Sunday, August 31, 2008
Congrats Prof Khalid!
Congrats to Prof Khalid Abdul Kadir for being the recipient of the first Merdeka award for Health, Science and Technology. Prof Khalid is the head of the Johor Baru Monash University Clinical School and his area of specialty is the treatment of diabetes. With so much depressing news of politicians seeking bogus PhDs and VCs having lousy CVs, it is good to read about a genuine academic who cares about his area of research. I don't know much about the research of diabetes but I do know that a simple google search reveals that Prof Khalid has quite a few publications in refereed journals. I'm guessing that Monash would not have made him the head of their clinical school in JB if he was a sub par academic.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Two years at Harvard Business School
Just read a book written by a journalist, Philip Delves Broughton, who attended Harvard Business School or HBS, as it is popularly known, and wrote about his experiences there. It's a much cheaper way to get a sense of what studying at HBS is like and definitely less stressful!
There is no doubt that HBS is the most powerful brand name in terms of business schools (sorry Wharton). What I found interesting about this book is that the author is very unlike the type A, super intense and incredibly driven individuals that one typically finds at HBS. He doesn't have any background in finance, he didn't even know how to use excel when he first attended HBS and didn't know the management speak that is common currency in these circles.
Although he finds himself being critical of some of the attitudes adopted by some of his colleagues - those type A people - he also writes very fondly of some of them. Some of them are actually nice people who don't want to work in the two industries most associated with HBS graduates - investment banking and management consultancy. (Not to say that ibankers and management consultants are not nice people :))
And I think through his journey at HBS, he actually slowly finds himself being more comfortable in the world of balance sheets, financial ratios and management jargon. He begins to write more sympathetically about the kind of stuff which you learn at HBS and even some of his experiences. He goes for that mandatory interview with Mckinsey (he didn't get the job), he pitches an idea to a venture capitalist, he visits the HQ of Google in California.
In the end, his path was not the same taken by most of his fellow graduates. He was the only one from his class that did not have a job when he graduated. I think he spent some time writing this book and doing some small consultancy projects here and there. For those of you who want to get a sense of the academic and career challenges that one faces in a place like HBS, I definitely recommend this book. There are some parts in which he discusses some of the details of what he learned at HBS which some might find boring but these snippets, in my opinion, are still instructive. While this is not as exciting as Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker, I found it to be well written and an instructive read.
There is no doubt that HBS is the most powerful brand name in terms of business schools (sorry Wharton). What I found interesting about this book is that the author is very unlike the type A, super intense and incredibly driven individuals that one typically finds at HBS. He doesn't have any background in finance, he didn't even know how to use excel when he first attended HBS and didn't know the management speak that is common currency in these circles.
Although he finds himself being critical of some of the attitudes adopted by some of his colleagues - those type A people - he also writes very fondly of some of them. Some of them are actually nice people who don't want to work in the two industries most associated with HBS graduates - investment banking and management consultancy. (Not to say that ibankers and management consultants are not nice people :))
And I think through his journey at HBS, he actually slowly finds himself being more comfortable in the world of balance sheets, financial ratios and management jargon. He begins to write more sympathetically about the kind of stuff which you learn at HBS and even some of his experiences. He goes for that mandatory interview with Mckinsey (he didn't get the job), he pitches an idea to a venture capitalist, he visits the HQ of Google in California.
In the end, his path was not the same taken by most of his fellow graduates. He was the only one from his class that did not have a job when he graduated. I think he spent some time writing this book and doing some small consultancy projects here and there. For those of you who want to get a sense of the academic and career challenges that one faces in a place like HBS, I definitely recommend this book. There are some parts in which he discusses some of the details of what he learned at HBS which some might find boring but these snippets, in my opinion, are still instructive. While this is not as exciting as Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker, I found it to be well written and an instructive read.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
UM and possibly USM to become Apex Universities?
Looks like UM is likely to get designated to be an Apex university which will allow it to get more funding and autonomy and perhaps USM as well. UKM and UPM will not be happy. My sense is that it probably makes more sense to have 2 universities designated as Apex universities so that there will be some level of competition. But without a radical restructuring of how research and teaching and admissions are conducted and without a qualified and politically independent VC in place, I cannot imagine UM and USM breaking into the ranks of the top 100 universities in the world.
Monday, August 25, 2008
HP and AMD scholarships
Hey guys, just got notification of this pretty cool scholarship being offered by HP and AMD. There are three scholarships worth RM25,000 each and as well as a HP notebook. (The last three laptops I've bought have been HPs and they've worked great for me. And no, I'm not being paid by HP to say this.:)) There are no bonds associated with this scholarship and the closing data is Sept 30, 2008. For more details, please go to this site.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Bogus PhD confirmed
Well, our suspicions have been proven correct. We first highlighted this issue here and Malaysiakini has confirmed it here. The BN candidate for the Permatang Pauh by-election, Arif Shah, was indeed enrolled in a bogus PhD program. Too bad the Malaysiakini article didn't highlight that we first brought it up here, thanks to Sree's sharp eyes. Also, in the same Mkini article, he said that he obtained his diploma from the Federal Institute of Technology in KL so there goes the 'fact' that he studied in NTU in Singapore. I think this points to a larger problem with UMNO and perhaps the BN, that politicians are increasingly pressured to have degrees so much so that they feel they have to go out and buy one. Really sad.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Why do we go to university
I know that I said that I'll lay of the UiTM issue for a while but I can't help but publish this insightful letter written by Oon Yeoh, my partner in crime for our Malaysiakini Realpolitik podcasts. I've reproduced the letter in full below.
