On the paucity of (Sg) women in Grad School; Jorge Cham

A continuation (somewhat) from the previous post. Both online higher education sources that I follow on a regular basis reported today of Stanford putting in place a new childbirth policy intended to encourage more women to pursue advanced degrees (targetted primarily at PhDs). MIT also has a similar one, and that was used as a prototype for Stanford’s.

It is designed to partially ameliorate the intrinsic conflict between the ‘biological’ and the ‘research’ and ‘training’ clocks for women graduate students. I guess the late 20s/early 30s is the crunch period for the majority of us. Most graduate students do not finish their Ph.D. programs until this time, and it happens to coincide with the important decision to start a family (if you are married; if not you probably want to seriously start dating). Many do not have children in grad school simply because of limited financial support. The stipends we receive are meant for one person only, and for most it is only slightly above the poverty line. (I hear that the humanities students are basically living hand-to-mouth.)

Many of my (JC and BS) female peers I have spoken to have this mistaken notion that PhDs lead primarily to a professoriate position, and then the problem of the tenure clock comes in. For engineering, tenure decisions are made on average 5 – 7 years after entry to the assistant professor rank. This has yet to take into account an additional 2 years for post-doctoral research. For the women who leave halfway for pregnancies this would definitely have a negative impact on their academic careers. If they wait too long, they either have to give up the chance of being a mother or go for adoption or undergo expensive fertilization treatments which may or may not work.

S, a close friend, on why she didn’t consider grad school after her bachelors: In other professions, you leave because you find better opportunities elsewhere. In academia, you leave if you are a failure (no tenure). And besides, I do want to have a life (in both sense of the word) you know. Ouch.

For those who choose to go into industry, it ain’t any much better. But at least many companies (here) will still consider your application if your PhD is recent and skill-sets relevant.

Guess I won’t be seeing that many (Sg or otherwise) women at the grad level anytime soon.

Someone was asking me why there aren’t that many male grad students dating women outside of school. 2 reasons:

a) Grad students earn much less relative to what we could have had if we had chosen to work after getting our bachelor degrees. Dating is expensive you know.

b) Outsiders don’t really understand that we can be working in our labs 24/7. Although I think junior i-bankers and housemen also have similar workloads.

Edit: Another anonymous source has tipped me off on this article in Nature.

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Addenum (Jan 31): Now that you mentioned it,

Here’s the (most famous) cartoonist ever

Jorge Cham

and the lecture he gave while touring various US campuses

Inside the Brain of a typical Grad student

Go attend it, if he’s coming to your school. Guaranteed to be worth your while skipping classes/lab research for that 1 hour of laughter.

That Singsoc CNY celebration

So in one of the rare occasions (in any given year), I turned up for the SSA Chinese New Year dinner gathering yesterday. Unlike hers, the SSA here is very open to foreigners joining in, so much so that a number of exco positions are held by FTs non-Singaporeans. But anyway, that is not the main point of this entry.

Because we hardly never hang out together, the event was good in that you get to see your fellow country folks. And most importantly, we could check out the Singaporean chiobus, which unfortunately I only saw 3 (in my opinion) out of ~20 in a room of about 80 people. They were taken already I think. (Many obviously don’t hold the familiar red passport; there were Argentinians, French and Americans, as well as the regular Malaysians and Indonesians.)

This place is really like a monastery; amongst the grad students the sex ratio is even more skewed – there are only 2 Singaporean females in the entire university, even after counting in the popular (for females) majors like business/management and the biological sciences. To put things in perspective, there are 20+ Sg male grad students.

Extrapolating to the undergrad student body, the JC circle is again rather small.

Friend: I chose the wrong school to go to.

Me: Not so much wrong school, but wrong major.

Oh yeah, the food was passable. Although I could see people were more interested in eyeballing/checking out the girls rather than eating. Social intercourse at its best.

Eureka; Competition vs Collaboration in Academia

Just one equation and a graph. And the advisor had produced a plausible explanation for a problem that had vexed us for several months. Geez, why didn’t I look at it from that angle?

The clearest example yet of why he is the professor and we are the grad students. Padawans, we still are.

Always start from the First Principles.

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Kevin is suggesting the use of wikipedia for sharing and collaborating research work amongst grad students. I beg to differ. This explains why, especially for my (related) field.

Clothing Label; Ex; No go for IIM – Singapore; RGSians

I found this while clearing up my room after she had gone.

People will surely get the wrong idea. But I can tell you a friend can fly halfway around the world to see you visit the area and even cook for you (one meal only lah); and that doesn’t mean anything. I wonder why they keep drawing the wrong conclusions. Nabeh. Information Rumors here fly faster than one can say KNNBCCB. Why am I so “in denial mode” you say? Because of her.

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On the same day she left, I received an email from a hypothetical ex asking me “How’s it going?”. Followed by a “Are you attached now?” The main text seemed to suggest she is not (right now).

I just want to let you know that I don’t want to lose a special friend.

Do you talk to your ex-(es)?

My love life is so screwed up. Argh.

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Not sure if this was reported in the local (Singapore) papers, but IIM-Bangalore had got its application to open an overseas branch in Sg-land rejected by the Indian federal government.

