Puss hates Dogs

from CNA 100306:

SINGAPORE : Many local undergraduates say they are still reluctant to pursue higher degrees despite a recent $500 million grant given by the government to boost academic research.

if only e 500 million was meant for e pockets of researchers....but most goes into e pockets of those who own e companies that supply us labware & reagents? ;)

....foreigners still form the majority of post graduate students here, with three in four university research scholarship holders being foreigners.

if e figure were to be broken down by faculty/department, 'three in four' might be far lower than e actual percentage for certain disciplines? once upon a time in one department of e cat's undergrad faculty, e percentage of local masters degree candidates was reportedly 6.67%....& e rest supposedly came from one single country....

"There is a general perception here that there is less recognition for local researcher even if you graduate from the university. So most of the principal investigators positions at research institutes here are held by foreign researchers and not local researchers,"....

heh they quoted an Iplet here ;) e cat was once an Iplet too =P quite a no. of those who became Iplets together with e cat during their 1999 vacation job are still working in bio-related positions, as graduate students, teachers, bioinformatics researchers, lab techs & institute admin staff. e amazing inspiring power of an Ip =P

but back to e quote, which sounds a little weird. was it supposed to be something about less recognition for local researchers who graduated from local universities? or less recognition for local researchers despite them having graduated from overseas universities? whatever way it is, e 'crabbiest' prof in e cat's undergrad department is an endangered species =P

"A lot of jobs don't actually require PHDs and a lot of them want to start earning money and settle down....

e guy who tried to sell us e MBBS-PhD scholarship thingy in some (by invitation only? can't recall) seminar in e cat's 3rd year of undergrad complained about e lack of male applicants for that scholarship program. think a grand total of one single male applied in e 1st year that it was offered (& he rejected it in e end).

some in e audience told Mr. Scholarship Salesman that in our society, guys who are pressing 30 by e time they are finally done with uni, who have been earning $3K flat per month with zero CPF/increments/bonuses for e past 4 years, no car no house/flat no this no that, are seen as condemned cases....how many tai tai-wannabe mei meis would marry such guys, & how many parents would let their thousand pieces of gold daughters do so? =P poor guys....(note that this took place in a time when close to $4K/mth starting pay for fresh engineering grads was still not a figment of imagination)

in fact a big fat reason why e cat was allowed to pursue e field of its choice, & to go on to graduate studies, is precisely because it is a tabby cat, & not a tom ;) being a tabby meant that it had to find its own funding for graduate school to get around e 女孩子读大学浪费钱的啦 (lit. girls study university waste money) mentality that its owners had (it wrote an honours thesis to get a silver medal from its university to keep on standby to pawn for extra cash in case it cannot submit its Puss hates Dogs thesis on time & has to pay one more semester of tuition fees =P). but 女孩子读大学没有用的啦 (lit. girls study university useless) also meant that any field of study would be considered just as 没有用 (useless) by e owners as long as it was being studied by a girl, so e cat had freedom of choice =))

if it were a tomcat, it would most probably have been forced to study something 'useful' that made 'more economic sense' (to quote two scholarship interview panels) like e EECS (electrical engineering + computer science) major that was e most 畅销 at that time that e cat was matriculating (but unfortunately for many of e cat's peers, not at e time when they were graduating....), or Economics. like e cat's friend who wanted to major in History but was forced into Law because that was e 'most guy-ish' option (in e eyes of parents & relatives) for guys who spent JC in e Arts stream....!! poor guys....

To make a career in R&D more attractive for Singaporean students, universities here say they are looking into increasing the stipend and grants for PhD students.

e cat knows two local girls who did/are doing their PhDs in their late 20s/early 30s because they worked for years to save up enough so that they can still help to support their parents & siblings while surviving on their stipends. e cat is very very lucky to have owners who are still financially independent at this point in time. on e other hand, e cat knows of people who are in graduate school because it is a place where they can hide from e big fat corporate jungle out there & still earn something to survive on.

At the same time they are also exposing undergraduate to the excitement of research through compulsory final year projects in many faculties.

compulsory FYPs? compulsory for all undergraduates? or only undergraduates who qualify to do FYP? how many undergraduates actually qualify to do FYP nowadays? (btw what is e percentage of matriculated undergrads who eventually graduate? e cat knows of about 6 from its batch who didn't make it) Pig-pig had plenty of classmates who probably missed out on a lot of 'excitement' because they did modules in place of FYP for their honours year....

& FYPs are indeed getting more exciting now because it is almost e middle of March & e thesis deadline is drawing very, very near....honours students who hardly showed up in e lab e previous semester are starting to work later than e cat!! =P

But while universities are working to attract more Singaporean post-graduate students, they say an ideal local to foreign student ratio will be 50:50, similar to other internationally acclaimed research labs worldwide.

not sure what is an ideal ratio. but diversity is important. hopefully e ratio for foreign students will move away from 50:50 (OK not really 50:50 =P) PRC to Indian in certain disciplines =P e cat has worked with Japanese, Swiss, Malaysians, Americans, Germans, Indonesians, Turkish, Hongkongers, Australians, Filipinos, Russians, Sri Lankans, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics, non-practising Muslims, freethinkers, vegetarians, carnivores, cat-lovers, dog-lovers, dragonboaters, rockclimbers, divemasters, etc....life is much more interesting when no single nationality/race forms any sort of majority in e lab, & it prevents e kinda 'racial strife' powered by ultra-nationalistic sentiments that e cat came across in its UROPS lab.

[ filed under: labrat + thewonderingstraycat ]