October 11th, 2008 §
I’m a month into my postgraduate program right now, and a thought got to me – what if I could do all the things I was doing now without being enrolled as a student in the course?
The obvious result would be avoiding lectures, examinations, and the chance to work with similar minded people. But apart from that, it’s quite possible to obtain the postgraduate experience without ever paying a single cent.
Read, read, read
It’s a long shot, but it basically involves a lot of focussed, disciplined reading. What I would do (if I ever decided to go this route in the future) is to look at recommended reading lists for MSc programs published on university websites. Here are a few for Electronic Engineering courses offered at Queen Mary, University of London (quite a reputable university).
If there’s a course outline available, you could match your reading plan based on the recommended reading list with the course outline, and produce a reading schedule with specific reading goals. It’s a bit more focussed than, say, picking a general book on the subject.
In contrast, practitioners often claim that you seldom ever reuse school textbooks in the real world. That’s partly true because the head knowledge has been imprinted as guidelines that help practitioners make decisions about their work. So, it’s not that school textbooks are useless, but that they are meant to provide a sound basis for judgment and decision making (you don’t want to be reading textbooks to solve problems when a deadline is looming).
Try making your own exams
Some universities will publish course material online, even examinations. Some of this stuff can get quite rudimentary, but some of them will prove useful in defining thought-provoking and essential questions on a subject matter. Getting a real expert to vouch for this is a good way to gauge your learning, and to ‘test’ your progress.
In a sense, you could create your own exam, although that sounds quite circular (who would take an exam made by themselves?). But the point is not about scoring grades – it’s about getting to grips with the subject matter.
Besides, exams are only part of the postgraduate experience. The real test of a postgraduate is in academic writing, and the dissertation (thesis in the US) marks the focus of any Masters program.
Write a dissertation, sort of
In essence, a dissertation is an academic study of a topic. You have a claim (a hypothesis), you go out and study it (using a specific method, which you can define or quote), and you very carefully and methodically analyze and address for what it’s worth.
Dissertations can take up to three months or more, and often gets people outside their comfort zones into contextual environments to be able to study issues where “it all happens”. You could do things like interview people, observe how things are run at their specific locations (flight control, anyone?), or experiment on lab mice. Of course, you may lack the resources an academic instution has to offer, but then, it all depends on what you want to study.
Some universities make their dissertations publicly available, so that you can get a flavor of what it looks and feels like. There are tons of resources available to help students familiarize themselves with acedemic writing and research, so there’s no need to go to a university just to do that. Even professionals do it from time to time, and some companies make their living by publishing research findings.
The whole purpose of a dissertation is its learning value. Does it change the world? Does it offer help to problems that are evident? Is it a worthy, reliable source of information? Does it test the hypotheses well? Is the argument sound?
While you won’t get is a piece of paper that qualifies you as a MSc degree holder, you might earn the learning experience of the process. And it is useful in shaping your understanding and investigative skills. Maybe you might tell yourself it’s not worth the trip, and decide to blow your life savings on a real MSc program. But then, you might only want a part of the whole experience.
June 21st, 2008 §
Some people really have a hard time finding out what they really should be doing as an adult. I think that anyone having this problem are looking at other adults too much. They should be looking at their past instead.
Children aren’t shy about having fun. And I know that what we enjoy doing as adults are simply extensions of things we used to do as children.
My job as a software engineer cum web developer cum innovator stems from my childhood hobbies playing Lego and drawing portraits and doing all sorts of other ‘building’ stuff. I also spent my teens collecting comics, which I used to build my figure sketching skills. I was never into sports, but I feel that sports is a great way to learn about strategy, which is useful for stuff like finance, management, and innovation.
Playing with dolls may mean you enjoy storytelling, or being part of a hospitality service, or traveling. Reading may mean you enjoy research and learning, and being able to function as a team player.
One question a career counselor asked my wife when she went in for a session was ‘what did you enjoy when you were a child?’. Most likely, the things you did when you were a child were already preparing you for something you would be doing as an adult.
I posed this question to my youth session yesterday as well. Not all of them responded to the various interests. Some enjoyed traveling while some didn’t. Almost all of them played computers, but I’m guessing what they play may differ as well. Some enjoy sports. Some don’t like cartoons but enjoy watching animal planet. These were children aged 9 onward. They were specific and vocal – they could express what their interests were at a very young age.
I told them that when they become an adult, the toys don’t go away – they get bigger. So the trick is in deciding which toys to play, because there’s never enough time to play all of them (or enough money).
The reason why I love web development is because I like building things. I like art as well, and graphic design, although my background is in engineering. I like ideas – and good sites build on good ideas. I also love writing, and the web really needs a lot of that. In fact, writing was one of the things I used to do growing up.
In the book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell described a phenomenon about how Sesame Street became such a huge success. In that research, scientists realized that children watched TV very differently than adults do – in that they watch for learning’s sake (in terms of context), instead of pure entertainment. Their attention span only maintains when there are things on TV that they are attempting to gain knowledge from. This may be why one of the boys said he didn’t enjoy cartoons, when quizzed yesterday.
Don’t abandon your childhood for your adulthood. Bridge it together in one seamless story. Penelope Trunk’s advice is to do what you are – and I feel everyone ought to already know that growing up.
June 19th, 2008 §
I got my increment letter today, and at the rate I’m going, I’ll only be hitting RM100k annual salary in 6 years’ time. That’s not too bad. I’ll be able to afford a Toyota Vios by then, feed 2 children, and own my own house. Live the Malaysian dream.
Knowing what others earn is about having control over your life
I was talking to a friend of mine about salaries. We all rate salaries very differently, because we all have different friends. Our friends are sometimes our only lens into the corporate world, that’s layered with bureaucracy, hierarchy, and politics and a whole lot of other stuff we can’t quite make out.