India Rejects Plan for Overseas Campus

By SHAILAJA NEELAKANTAN

The Indian government has rejected a proposal by the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore to set up a campus in Singapore, saying that the prestigious institution should first meet domestic demand before venturing abroad.

The decision, made in December but reported this month, has been widely criticized by many of India’s top executives and academics, and even some members of the government, who felt that India would benefit by allowing one of the country’s most elite higher-education institutions to expand overseas.

“We must realize that world-class educational institutions are created not through government mandate and control, but through academic freedom, innovation, and the pursuit of excellence,” said Narayana Murthy, founder of the Indian company Infosys, in an address at Cochin University of Science and Technology last week.

Goh Chok Tong, a senior minister in the Singapore government, expressed disappointment in the decision. “Singapore is a hub for education, and the institute has a good reputation, so we are happy to welcome the institute,” he said, according to local news reports in India. “They could have made some money as well.”

The directors of all six of the country’s Indian Institutes of Management, which have trained many of the country’s top business leaders, are scheduled to meet in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) during the first week of February to decide their course of action. Three of the institutes — at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Kolkata — are likely to contest the decision, arguing that they are not dependent on government financing anymore. However, the three other institutes — at Indore, Kozhikode, and Lucknow — continue to receive money from the government.

Last week Arjun Singh, minister of human-resource development, whose ministry rejected the branch proposal, dismissed talk that the institutes are independent entities and noted that the government has pumped millions of dollars into them. “They are not independent companies, that they can do whatever they like,” he said.

This is not the first time the institutes have clashed with the federal government. In 2004 the previous government imposed drastic tuition cuts, arguing that the institutes were becoming unaffordable. The institutes objected, saying they could not maintain high-quality programs otherwise. The decision was overturned by the current government.

http://chronicle.com
Section: International
Volume 52, Issue 21, Page A49

Interestingly unlike Warwick, it wasn’t over academic freedom issues. $$$ talks, but apparently the Indian government favors a ‘locals first’ policy.

Do Indians have a favorable view of the city state? I hope this belongs to the minority.

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Some quotes of past RGSians. Not exactly sure why I put the link here. Definitely not useful in analyzing the girls mentioned above.

I guess all of us still bring up our secondary school days, even when we are well past the teenage years. The only memories I have of that period are the (unpleasant) Chinese lessons. Heh.

Of Draft Dodgers Disruptees and White Horses

Couldn’t resist putting these up here.

From Today:

(Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean) added: “The concept of self-sacrifice must be an inherent part of NS. There must be equity in not just making sure that everyone serves but when an individual does so. There’s nothing to stop Singaporeans from doing their postgraduate studies after NS. The morale of the troops will go down when some are granted deferments while some are not.“

My initial response – What about the Delta Company in OCS? Ask those non-scholar cadets (and other NSF trainees in the units and training schools) how they feel when they see their PSC scholar peers disrupt for overseas undergraduate studies while they have to continue their sai kang with the military.

On White Horse treatments:

ST: Jan 16, 2006
VIPs’ sons given special treatment in 1999

PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Ms Ho Ching’s manifestation of humility, as described by Mr Lionel De Souza in his letter, ‘Day I witnessed PM and wife’s humility’ (ST, Jan 12), is certainly awesome and refreshing.

This contrasts with my own experience in December 1999 when my late son was enlisted.

In the same intake were the sons of a government minister, an MP and a former MP.

The moment we arrived at Pulau Tekong, a few instructors asked frantically who the minister’s son was.

As we were ushered into the auditorium for the briefing by the school commander, the minister introduced his son to the commander.

Then, as we queued for the buses to ferry us to the cookhouse for lunch, a military vehicle pulled up and whisked the minister, his wife and son away, probably for lunch elsewhere.

I could see the look of envy on the faces of many enlistees and their parents, including my son, who happened to be a good friend of the minister’s son.

When it was time to leave Pulau Tekong, we had to queue to get through the turnstiles.

A few military personnel cleared a path for the minister, the MP and the former MP and their wives, hence avoiding the queue.

The experience left me, and I am sure many others, with an extremely poor impression.

Lawrence Loh Kiah Muan

and contrast to this:

(Cedric Foo, Minister of State for Defense) in Nov 2003: ‘White Horses’ are sons of influential Singaporeans and these influential Singaporeans include ministers, member of parliaments, ex-ministers, ex- member of parliaments, nominated member of parliaments, ex-nominated member of parliaments, doctors, senior civil servants like senior SAF officers above the rank of Lieutenant Colonel or senior police officer or SCDF officers above the rank of deputy assistant comminsioners. And also a very big group of people who earns S$9,500 a month or more.”

…like anywhere in society, there will be some people who are more prone to bootlicking, but let me say categorically that no one and no commanders will misinterpret this system although it does not exist now. It is certainly not something that we will look too highly upon. In fact, you must scrupulously not to treat them better and not to be seen and perceived as if you treating it. If you look around, very few armed forces would have been able to do what the SAF did. I mean, in the region, which is endemic to corruption, you will not find this level of commitment to fulfil its mission.”

Have you ever seen the OC of a BMT company (as well as ALL his support staff) coming down to greet an ACGS (Assistant Chief of the General Staff) because his son was in the company? And how he was allowed to leave early for the weekend on Friday (his dad actually drove up to the company line to pick him) when others could not?

Incidents like these make me fume, even after so many years.