The scholarships I mentioned covers both tuition fee and living expenses (allowances) fyi.

Yes performance does matter but it depends on your supervisor and your university in providing the facility/research grant/support.

On side note, I am involved in research and papers I got out from local unis for reference is pure bullshit (mind you I mean it when I use this term). I am extremely disappointed with the quality of work produced by the PhD students. However, having said that, I do believe there are still bright students in local uni.

Some of my own opinions:
1. PhD is nothing but just a title for someone else to call you "Dr".

2. If you have no genuine interest in research/academia, don't bother doing PhD unless you are happy to stay in local colleges/uni where publication is not important but rather the contact. However, getting employed by local uni itself is a challenge.

3. Considering you are skipping masters, you are required a minimum 3 years of research in PhD but usually it extends to 4 years. Within this 4 years, the amount of experience you gained in your workplace versus the 0 industrial experience you gain upon completing PhD. One may argue that PhD itself brings a certain prestige and provides leverage but all PhD demonstrates is just your ability to perform research in a larger scale as compared to your undergraduate thesis. My friends who are PhD holders end up being paid $3000 extra per annum (that is $250 per month) as compared to fresh graduate in engineering field and mind you they are 4 years behind as compared to their peers.

4. However, you do benefit from PhD. Research work is extremely fruitful and my friend working in Singapore is earning SGD5000+ per month doing research with certain company. But that is if you are comfortable and happy with research work, eg you are working in your area of research as defined by your PhD dissertation. And mind you, you need to demonstrate that you are competent in your field (by amount and quality of publications) and so on.

4. Salary of 5k for PhD holder as senior engineer (I doubt so). Unless you are involved in the R&D department then probably you stand a chance, but that again if you are interested in research. Again, fyi offshore O&G earns as much as 5k for fresh undergraduate. Ok, let's put O&G aside, having 3-4 years experience in hand, engineers can easily hit 6k or more.

Bottom line: I would say is your interest in research that will determine whether PhD is really for you. If you want to have a picture of what you will be doing in your PhD, go search for publication papers in relation to your potential area of research but choose the papers carefully, eg avoid China and Malaysia conference paper because most of them are considered low quality paper. Try journals if possible.

Given all that I said, this is your decision because is your future and not mine. Oh btw, lecturers LOVE to encourage students to apply PhD under them because you guys are churning out papers/publications for them. And right now I am in overseas Aus uni so what I said may not directly reflect on local uni in Malaysia so i'll let you do the judgement.

Are the currency you mentioned in MYR?

$ = AUD,

SGD - SG,

those figures without - MYR

any body kind enough to explain to me the differences between those 3??

1. Doctor of Engineering (D.Eng. or Eng.D. or Dr.Eng. or Dr.-Ing.)
2. Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil or D.Phil.)
3. Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

i already have MEng...so currently intended to further my study part time basis...is there any major difference between them??

This post has been edited by MANKiND: Jun 28 2011, 05:24 PM

If you're an engineering student, I'm pretty sure you heard about BEM & IEM, from these two bodies, you could gain P.Eng which is Professional Engineer.

1. D.Eng or so, I guess is the other name for PhD in engineering. If I'm not mistaken, different country has different naming for it. Yet in M'sia, no matter what course you are, be it an engineering, biochemistry, etc. all under one PhD.

2. In M'sia, we use PhD. There is MPhil which is inferior to PhD; given to those who can't meet the requirement of completing a PhD.

3. That's PhD for business.

Hope it helps.

some uni in malaysian got engineering doctorate like utm and utem...utm utem so it just the sake of accreditation by BEM and IEM and nothing physically different between engineering doctorate and doctor of philosophy??

izzit possible for me to takes doctor of business administration where i don't have the master in business administration (MBA)?? i already working nearly 5 year in O&G consultation...so still not decided whether to continue on technical or change path into managerial...

This post has been edited by MANKiND: Jun 29 2011, 06:15 AM

I think you misunderstand my meaning. P.Eng is a title for professional engineer accredited by BEM and IEM. Different case form D.Eng, etc.

For D.Eng (that I'm not so sure about it, but I would give it a guess it's either different naming for PhD in Engineering or a Post-Doctorate title) [ask lord google for better confirmation]

I believe to go for DBA, you need MBA. Eventhough I have seen many that go for MBA with Engineering Deg. [ask lord google again]

Erm...personal opinion: the salary of an engineer will be saturated at some level; that is when most of the engineers some sort of convert to management. The advantage of being a manager with technical background would be you really understand the whole process of your product flow, rather than just manage the manpower.