Why do we go to university?
Oon Yeoh | Aug 19, 08 5:08pm
University life seems like an eternity ago and I barely remember any of my professors or the subjects they taught me. There was, however, one memorable lesson given by a guest lecturer whose name I cannot recall but whose message still resonates with me until today.
In light of the controversy that followed Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim's suggestion that UiTM open itself to some non-Malays, I would like to share what I learned from that guest lecturer who was invited to give a talk in the sports journalism class I was taking.
He was a baseball expert but when he took to the podium, he told us that he was not going to talk about America's favourite pastime.
Instead, he had a question for all of us: "Why are you all in college?"
That seemed like an easy enough question to answer. Several students quickly put up their hands.
"So we can get a good job one day and make lots of money!" said one student, to loud laughter.
The lecturer smiled and said, "Come on, we all know that there are many people who never went to college and are rich beyond imagination."
"To get an education," said another student.
"You don't necessarily have to go to college to do that," the lecturer said. "Many people get their education through the school of hard knocks."
Another student said, "To get a degree. You can't get that unless you go to university."
To that, the lecturer replied, "That's not true. You can take correspondence courses."
At that point, everybody seemed stumped so the lecturer finally said, "The main reason you go to college is to learn to socialise" and he proceeded to elaborate.
When you graduate and enter the work force, you will be surrounded by generally like-minded people with roughly the same educational background and social status.
If you are in banking, the people around you would have probably studied finance. If you are in the medical field, the people you mingle with will be fellow doctors and nurses. And if you are in architecture, your network of friends and associates will inevitably be those in the building and construction industry.
Unless you happen to have a very unique job that requires you to mingle with a broad range of people, the harsh reality is that your world will be constrained by your career choices.
College is the only time in your life when you are exposed to all kinds of people from all walks of life and from very different backgrounds – unless of course you go to UiTM.
While preparing to do a podcast on the controversy surrounding Khalid's comments, my podcasting partner, Ong Kian Ming, said something remarkably similar to what the guest lecturer had said. "The whole idea of a university is for different people to get together and interact."
He's spot on, just as the guest lecturer was. If you don't learn how to deal with a myriad of people and expose yourself to different worldviews when you are in the spring time of your life – when you are young and carefree – how will you ever be able to do so when you enter the "real world" and have to cope with the challenges and insecurities of carving out a career and struggling to make ends meet every month?
As mentioned earlier, your world will naturally constrained by the career track that you choose. But if you've had exposure to diversity early on, you would have a better chance of broadening your network beyond what would normally be the case – because you learned how to do so when you were young.
I was very lucky to have attended a cosmopolitan American university which had students from all over the US and indeed, the world. I had classmates from every continent. Some were rich, some poor; some were from developed countries, some from the third world. But in college, all of us were equals - we attended class together, we did assignments together, we played together.
Not to denigrate the value of academic lessons – they are important, of course – but my experiences in dealing with and socialising with classmates who were very different from me played a bigger role in my personal growth and development than any specific subjects I learned.
Granted, there are no universities in Malaysia that can offer the diversity you could find in popular American universities, which make it a point to take in students from all over the world.
But Malaysia does have a pretty diverse population. Even without the benefit of foreign students, there's a lot that our young people can learn from schoolmates of different ethnicity, religions and backgrounds. What a shame if we don't give them a chance to do that.
In our most recent podcast article, Kian Ming and I asked: "Can UiTM really aspire to be a world-class university if all the students there are of one particular race?" The people who are protesting Khalid's suggestion would do well to ponder upon this rhetorical question.
Why do we go to university?
Oon Yeoh | Aug 19, 08 5:08pm
University life seems like an eternity ago and I barely remember any of my professors or the subjects they taught me. There was, however, one memorable lesson given by a guest lecturer whose name I cannot recall but whose message still resonates with me until today.
In light of the controversy that followed Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim's suggestion that UiTM open itself to some non-Malays, I would like to share what I learned from that guest lecturer who was invited to give a talk in the sports journalism class I was taking.
He was a baseball expert but when he took to the podium, he told us that he was not going to talk about America's favourite pastime.
Instead, he had a question for all of us: "Why are you all in college?"
That seemed like an easy enough question to answer. Several students quickly put up their hands.
"So we can get a good job one day and make lots of money!" said one student, to loud laughter.
The lecturer smiled and said, "Come on, we all know that there are many people who never went to college and are rich beyond imagination."
"To get an education," said another student.
"You don't necessarily have to go to college to do that," the lecturer said. "Many people get their education through the school of hard knocks."
Another student said, "To get a degree. You can't get that unless you go to university."
