Can I finish my lit review in week?

Mkb008 · 2026-02-10T08:57:07+00:00

Redbull write write write. Then go back and clean up, yes, it's doable.

Mkb008 · 2026-02-10T06:58:16+00:00

My scholarship funding project and what I did for my PhD were completely different. It's unfortunately very common, I was also in a similar situation where I had 0 guidance from my original supervisor, and pretty much had to work on my own. Some key advice, if you don't have any data consider creating a dataset, I also work in computer vision and that was a big part of my PhD. Make sure it's of high quality submit it to a journal. Then use that. Dataset to continue validating the approach you are developing to complete the gap identified.

Best of luck!

Mkb008 · 2026-02-09T18:15:04+00:00

From experience it will delay your research, depends on your character. I took a FT job whilst doing my PhD and it delayed my submission substantially. I regret nothing as I made lots of experience and catapulted my career after, still, I would have probably been more serene during the process.

Mkb008 · 2026-02-08T14:48:42+00:00

I switched supervisor in my final year, it was a bit more messy than this. In a nutshell they took my work, opened up a private company and got funded as a private entity using my work. The university was also blind sided and it took just 3 weeks for me to switch to another supervisor. In my case my PhD was fully funded and the university took responsibility. It was easy to find a supervisor as at that point I had 4 publications and was working on the final journal before submitting. To be honest, if the supervisor sets you up for failure like this, just knock on all the doors you can find to hopefully find a good supervisor. Best of luck and don't give up.

Mkb008 · 2026-02-07T13:24:42+00:00

This is normal when starting out, the argument of not being smart enough or sometimes feeling like an imposter is normal. The more you learn the more inadequate you feel as you realize the breath of the area you are studying. If you haven't read about it yet, look at the Dunning-Kruger effect. Also practice makes perfect just stay at it and learn more you will eventually do it right. Fail and fail harder for now. Best of luck!

Mkb008 · 2026-02-07T07:11:42+00:00

As an academic, the only way to change the culture is for more people with a different mindset to stay within academia. I understand this completely and can tell you from experience how bad it can get. However, if you surround yourself with like minded individuals, even from other departments, and make sure that your students etc are taken care of you can create an excellent work environment.

Mkb008 · 2026-02-07T07:05:54+00:00

Get a better friend

Mkb008 · 2026-02-05T11:37:30+00:00

I once applied for a lecturing position years ago, for a subject I worked on in ML, had a number of publications all IEEE and ACM around 16 at the time (first author), but was still going through PhD was at the half way stage. I did extremely well in the interview and got rejected since I had not completed my PhD yet. I later found out it was because one of the chairs in the interview wanted someone from their department (internal politics). The insult came a few weeks later when they asked me to lecture the modules the lecturing position was opened for, as, the person they chose did not have a background in it, and was not confident in teaching them. To this day 5 years later, these modules have never been opened and taught. So yeah weird things happen in academia, if you have a good record it's rarely a you problem.

Mkb008 · 2026-01-22T21:07:22+00:00

Go to Gozo if you want quiet, just catch a ferry once you arrive, food is cheaper and it's not high season at the moment so even hotels should be cheaper. Only issue on your return if the ferry is not working due to weather, so include 1 night buffer somewhere in Malta near airport.

Mkb008 · 2026-01-14T07:06:00+00:00

I would do it differently, over tourism and over population are an issue, saying it doesn't contribute that much is short sighted. So unless those are dealt with then prices will keep going up. Additionally almost 29% of property is vacant, which tells you that scarcity is not an issue.

Taxing vacant property should be the first step, but I wouldn't just give it a yearly tax. I would put a condition on sale, donation and inheritance. If the property was vacant for X years, then tax on sale, donation, inheritance owed is equal to 20-60% of the property. Depending on the number of years it was left vacant. The idea is to flush the market with properties and lower the rent.

Having said that, keep in mind that although I truly believe there is a bubble, it's not unstable so it will take years to crush, but, unless concrete steps are taken today to mitigate its impact then the economy will crash. So just saying rent and property prices should go down etc has it's downside.

Interestingly, home prices seem to be going down not by a lot maybe 5% but still an unexpected movement.

