So is that how you think the Assistant Professor is same as Associate Professor?

It really isn't about age; it is about an invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men... Not everyone can swim across the lake.

Haha, I think I read too fast.. i saw ass...and my brain processed that as associate professor..

But from the way you puji2 him in this thread, I wouldn't be too surprised.

Haha, yeah I know. But a bit shy also ler.. All around me most of the ppl here, majority Europeans mostly around 25. But then that's cos I took a longer masters for research work, attachments at overseas and publishing. I think hard to get into here if I just did my masters in 1 1/2 years in Malaysia without paper.

This post has been edited by jonoave: Jun 1 2013, 12:43 AM

Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your doctorate life at Europe as a computational biologist, the ongoing project you are focusing, as well as the girl you are dating?

Speaking bout associate professors, I just recalled an incident. One of my professors had a symposium with invited researchers from Japan. So i was listening to one of them and noticed this young japanese guy sitting behind working on his mac laptop. He was dressed really casually, plaid shirt, hipster glasses and uncombed hair. I thought he was a student or assistant to the current japanese professor giving talk in front. I was fully shocked when the next speaker was announced as an assc professor working on blahblahblah and he walked up to the front!

Anyway I started quite recently, around October last year at one of the Max-Planck Institutes in Germany. Since I'm not a computer scientist by training, I had to brush up my computer skills and programming. Currently I'm trying to develop a pipeline to predict unique evolutionary events through comparative genomics. Can't give too much details on my project yet.. maybe after it works out and i have a paper.

Why is it assumed there is a girl I'm dating? I came here foreveralone (lol pick up too much kopitiam speak). Most of the people here are attached. Some have gf/bf in their home countries, some of them managed to coordinate their spouses (they apply here in Germany following their partner elsewhere in Germany or vice versa). The rest moved their family here, which I'm quite amazed that their husband/wife/kid sanggup to move and follow him/her all the way to do PhD in a foreign country. Got two Indian persons in my lab, both recently married in India before bringing their spouse here.

Can get a bit lonely here at times. Here got strict rules on torrent, so cannot download any stuff. All movies/tv/radio/tv in german, occasionally got original undubbed movies in English but the screening times very rare. And of course I always miss the food in Malaysia terribly.. :S

But all in all, quite ok ler. Hope I didn't derail the thread too much.

That moment when you see the brighter side of the LYN forum. I'm still doing my degree, but your posts are good morale boosts. Just a praise from a stranger, to a group of higher educated strangers

Hi Tanji,

Will red tide toxin in Sabah make seaweed unsafe to eat?

You will notice alot of the brightest students/people are actually spending a lot of time spamming and causing havoc in Kopitiam just for fun
All the best in your degree

Wah, you are pretty knowledgeable in this kind of stuffs yo
Good to see you are constantly updating yourself with info ~

Red tides or algal blooms are caused by dinoflagellates at places with high nutrient contents (be it natural or man-made ones). The biggest effect of algal blooms is that they will destroy the entire habitat i.e. coral reefs and any other seaweeds and organisms in that specific area.
I've never heard of red tides growing at the same areas as where seaweeds are farmed, probably because all the nutrients are already absorbed by the seaweeds , leaving no chance for dinoflagellates to grow, so its not going to be a problem near farms. But its a different story when we're talking about wild populations of seaweeds, corals, etc.

Food safety-wise, they are alright to eat, no worries haha

My supervisor said the same - Publish Papers! The thing is when my papers get rejection, I will procrastinate for awhile before start writing again. After my frustration's gone, only then I write better and speed up LOL. BTW, it's true that when you already have published paper, the panel whom examines your progress will take note about you/your speech and your thoughts.


Now, I will quit whining when it comes to writing. #Repent. Now belajar must start with hati yang ikhlas...... Just a self-reminder.

All the best man~
I have to admit some reviewers can be pretty demoralizing

They have high expectation T____T
Luckily my supervisor helps me in writings too. She would mold my sentences into fantastic words. LOL.
I'm still a newbie in academic writing. Always seeking .

Thank god, I'm surrounded by warm academicians

Yeah, it will be much easier if our command of English is better
Still, one of the most important things about a scientific writing is to be as conservative as possible. Most reviewers (being one myself) hates to see people who exaggerates too much

Well if you want to write your thesis quickly NEVER USE WORD !
instead use LATEX ! it greatly simplifies your life when writing your thesis ! i mean im serious ! hahahah...

learn LATEX seriously, learning curve is about 1 months. but i promise its worth it. Its also simpler to write journal papers and reports with LATEX.

Not so simple when some journals specifically asks for Word doc. Converting from LaTeX to Word frustrates me to no end XD

Oh, hahaha... thats why i tend to ignore as much as possible journals that do not have LATEX template ... But i've been using LATEX for my thesis and journals. Makes my writing of these things simpler. If the journal does not use LATEX i usually don't submit to them (mcm sgt benci dgn Word ) hahah

There is some really good advise here, but the most critical factor here is your supervisor and how much time he/she is willing to commit to you. Remember your supervisor will have his own research to worry about plus you don't want to be extra burden on him.

During my postgraduate, I started to write my thesis as soon as my research project was launched and I had already completed my literature review. Materials & Methods, Results and Discussion came on later stages, but that thing did helped me a lot. I was lucky to have an amazing supervisor who agreed to help me through the loops. Although the universities guidelines did gave us a timeframe for submission of final thesis after the completion of the research project. It varies from course to course and university to university, mine was a British so might not be applicable here.

If you are currently working in the industry than develop a habit of publishing papers, it will help you a lot. Not only will it keep you up to date but will also help you to get into the rhythm.

As some one pointed out if your able to publish papers from your research it does help you tremendously, also now its a requirement for your Ph.D if your doing it from UM.

But in the end dont be in a hurry, it takes time and dedication to finish up postgraduates not to mention you dont want to mess up your thesis just because you wanted to finish it quickly.

Ive paid for this course before
http://postgraduateworkshop.com/tulistesispantasmalaysia/

by Dr Othman Talib. It really helped me a lot. The most beneficial thing for me is about utilising MS Word document mapping and Mandeley for reference management system. It really helped me a lot