the employees again? Anyway, we will learn to be stronger

But then Dreamer, this might be a bad news as well! The tax payers in the country have been from the minorities. I wonder if the government is going to raise it, so that money could be channel to the non tax payers comprised of a certain race, therefore discrimination does exist in any situations!

FuturisticWiz

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 24 2010, 04:42 AM

1. Most Malaysian lecturers never shows a good list of publications in their professional website. Worst still, some never have a personal website. How do you expect the world to evaluate understand their quality at the first place?!

2. "questioned the quality of the 15 journals" is being professional, NOT bragging. People shows their FULL profile on website.

3. You are lack of knowledge what's happening around the world. Impact factor is of paramount importance, and yet you quashed my point at the first place without sound justification!

4. Read the comments from my previous mail below:
Please stop your pathetic rant of "until you keep bragging about how overqualified you are and every lecturers in Malaysia is of lower standard than you." Fact is fact, it's difficult to find a real lecturer with PhD in Malaysia. What's there to argue about?! If you think Malaysia's lecturers are so good... then why are we falling behind our close neighbour Singapore, HK, Australia, NZ, UK and US? I remind you that I am being fair to compare our country with those developed countries because we are just short of less than a decade to reach year 2020 as a developed nation, and yet we could not achieve even 10% of their research capacity. You judge yourself.

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Added on April 24, 2010, 10:39 amNo one is bragging or being inferior in professional sense. Look at the professional website below:

http://www.ece.nus.edu.sg/staff/web.asp?id=eleckc&page=home

He is not bragging at all! He is just showing off his capability and publications and patents. You can browse them at in his website.

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 24 2010, 10:42 AM

ISI journals are NOT the yardstick to justify the quality of the journal. My question is HOW many of those ISI publications are from the Premium and Leading???

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~wang06/SoC%20J...l%20Ranking.htm

Publishing ONE journal article in Premium or Leading category takes MANY stages of reviews, at least 2 stages based on my experience. Therefore, it takes MORE THAN ONE YEAR to publish a journal article most of the times. Now, based on your attached document,

Professor Ng Seik Weing published 185 ISI journals in one year alone. This is IMPOSSIBLE considering that the review cycle of the Premium and Leading is so long, unless the ISI journals are of poor quality. Think logically, and you'll understand my points.

futuristicwiz

Fact is fact, nothing to complain. We are just telling fact. You don't like the fact, you should stop ranting.

You don't have the say to tell "Forget about ranking of journals" because the employers at overseas are looking at ranking! However you spin and explain about teh quality of your journal, lowly ranked is lowly ranked. No one is going to listen to your explanation.

185 ISI journals is REAL IMPOSSIBLE. Don't fool people around alright? There is only one reason, that's he himself is the editor of the journal, and so he publish his own article in his own journal. Note that, such a journal is of POOR quality.

TOP tier journals publish about 15 articles from around the world per month, that's about 180 articles per year. how did he managed to published that 185 articles? BULLSHIT!

There are tens of thousands or even more journals in the ISI Knowledge, it's FAIRLY easy to publish one. Each journal could be as short as 8 pages.

It does not take a PhD to understand simple thing you know? I'm MORE interested to know how many of those 185 journal articles are of Premium and Leading levels by Singapore standard.

futuristicwiz

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 24 2010, 11:50 AM

firstamongequal,

The first, second and third are from the Chemistry department. With respect, what make you think that Professor Ng Seik Weng could publish 149 more publications than Assoc. Professor Dr. Lo Kong Mun??? Prof. Ng alone could publish the same amount of those from the other top 10?! I have my right to suspect, OK? Even a layman smell something fishy. Or maybe MACC need to investigate if there is corruption?!

Bullshit! I don't have to proof his credibility, since it is publish by UM, the responsibility is on the university to explain. Otherwise, it is a scam.

BINGO

Reason why Professor Ng Seik Weng could publish so much journal articles:

Professor Ng Seik Weng Homepage:
http://kimia.um.edu.my/staff_new/seikweng/seikweng.htm

He is the Co-Editor of Journal Acta Crystallographica Section E (from 2003)
Impact factor of Acta Crystallographica is VERY LOW at 0.367

His publication list is here:
http://kimia.um.edu.my/staff_new/seikweng/...ns-seikweng.pdf

You will see essentially ALL publications are published in Acta Crystallographical!!!!! Some of the publications are:


You are FOOLed, my dear firstamongequal!!!!! As I have said, he is just publishing in his own journal! He is the editor, he could choose to publish his own publications at all right. Now you know how people could abuse power in academia.