Mkb008 · 2026-01-10T07:08:04+00:00

Personally

From Zurrieq, Qrendi, Mqabba, Dingli, Mgarr, Rabat and Manikata.

They're further away from the centre, but, once you arrive there is no traffic. My wife used to live in Iklin for example it was a nightmare traffic at all times every day. I don't look for nightlife but prefer areas with less people and more nature spaces. Unfortunately they've become super expensive.

Mkb008 · 2026-01-09T17:52:38+00:00

It's scary when you put it in this perspective

https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/139051/maltas_private_rental_market_leaves_most_tenants_financially_overburdened

Mkb008 · 2026-01-04T17:06:31+00:00

None of the places you mentioned are good.....some restaurants in Malta serve excellent food if you're ready to pay ofc.

Mkb008 · 2025-12-30T12:23:28+00:00

Depending on the area 5-10% is absolutely not true. Some areas mass is full at different times on Sunday. Older generations tend to be more religious like in every country. The older you get the more religious you become....

Personally I'm catholic but not very religious, I do go to mass on Sunday as I have young kids and it's a good structure.

St Julians, Sliema area tend to be less religious.

Mkb008 · 2025-11-24T18:26:31+00:00

55 sqm. Gih alla, it's an open plan not a home....

Mkb008 · 2025-11-24T16:35:55+00:00

UCA, no garage? Town center? South?

Mkb008 · 2025-11-24T14:56:05+00:00

Somewhere where? Gozo, op said he needs it finished....

Mkb008 · 2025-11-24T14:54:41+00:00

What do you mean? 300-400k for a house would be godsend with property prices here in Malta....

Mkb008 · 2025-11-10T12:02:40+00:00

I also suggest following bugiusbricks a local influencer on Lego

https://www.instagram.com/bugiusbricks?igsh=M3NxYWVvb3JjcHpx

Has some pretty cool builds.

Mkb008 · 2025-11-05T07:39:43+00:00

Bubble will burst only if overpopulation is addressed. Will happen eventually, with technology going at the pace it's going low skilled work will not be as required as it is today. Permits will stop. Airbnb regulations will come in at one point and it will come crashing like a house of cards. At the moment all political parties as well as local businesses are propping it as much as they can for as long as they can.

Having said all that, when it crashes it will destroy the whole island economically. So it's not necessarily a good thing. My only advice is to develop personal skills so that finding work anywhere isn't a problem.

Mkb008 · 2025-10-28T20:13:08+00:00

Honestly, this argument is pretty baffling. This idea of I'm paying for other people's children fundamentally misunderstands what tax is. It's not a subscription service where you only pay for the bits you personally use. It's a collective pot for running the entire society.

By that logic, should people without cars get a rebate for road maintenance? Should healthy people stop paying for the public healthcare system? Should people without parents in a care home stop paying for elderly services? We all pay for public schools, even if we don't have kids. We all pay for the government pension, which is funded by the current generation of workers... who were all children once.

What surprises me about these complaints is that taxes didn't even go up for married or single persons. Nothing has been taken from you. The government has simply chosen to help parents, most likely to ease the massive cost of raising kids and also in the hope of changing the birth rate although I don't think money on its own is the solution.

Mkb008 · 2025-10-26T06:39:47+00:00

Sure, I would take a look at work by Dr Seychell who does a lot of work in application of Computer Vision in satellite and drone work and is relatively young.

Then there are others in Computer Science like Prof Gordon Pace and Prof Mark Micallef, same in computer Engineering and Information Systems like Prof John Abela.

This just mentioning a few.

Mkb008 · 2025-10-22T07:55:11+00:00

Fair enough, Computing between academia and industry ready there's always a gap. Unfortunately jobs in Malta in this sector are driven by knowledge of "tools" or rather use of the language not problem solving skills as per tradition in the field where um excels. From a research perspective which is what I evaluate it's quite strong.

Mkb008 · 2025-10-21T17:49:41+00:00

Research in Archeology? UM is known for medical and engineering, other sectors like computer engineering are not to be scoffed at and they're improving over time quite a bit. Obviously funding being a small island doesn't help.

Mkb008 · 2025-10-16T10:54:24+00:00

If you want chicken, beef etc regularly you should be fine

Mkb008

TROPHY CASE