To that, the lecturer replied, "That's not true. You can take correspondence courses."
At that point, everybody seemed stumped so the lecturer finally said, "The main reason you go to college is to learn to socialise" and he proceeded to elaborate.
When you graduate and enter the work force, you will be surrounded by generally like-minded people with roughly the same educational background and social status.
If you are in banking, the people around you would have probably studied finance. If you are in the medical field, the people you mingle with will be fellow doctors and nurses. And if you are in architecture, your network of friends and associates will inevitably be those in the building and construction industry.
Unless you happen to have a very unique job that requires you to mingle with a broad range of people, the harsh reality is that your world will be constrained by your career choices.
College is the only time in your life when you are exposed to all kinds of people from all walks of life and from very different backgrounds – unless of course you go to UiTM.
While preparing to do a podcast on the controversy surrounding Khalid's comments, my podcasting partner, Ong Kian Ming, said something remarkably similar to what the guest lecturer had said. "The whole idea of a university is for different people to get together and interact."
He's spot on, just as the guest lecturer was. If you don't learn how to deal with a myriad of people and expose yourself to different worldviews when you are in the spring time of your life – when you are young and carefree – how will you ever be able to do so when you enter the "real world" and have to cope with the challenges and insecurities of carving out a career and struggling to make ends meet every month?
As mentioned earlier, your world will naturally constrained by the career track that you choose. But if you've had exposure to diversity early on, you would have a better chance of broadening your network beyond what would normally be the case – because you learned how to do so when you were young.
I was very lucky to have attended a cosmopolitan American university which had students from all over the US and indeed, the world. I had classmates from every continent. Some were rich, some poor; some were from developed countries, some from the third world. But in college, all of us were equals - we attended class together, we did assignments together, we played together.
Not to denigrate the value of academic lessons – they are important, of course – but my experiences in dealing with and socialising with classmates who were very different from me played a bigger role in my personal growth and development than any specific subjects I learned.
Granted, there are no universities in Malaysia that can offer the diversity you could find in popular American universities, which make it a point to take in students from all over the world.
But Malaysia does have a pretty diverse population. Even without the benefit of foreign students, there's a lot that our young people can learn from schoolmates of different ethnicity, religions and backgrounds. What a shame if we don't give them a chance to do that.
In our most recent podcast article, Kian Ming and I asked: "Can UiTM really aspire to be a world-class university if all the students there are of one particular race?" The people who are protesting Khalid's suggestion would do well to ponder upon this rhetorical question.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Interested on US Undergraduate Education?
Hear from current students and alumni!
There's something all of us speaking at this panel have in common. We've had the benefit of an educational philosophy that emphasises more than professional training - an education system that avoids the mass production of cookie-cutter citizens, unlike the universities many other countries. We've enjoyed incredible opportunities to grow as individuals, and often at the expense of the very institutions we attend. But for every one of us, there are many who could have had the same experience, yet for some reason simply ended up elsewhere.
Some of you might remember this letter one of us wrote to a local media outlet some months back, which highlighted the incredible dearth of information about the opportunities America offers.
This Saturday the 23rd 2.00pm we're doing our little bit to change this sad situation. At the Descartes Education Counselling Centre in Damansara Utama, a group of us - current students and alumni from various American universities and liberal arts colleges - will be speaking on the hows, the whys, the whats of applying to American institutions of higher education. We hope you'll join us.
Speakers include:
Or you can view the details on Facebook.
In the group pictures are a map to the venue, and a poster for the event. If you're interested in helping distribute the poster, please get in touch with johnleemk@gmail.com and we can talk about reimbursement for photocopying costs, etc.
Topics include:
There's something all of us speaking at this panel have in common. We've had the benefit of an educational philosophy that emphasises more than professional training - an education system that avoids the mass production of cookie-cutter citizens, unlike the universities many other countries. We've enjoyed incredible opportunities to grow as individuals, and often at the expense of the very institutions we attend. But for every one of us, there are many who could have had the same experience, yet for some reason simply ended up elsewhere.
Some of you might remember this letter one of us wrote to a local media outlet some months back, which highlighted the incredible dearth of information about the opportunities America offers.
This Saturday the 23rd 2.00pm we're doing our little bit to change this sad situation. At the Descartes Education Counselling Centre in Damansara Utama, a group of us - current students and alumni from various American universities and liberal arts colleges - will be speaking on the hows, the whys, the whats of applying to American institutions of higher education. We hope you'll join us.
Speakers include:
- Mohd Hafiz Noor Sham (Michigan)
- Nathaniel Tan (Harvard)
- Andrew Loh (Swathmore)
- Ng Eng Han (Dartmouth)
- John Lee ML (Dartmouth)
Or you can view the details on Facebook.
In the group pictures are a map to the venue, and a poster for the event. If you're interested in helping distribute the poster, please get in touch with johnleemk@gmail.com and we can talk about reimbursement for photocopying costs, etc.
Topics include:
- Introduction to the Liberal Arts Concept
- Liberal Arts College vs Research University
- The advantages and disadvantages of a Liberal Arts college
- Future Prospects of a Liberal Arts Degree
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