I am a researcher myself, I have never seen such a strange thing, and this is happening in Malaysia. Gosh!!!!!

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 24 2010, 03:28 PM

likimikuku,

I'm a researcher myself and I aim to be a lecturer in future. I got my PhD from Aus fully funded by the Australian government. If you are a non-Bumi, the fact is you will hadly get a scholarship from our beloved Malaysian government, so you gotta be independent and strive to get a scholarship from overseas. Having said that, you could still try to get a scholarship from UTAR. You will be required to teach at UTAR for several years, living with pathetic RM2,800-4,000 per month (salary for Master's holder) before you get the chance to study PhD at overseas. Otherwise, you could teach and study PhD at the same time at UTAR.

If you have the passion to teach, in my opinion, you should not give it a pass. Help yourself to get a scholarship, and don't be silly to even think about financing yourself. You'll learn to teach while doing a PhD through:

1. Becoming a tutor and earn about AuD$20-AuD$25 per hour in Australia.
2. You need to do a lot of presentation in conference, seminar, talks... so you'll learn to be a lecturer as time goes by.

All in all, if you wanna go back to Malaysia and teach there for the rest of your life, there are abundance of opportunities. Just go back and get a job at UTAR and study your PhD there while getting a monthly salary of RM2,500-RM4,000 per month, note that you are required to teach for many hours without extra allowance or salary in return for your salary. If you wanna remain at overseas after PhD, get a scholarship from overseas, it's highly competitive!!!!!

futuristicwiz

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Added on April 25, 2010, 4:23 amYou might get the same amount of grammatical errors in the Ang Moh's forums.

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 25 2010, 04:23 AM

What does pace of life mean to you? fast? Slow? Or what?

futuristicwiz

For lecturer at overseas, pace of life is FAST! Here's an idea what one has to do and its average MINIMUM time incurred:

1. As a core or secondary supervisor to about 5 Masters or PhDs (10 hours per week)
2. As a core or secondary supervisor to about 2 Honours year students (3 hours per week)
3. Teaching (8 hours per week)
4. Preparing tutoring materials for tutor to teach (2 hours per week)
5. Preparing teaching materials for class (5 hours per week)
5. Marking (2 hours per week)
6. MISC (Preparing exams, tests, quizzes, laboratory sessions, invigilating, working as examiner for PhD and Master's thesis from other universities) (2 hours per week)
7. Professional activities (International journal and conference paper review, organising conference, volunteering as journal editors) (2 hours per week)
8. Research (5 hours per week)
9. Giving talks, seminars, attending conference, keynote speaking, panelist and their preparation (1 hour per week)
10. Liaise with industry, government bodies, ministries, other universities for research collaboration an funding opportunities (1 hour per week)
11. Consultation (2 hours per week)
12. Management tasks (1 hour per week)

Total = MINIMUM 44 hours per week. My computation is very tight as I consider everything goes smoothly, it could be 30% more than that, so a more sensible value is 57.2 hours per week.

If you consider 5 working days, that's 57.2/5 = 11.44 hours per day
If you consider 6 working days, that's 57.2/6 ≈ 9.5333333
If you consider 7 working days, that's 57.2/7 ≈ 8.1714286

During semester break, lecturers have to take up visiting position at other universities or countries. Some begin their sabbatical visit. There are more management tasks.

My research supervisors in Australia and Japan have been complaining high amount of work load. They could hardly have time to relax! most of the time, they have to print my research papers, thesis, and other materials so taht they could work at home during weekend!

Now, this is not relax or flexible anymore

futuristicwiz

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 25 2010, 06:56 AM

Actually, research and consultation could easily take twice the amount of the time that I suggest. Yes, some of them are not real work, but then you have to fulfill the requirement, learn and write report what you gain at the end of the task. I truly believe management task is significant more rather than just 1 hour.

