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Monday, Oct 13, 2008 - 03:56 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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dL/dt=0, t→2009

One of life's turning points approaches. Barring any major mishaps, I'll be graduating with my degrees come next May. The question is - where I will be at this time next year?

  1. Started work at some job. With a looming recession/minor depression(!), this may unfortunately be one of the worst times to enter the job market
  2. Starting life as a graduate student, gunning for a Ph.D. at NUS
  3. Starting life as a graduate student, gunning for a Ph.D. at an overseas (probably American) university
  4. Starting life as a graduate student, gunning for a Ph.D. at NUS, with an eye on transferring at some point to an overseas (probably American) university

Option one looks even less attractive now than before. Option two was what I had in mind - invest another four years or so for another piece of paper (N.B. the stipend here has even been raised to S$2800 a month after passing the quals). Supposedly a good second uppers (which is more or less in hand) would be sufficient.

Then there's the overseas option. Frankly, while NUS is decent, it probably isn't the apex yet, at least in terms of global recognition (the relatively short time needed to get a doctorate as compared to the US standard [3.5 to 4, vs 5 years] may be a contributing factor). Actually, I kind of regretted never actually sending out applications to the top US colleges after NS, so I could at least know what I could have gotten into; Not that I would have gone even if I had the money, since the slight difference in quality would be swamped by a huge difference in payable fees. It just wasn't worth it at the undergraduate level.

Now with most graduate students getting free tuition and receiving stipends on top of that, however, the question arises again. Of course, I can just take the easy way out again, but then I would never know what could have been. Or I could plonk a couple of hundred down on a GRE, pester three professors for referral letters, and mail out applications to some of the best CS departments around. Then if I don't get accepted, I can at least accept the fact with good grace.

Yes, I think that's what I'll do. GRE booked for Friday.

It's not all roses, obviously:


Take with pinch of salt (Source: Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists)

But at least it's a good place to be in a recession...


Seems legit (Source: PhD comics)

Time to read some walkthroughs...



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