Normally, they will promote you to manager after certain level, no more other position that they can promote you to.

Actually most universities refer to 'business' PhD as 'DBA', Doctorate in Business Administration. There are key differences to traditional PhD and DBA though, mainly in the research methodology. PhD is more rigorous and if you are thinking of academia then PhD is still the ideal route to take. If you want to continue in business and industry then DBA is a good choice.

Finally, I made my decision, I will go for fast track PhD in one of our local University. 3-4 years of devotion.

I shall start with proposal writing. Thank you guys for your comments, and point of view.

This post has been edited by ShrugsLova: Jul 19 2011, 12:32 AM

Grats grats~
Where where?

Do anyone know about the conversion program?
Msc/PhD conversion program. Many of the local unis are offering this. If you do know about this, enlighten me more.

Hi and good day all,

I'm studying Biotechnology degree in one of the public University currently, just completed my 1st year, going to enter my 2nd year this september. I plan to further studies after completing my degree. What I have in mind is something to do related with what I am studying now. My problem is that I don't know much about the options I have. I can't seem to find any sites or forums that cater specifically to my needs to search for such informations.

Anyone of you has any sites to share here? Preferably that gives information about renowned institutions that offer such courses.

Lastly, any biotechnology graduates that have been undergoing postgraduate studies now or Biotechnology related PhD holders are welcomed to share your views on your experiences. If you have already entered the job market, do share about the career prospects for Biotechnology graduates or postgraduates as well, locally or oversea.

Many thanks in advance.

Hihi, welcome welcome
Which Biotechnological field are you interested in?

Hi, I'm gonna start my PhD in UM soon, as I know BrightSpark offer up to 3.5K allowance per month, may I know how to reach 4.7K? Is it we allow to take part time as tutor or other job?

Wow, welcome welcome haha, which field are you in?
You'll need to have very good (closet to 4.0 results) to get RM4.7k allowance. You're required to help out in tutoring classes as part of the KPI . Cannot take part time jobs.
Err... unless if you're very good and confident, I think its not very advisable to get Brightspark; I'm abit regretting to be honest. Its only worth it if you're 100% sure you could hit the KPI lol.... if not, you'll lose everything... so why not just go for those normal scholarships without that high a requirements? Even if you don't hit those requirements, you can still keep the money

wafak rm4.6k??!! thats crazy

What u mean by lose everything? They dun give u your monthly allowance and cancel your scholarship? THen how u doing now?

My result is 3.8, that's why they allow me to skip master and straight for PhD, but I didn't know it can give more than 4K

I'm in IT field but also related to education, my supervisor help me apply for the 3.5k allowance but didn't state that I have to be tutor, he said I cannot take part time job OFFICIALLY, mean unofficially can la But I think I wont have time for that anyway.

The KPI still reasonable la, finish within 3 years is my target anyway, and the publication KPI is crazy but its a motivation if you able to produce more than 10 Q1 and Q2 papers your reputation would be good, may take time la. What I concern is the BrightSpark unit might force me to join some weird/unnecessary course, have you been to any program under 'command' by BrightSpark so far?

I think the amount of other scholarship is quite low as I have to pay for car loan, send money bek home, plus live in KL isn't cheap. I could use some extra money and motivation to push me

Anyway if I fail my KPI they will cancel my scholarship but won't ask me pay bek rite? By the time only go find other sponsor lo

This post has been edited by bashlyner: Aug 25 2011, 01:50 PM

Lose everything as in you need to pay back all the money they gave you should you fail
So its not exactly worth it... its more like a do or die path

---

Added on August 26, 2011, 4:21 pmSince the KPI is the same regardless of whether you get RM3k or RM4.7k... so unless you can get the latter amount of allowance, its not exactly worth it at all
Yeah, need to join some courses like scientific writing, journal ranking researching etc. (I'm Bio student, not sure whether they'll have different courses for students from other fields )

Need to pay back all the money if fail, that's why I say its not worth it


This post has been edited by [PF] T.J.: Aug 26 2011, 04:21 PM

Sir, may I know what field in Biology are you pursuing now?

I'm in Bio field... maybe I'm too obvious doing my freelance job? I even write it in my resume, had quite a number of job interview as well. Most of those solo / independent business owner knew about me... I'm not sure whether my boss knew about it but they shouldn't blame me because I'm not under scholarship, paid by honorarium, paid below scholarship holder, get my paid only after few months delay...

Finish within 3 years is quite good but this will never happen in my department... ironically, those who can publish more always takes more time to graduate than those who published less... I'm talking about ISI journals here.