Well I'm doing my PhD in Germany right now.

The difference is greatly the working culture. You're treated almost like a peer/ individual where you are frequently asked for your opinion, thoughts etc. it is also very informal and you actually have lunch/tea with your supervisor quite often! I'm not sure bout other places, my place here has quite a nice support system i.e. office that helps with claims, applications etc not like when I did my masters where everthing you have to do yourself and have to keep kejar the office for weeks to process your application.

The down side is of course I miss the vibrant culture and food in Malaysia! My place is very international, so the proficiency of English varies and I temper my English down a bit. And of course I cannot throw in the manglish and lahs... so in a way i miss the more animated and crazy communication style we have.

And the German food here is greatly lacking in variety and quite bland in taste.. so unfortunately my mind is often preoccupeid with food

Depends on uni. Usually in your application form you will state what kind of Masters: coursework or research.

If not stated it might mean there is only one type of Masters offered. Like UKM, regardless what you tick in type of Masters, for Biological science they will only offer you Masters by Research because that is the only thing they offer.

So check with the uni department whether they actually offer Masters by coursework for your course.

Firstly, congrats!

11 papers is quite an achievement indeed!

Well I won't presumptuously declare myself as a phylogenetics expert, but I know my way around it. No experience with entomology and toxins though, my previous master work was with fish immunology.

I'm really not too sure what kind of bio-inspired optimisation that you're referring to? For soft computing, the closest thing that I'm working on that is related to that is bayesian, neural networks etc. In phylogenetics it's to look for the best tree(s) that fit a certain data and model. As there are hundreds/thousands of possibilities for a tree to be arranged topology-wise, these algorithms keep trying new patterns, discard old ones that have lower "fit", and occasionally make random swap to avoid being trapped in a local optimal.

But really, I'm not the best person to ask about this, since I'm not really into the theoretical aspect and more on the applying them in my research.

Yeah, you can try asking around. Even from my university (UKM), I heard that if your PhD was sponsored and you're bonded to work, you could still ask to delay if you could get a good spot in post-doc.

Congratulations!

Sorry to hear about your previous issue babyJab. I would say that in hindsight, when you think your supervisor is not meeting your needs you could have seeked out some students from different supervisors or the admin office to discuss your options. And when you finally decide to change supervisor, you could have done that through the office as well, without resorting to some final b***s***t with her. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

Anyway, I have a different opinion on supervision - it also depends a lot on the student's personality itself. My Master's supervisor was away most of the time (travelling, sabatical etc) of my study and we mostly communicated through email. Which was mostly fine with me, since I know mostly what to do and just need her to sign off on purchase and other admin forms. But she was also very supportive of my work and sends me to conference and overseas attachment. So different styles of supervision for different people.

For my PhD right now, my supervisor was actually a brand new research group leader setting up his group. And I was the first person to join it - there was no one else to ask for comments or reputation to check out. I decided to join as I was highly interested in the project and personally I"m quite independent and don't require constant supervision. But turns out that he like to keep a tight leash on supervision and we have weekly face-to-face meetings. It was a bit unnerving at first from what I'm used to but I've gotten used to it. So I think the advice of looking for a reputable supervisor while generally good, does not necessarily apply all the time. I think it's analogous to other professions e.g. doctor etc where if everyone only looks for experienced folks and don't give the newer ones a chance, how will the newer ones gain experience?

Congrats on your new position! What are you planning to research on?

One thing that I occasionally worry about and is the main reason I'm not keen to stay in academic in the future is because you're expected to start your own research group etc. I've always wondered how do you get idea for original research - it seems like everyone is tackling so many niches in biology and I'm always amazed at how they can come up with new ideas on what to study. :/

A bit late, but congrats on finishing!

Right now I'm stressed on writing up my thesis....

Just had my PhD defense yesterday!

Phew, can't believe it has been 4 years already that I've been here in Germany!

Thanks. Now I guess I have to think of the next step..
Staying in academia or moving to industry.

But I think most likely I will stay in academia... gonna look for postdoc positions.

Thanks! I'm thinking of looking more at mostly English-speaking countries e.g. UK or US.
But I wouldn't mind staying in Europe, which in that case I would prefer to be in Germany.

Aww, yeah things can be hard now because of the budget cuts. I've heard of rumours flying around that they might be cutting down on the intake. But good luck with yours!

Btw, I just filled in the google docs on the first post, and it says the document is in the trash bin.