The problem with that is that all of us are in the trees. Which is why I felt it was good to post up that interview with a recruitment agent. At least everyone can take a look at a snapshot of what people are earning nowadays.
So, everyone should just go to http://www.glassdoor.com right now, sign up, post your salaries, and give your employers a piece of your mind, because it’s all anonymous anyway. No one will ever know it was you. I told my friend that I signed up for glassdoor and put in my salary and company feedback, and even though I was the only person in my company in the whole world to do that, he couldn’t find out anything about me there.
So, trust me, it’s good for the whole world that everyone knows what everyone is earning. It’s mitigated anarchy. It’s good because you’ll know where you stand, the faster the better, because you’ll be able to make a decision about where you stand, and about what to do with your life. Yes, it’s good that you have control over your life.
The corporate ladder isn’t linear all the time
Contrary to popular belief, learning what the other guy earns isn’t about getting better up the ladder. The reason is because at the end of the day, everyone is accountable to themselves whether this is right for them or not. Not everyone wants to become a CEO. Not everyone wants to suck up to the boss and earn big bucks. Not everyone wants to be a stunt driver.
But what everyone wants is FAIRNESS. And fairness is a very hard thing to measure. But as a start, for things to be fair, it has to be open. So, at least, knowing what the other guy earns solves a bit of that. Because it’s not the salary amount that really matters, it’s knowing that really matters. Because knowing helps you make a decision about your life.
Companies don’t want you to know how much everyone is earning
Now, I was actually lying that it’s good for everyone knows what everyone earns.
Companies actually can lose out in situations like these, because a lot of companies can leverage on a lot of things if it does – FUD, the law (yes sometimes it can protect businesses as much as it can protect employees), politics, corporate hierarchy… anything it can leverage on, it will.
Why? Because it’s easy. Because it’s doable. Because companies get away with it all the time.
It’s harder for one person to gain so much knowledge about careers in a short period of time, than it is for a company to hire a CEO, a HR senior, or someone to draw up policies or establish a culture that will help the company to grow and protect itself against employees that might hurt it.
It’s ultimately the employees’ responsibility to find out how much people are earning, how much the industry is paying, and make a decision about what to do with their lives. It’s not a company’s responsibility to live that life for you.
Please watch out for yourself
I feel that the people who will get hit the hardest are good young people who want to change the world, and are so sick of capitalism that they expend themselves to the point that they suffer a burnout. Please watch out, because it’s your responsibility to. A company isn’t a way to shelter yourself away from the problems of the world.
If you’re stuck, don’t worry. The world is bigger than you think. There are ways to salvage a broken life, and there are people who are willing to help. You can talk to your boss, even though you’re scared or if your boss doesn’t want to listen, there are other people you can talk to. If you’re down and you’re just starting to get up, realize that life will look different from this point on… and get going. It’ll work out okay in the end.
Resources:
June 11th, 2008 §
It’s hard to tell apart things that matter versus things that don’t while sitting in our comfort zones. Anything can seem unreal, almost too manageable. Corporate pressures may be shrugged off after project endings, while some jobs don’t require much continuity or responsibility. At the end of the day, a job is a job – you’ll get the same paycheck you got last month. Move to another job if you don’t like the one you’re at now…
Unless, of course, you’re a freelancer.
I recently found Freelanceswitch.com, a blog about freelancing, that reminded me how much I hated the bad parts about freelancing, and how people still do it because it really puts you in control. I don’t often subscribe to RSS feeds on the first impression, but this one was a keeper. You don’t even have to be freelancing to realize how valuable the articles are. And the reason is simple – freelancing takes so much out of you that it forces you to be good in pretty much everything.
There are tons of freelancing roles out there – copywriters, designers, artists, software developers – all vying for a piece of the pie. I’ve done at least one or two types of these jobs, and I’ve had good and bad experiences about them.
The good part is that you get paid, sometimes, for things that takes you an hour to do, and a few minutes to talk. The bad part is that you’re never really in control of what you’ll get. And so, in order to get a grip on life, most freelancers have to stick to their guns and keep going at it again and again, upon the waves of uncertainty.
This basically creates a sort of accelerated view of potentially your entire career, which forces you to pick up skills you would otherwise avoid in a typical job. These skills can be extremely valuable, like managing projects, budgeting, selling, public relations, and so on. At the same time, you have absolute freedom in investing in any skill you want, and fine tune it for your own purposes.
I believe some freelancers see corporate jobs like a cop out – the idea of constantly working with people excel at a few things and talk about it like they own the world. Freelancing is humbling, and for a good reason – it takes a lot out of you. But the benefits can be extremely rewarding in the long run, if you can weather the storm.
Anyway, just to show you what I mean, here’s a snippet from Freelanceswitch:
Launching a freelance business is no easy feat—regardless of whether you’re looking to go full-time or part-time. And if you’re trying to build the business while holding down a regular job or taking care of the kids, you have it harder than most.
There are only so many hours in a day! You can’t expect to do it all. And if you try, you’ll burn out sooner or later.
The secret lies in outsourcing tasks you’re not fond of, especially if someone else can do them for less.
source: link
Here’s another great post referenced from the same site: link – great advice for anyone, freelancer or otherwise.
April 23rd, 2008 §
If you’re short on time, and you want a fulfilling life/career/relationship/whatever, ditch the mundane crawl through newsreaders, google news, and forum posts. Alltop.com gives you the headlines of every news-based site you should read. It was created by Guy Kawasaki.
This means you can focus on living your life, and then spending that 20% of your time through GOOD CONTENT to assess yourself, plan your journey, laugh or cry… whatever.
Also, if you watch TV, forget TV. You got me, Stop Watching TV. Or watch less of it. Take time out to decide what you really want in life, and get going.