"attend seminar/conference, visiting position, sabbatical, etc" are the best opportunities to meet with prospective research fund providers and collaborators. It's much like business, you try to get funding and deal all the times.

All in all, the responses that I have got in Australia and Japan were NOT relax at all.

To my Australian and Japanese lecturers, Bachelor degree's projects are TOYS. No worry at all

futuristicwiz

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 25 2010, 07:43 AM

1. If you don't have impressive academic results:

Working experience counts in your scholarships application. Looking for PhD funding is much like looking for a job.

1. You browse the University departments. (i.e. Department of Economics)
2. You understand their research. (i.e. click Research tab)
3. If you like their research, look at their researchers and lecturers. (i.e. click People or Staff tab)
4. See if the lecturer is looking for PhD student.
5. If yes, BINGO! Send your resume and cover letter to the lecturer.
6. The lecturer will come back to you in due course. Normally, HK and Singapore lecturers reply mails in a couple of days; Australia, UK and NZ takes longer; and Japan may take FOREVER or never reply you at all. That's my experience.
7. If the lecturer likes you to be a PhD student, there you go! You apply the scholarships, student visa, etc...

That's all.

2. If you have impressive academic results:

Applies for government based scholarships:
1. ORS in UK
2. NUS and NTU PhD scholarships
3. HKU, HKUST, CUHK... univeristy PhD scholarship
4. IPRS + University stipend scholarships in Aus
5. NZISRS or NZAID in NZ.

After graduation with your PhD, I bet you'll NEVER ever feel like going back to MY anymore. Mark my words, please. You'll start to rant like me, how inferior are most Malaysian lecturers and researchers.

futuristicwiz

All real PhDs must have gone through sweet and sour moments. You could see it as a good working experience in fact. Here's what I have done:

1. Skim through all new research papers that covers recent problems, issues, solutions, and technologies. You have NO time to read all research papers in details, that's why I said "skim through". Everyday, there are many publications produced around the world, there is no way to read the overwhelming research outcomes in details.
2. Carry out research: write papers, perform platform implementation, perform simulation and analysis.
3. Tutoring.
4. Marking student's papers.
5. Attending conferences, seminars and talks to listen to or to give talks.
6. Peer review other researcher's outcomes.
7. Sleep in the laboratory when deadlines draw near. You can bring your sleeping bag along. You gotta have your publications done on time.
8. Stock pile maggie mee in the laboratory, just in case you have got no time to eat.
9. Have a luggage in your lab, just in case you have got no time to go back, and you can take a shower in the Uni.

That's part of my life dring my PhD and postdoc. Japanese are way too hardworking compared to Aussie. Gosh, everyone works like robot in Japan. I might appear nonsense to sleep, eat and shower in the Uni, but that's true because I completed my PhD at UTS within TWO years though it normally takes 3 years. The normal students are more relaxed actually. I purposely wanted to quick quick finish it to start my postdoc and earn more.

futuristicwiz

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Added on April 25, 2010, 7:24 pmI second this! But then, if one convert the net income from the stipend per month, one could earn up to AUD$1,500 = RM 4,400 per month. That's NOT bad though

In Malaysia, PhD stipend is about RM2,000 only, that's REAL pathetic! I didn't even consider in teh first place!

But then, of course one has to be prudent and SAVE, SAVE and SAVE... that's the mantra loh...

High workload, low allowance... HIGH expectation to publish in journal man...



This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 25 2010, 07:31 PM

Sigh... I really understand your circumstances. I bet its's close to NIL that the XY new generation study and work like you nowadays. I could be the only student who complete my PhD in TWO years. I did not work part time much and fully concentrate on my research. The Ang Moh PhD students were astonished by my progress as they could easily stress out. Some called me "crazy" and "stupid" because I failed to relax!!!

futuristicwiz

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Added on April 26, 2010, 3:56 amIf you have the motivation to pull through, it's NOT hard at all. Malaysian lecturers are producing many craps, so if you were to study there, you'd produce crappy publications that no other developed nations bother to read and recognise you. I have shown a BS example by a Uni Malaya prof. in a post in this thread.

I'm doing signal processing in EE.

This post has been edited by futuristicwiz: Apr 26 2010, 03:56 AM