6th August 2009
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Today i met my old friend Koh Mee in Taipei. He came here for conference with his colleagues for a week. We had a simple lunch at Lane 30 near MRT Taipei City Hall Station. Ha, he didn't change much, exactly the same when i met him in Singapore three years ago.
Tomorrow there will be a holiday for people who works in Taipei City.
Why?
Typhoon is coming..., yeah! Most of us are waiting for this holiday. We still haven had any typhoon holiday yet so far. Haha...
SK supposed to take her Qualifying Exam today, but one of her examiners cannot make it and only informed during last minutes, so she will have to wait till end of August to take the exam. Oh, she would have to prolong her tension, or perhaps she can take this opportunity to read more for her exam. Tension, tension, and tension...
My another friend who is taking this exam today failed before even presenting his non-thesis proposal in front of the examiners. The reason is quite ridiculous, at least to me.
The examiners found out that he plagiarisized on the introduction part of his written proposal. Perhaps they found language style on the introduction part is not the same with the other parts of his proposal. But then, don't we should refer to papers for writing the introduction part? Perhaps my friend didn't change all the sentences.
Frankly, now i think i was lucky when taking this exam last year. At least i can answered most of the questions they asked. And perhaps none of the examiners are working on the field which i proposed. Hmmm...
I have no idea what would i feel if i failed.., leaving the course or read more to improve the non-thesis proposal. Similar pressure would prolong which might affecting your daily life and it is not good at all. I have heard enough how they fail the students all the while. Some is because of the student attitude or less preparation, some are merely because they "feel" we are not qualified... However, they are also nice examiners who really want to help us to pass the exam. Quite emotion huh?
The qualifying exam is not a game, the pressure we face when taking this exam is extremely high (at least to me), because once we failed for the first time, we would have to retake within 6 months (we have to work on our thesis work and this non-thesis proposal concurrently). And if we fail again, we will have to leave the course.
For those who intended to do PhD for the sake of earning the degree only, think wisely before you decide to pursue your PhD in Taiwan.
Labels: Food, Friends, Laboratory, Taipei, Taiwan, Teoh Pak Guan, teopag, TIGP
posted by teopag @ 6:30 PM,
1 Comments:
-
At 8:46 PM,
Unknown said...
-
i totally agree with u. such pressures change my lifestyles alot. i cant eat and sleep well. it does really affect my health as i keep falling sick during this time.
a proper guidance and coach on writign a good proposal should be provided to the students before asking them to produce a good proposal. how can we know what is a good quality one. even the PIs are proposing a proposal with screening orientation, how come we can't do so. We have found many possible evidence to establish the link but we are challenged with lacking supporting evidence. If we provide more evidence, we are criticized for lack of novelty and insignificance and boring proposal.
To all my dear examiners, I would like to know what are so called an interesting proposal with novelty and sufficient evidence.
