noodles in the sky, noodles in my eye
Two years later, in the middle of a class held by the company whose founder goddamn created the instant ramen, I bring you the continuation of Lavi and Kanda growing up together.
Previously, on The Years of the Warmed Over Book Worm
( .....the fancy took him. )
Previously, on The Years of the Warmed Over Book Worm
( .....the fancy took him. )
regarding! school life! i wanted to ask, did you stay in the same university from undergrad till now? i'm wondering about the selection process for a master's course orz
yeaaaah bud i'd love to send you a postcard or something! hit me up with your address, and we can get something going c: i can't imagine what that would have been a quote from!!! i just like sending cards!!!
my tumblr is almost exclusively dumb shit and anime it is not a source of knowledge in any way shape or form. but it certainly would offer an interesting window into what i find entertaining, so there's that...
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Oh, that makes sense. A lot of professors like to let the students try out their own ideas first before they really dig in and start polishing things up. And everyone's earliest grants always start off by proposing waaay too many things. It's practically a rite of passage ;p
Though it's totally not a bad idea to just come up with a bunch of proposed aims first, then go back through and see which fit together the best, are realistic and plausible, and will make the most sense together as a scientific story. And hopefully the professor will have some good input to give at that point as to what the reviewers will be looking for and how to structure things, and what to cut out. I'm assuming it's written in Japanese? If it's in English I'd be happy to give it a look through, though I may not be much help on specifics and whether or not proposing certain things make sense depending on what the topic is.
I actually did a master's at my undergrad institution, which was in Taiwan, so I don't know how relevant this will be to you, but! In Taiwan, overall, higher education is not that expensive (especially compared to say, the US), and my undergrad had a program where some of the extra credits you take in undergrad could count for master's credit a lot more easily. So if you planned early-ish to take advantage of that, you could get a big boost in freeing up time to work on your master's thesis project instead of spending that time on courses, since the program was designed with a research-oriented track in mind (a committee would have to agree that research progress on the thesis passed criteria before you could write things up and graduate, and the assumption was that you would be continuing to do research of some sort after graduating). My undergrad lab advisor had counseled us (the students) previously that if we wanted to get into PhD programs abroad, especially in the US/Europe/Australia, our chances would be a lot better if we did a master's first (and hopefully get a few publications at least in progress during that time if possible) because it's less of a risk to foreign universities to take on an international student if they already have a track record of being productive in a research environment. (A lot of times international students will have fewer funding opportunities, and funding for research tends to always be a bit tight most places.)
So for me, I think the stuff I did during my master's totally helped to make my application to grad school in the US a lot better, and now I'm currently staying on at the same university I did my PhD at (University of Michigan) in a different lab doing my postdoc.
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and the current state of the field for a more future consultant/project manager type career.
From what I can tell, doing a biomed master's in the US at the moment (there's been a push recently to get more people interested in PhDs to do a master's first, but the current system is not set up to encourage that) is kind of like doing an MBA; if the benefit/boost to your future career trajectory is worth it, then spend the money to do one, but otherwise don't because you might end up in debt without having gained much from the experience. It should probably also be mentioned that in US biomed PhD programs, if you've passed your qualifying examinations (usually around the second year) to become a PhD candidate, but don't finish your thesis project satisfactorily/decide a PhD is not for you and want to drop out, there's usually the option for the student to write up what they have of their thesis research and graduate with a master's degree instead of a PhD. So unless it's a very specialized/specific/useful master's, or it's a field where doing a master's degree instead of going straight to PhD is expected/the norm, a lot of times in biomed in the US, people will unfairly wonder if a master's is an unfinished PhD. (Whereas in different countries or a lot of other fields, master's are the norm and no one in their right minds would bother with a PhD.)
That said, if doing a master's makes sense for what you want to be doing and would be helpful for getting you the experience/information/resources you need (or even if you're just super interested in the subject and want to learn more!), go ahead and do it! =) I had a great time learning and science-wise while doing my master's, and the things I learned then were all later very helpful during the PhD. Just don't go bankrupt or something for a super expensive program ^^;;
As for picking a program, if there's not a few well-known ones or well-known departments/universities for your field, I don't know if the programs in Japan have some sort of open house recruitment days for their graduate programs to let prospective students learn more about their courses? Obviously, if you get hold of someone who's been through their program and ask their opinions on it, that'd be best, but otherwise maybe they'd also have grad program recruitment offices or something where you can ask for some general info (that should really already be on their websites, but sometimes just seeing if the people in the department seem to know what's going on inside it can be a helpful measure of how functional things are there). And of course if there are programs nearby you're interested in where you can get involved with their research, that's always a boost during the interviewing/selection process because the people there will already know you/know you're interested and know how you work. (Aaah, if you meant what's involved in applying, here in the US there's usually paperwork/transcripts/proficiency test scores and personal statements/essays to send in, and oftentimes there will be face-to-face/phone/Skype interviews before they decide on their offers.)
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Haha, I have no idea, but who knows what might be a reference nowadays :p There's so many common phrases that I didn't even know were supposed to be references until someone said so, and then I promptly forgot what they were references to :p. Gimme your email or hit me up at festivesplinters at hotmail dot com, and we can exchange addresses and Valentine's Day cards! =D
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also thanks to lj's notification please allow me to cordially wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY YO!!! Hope 2017 is as good as you deserve <3
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