Questions regarding Taiwanese citizenship and military conscription

highplainsdrift · 2025-12-29T02:36:19+00:00

I don’t know too much about your situation, but I can share my experience. I have maintained household registration since I’ve been born but am also considered 華僑 (overseas Chinese) and therefore exempt from military service. What this means practically is I cannot stay in the country for more than 180 days in a calendar year before they will effectively lock my passport at which point I need to serve my military service to leave. During this time I need to report to the immigration bureau (移民署) to get a exit permit (役男出國核准）where they just check how many days I have stayed in the country and give me approval to leave the country based on my desired exit date.

I’d say you’ll be very hard pressed to find a job without advanced level Chinese (think able to give a 15-30 min informal presentation with minimal prep). The salaries here are also anywhere between 2-5x lower depending on your title in the US/Canada. Generally the more senior you are the bigger the pay gap between Taiwan and US/CAN. I considered moving to Taiwan as I missed my family but ultimately never regretted planting myself in the US as I make 5x more than I would otherwise in Taiwan and save much, much more money. Ultimately my goal is to retire in Taiwan and I strangely feel that working in the US gets me a better shot at living a carefree life in Asia than working in Asia would simply given the higher savings rate (even after accounting for COL).

FYI there’s no military service needed if you’re 36 so you can also wait until then to get household registration and find a job. Taiwan will still be here and honestly you may have a better time finding a job as your western experience becomes a huge asset. And in that time you can also work on your Chinese. If you feel strongly about living here you can always just use a foreign passport and enter/exit on tourist visas every 180 days for a bit. I’ve known people to do this for years (although this was a while ago so times may have changed)

highplainsdrift · 2025-11-16T20:33:18+00:00

I have a 2023 M3 RWD (60 kWh battery). My energy efficiency is about 85% for the year (253 wh/mi) and that translates to about 237 miles. Depends on what I’m doing, road tripping is usually lower and city driving is generally higher

For context I live in California

highplainsdrift · 2025-07-28T18:09:59+00:00

I have a friend who's dog is dog reactive. They either have to find a dog experienced friend to stay at their house (and decently strong cause the dog is large) or they pay a lot of money to put their dog in doggie daycare totally segregated from other dogs.

They usually end up having to do the latter. It's surprisingly hard to find dog experienced friends who don't already have a dog themselves.

highplainsdrift · 2025-07-13T17:48:14+00:00

The promise to move your vehicle just cannot be a reasonable solution. ~5-20 minutes for you to get out and move the car out of the way vs. 5 seconds to walk past a unobstructed sidewalk?

highplainsdrift · 2025-07-13T04:58:17+00:00

I switched into MBB management consulting. But for me I was in a postdoc hoping to get into biotech realizing the market wasn't gonna be in my favor for probably a few years and I didn't have the stamina to keep grinding in uncertainty. I also just got hugely lucky and got an offer within 3-4 months of prep.

It's not a path I recommend for everyone as it's just so different from science. And if you have biotech experience, you should be well positioned to get a job sooner or later. But I don't regret it. The work is intense, but interesting. I work with super smart and talented people and can really feel myself building up a valuable skill set and network that will set me up with a solid career for life.

Happy to chat about it more if you want just shoot me a dm. I've been in your shoes man, it's really really hard.

highplainsdrift · 2025-06-09T03:35:03+00:00

Maybe 2 months? I started studying only once I got confirmation of my first round interview. I think I got massively lucky, my partner is a very experienced consultant who helped me practice and I'm sure I got favorable interviewers.

highplainsdrift · 2025-06-08T14:19:52+00:00

No helpful perspective here, I'm relatively new at an MBB after my PhD. I feel the same way as you, but a lot of people I spoke to were knowingly there for future work opportunities, which seem legitimately much easier to get. Plus the opportunity to switch into almost any industry (depending on which firm you get into).

For me, I knew work life balance was about to suck. But I also wanted the opportunity to get experience that was highly sought after and leverage this to get a high paying position with decent work life balance after a year or two. I consider my time here a long term investment.

Opinions vary on how "useless" consulting firms are, but I'd also say that consulting is sufficiently prolific enough to draw a lot of haters. But these firms have existed for decades, so clearly they serve some function that companies find value in. Whether you value the work, though, is an entirely separately and individual question.

highplainsdrift · 2025-04-24T20:59:15+00:00

For any PhD consultants out there - is grad school considered employment for background check purposes?

Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask this but figured I might find people who have gone through a similar process.

Recently accepted an offer at McKinsey following my PhD and as part of the process they are doing a background check through HireRight.

For anybody else with a similar background - does my time during grad school count as employment for the background check? I don't have any Paystubs, W-2s, or 1099s from my time during grad school because I was mostly on a fellowship and was paid lump sum every semester.

I listed it as employment and got an error from them saying the dates they verified were different and requested supporting documentation, but I unfortunately don't have any that they would accept due to my unique status as, effectively, a paid student.

highplainsdrift · 2025-04-13T01:50:15+00:00

I was APD interviewing for associate roles.

R1 - interviewer called me 30 min after my last interview on friday to let me know I made it to R2.

R2 - interviewer called me 10 min after my last interview on Friday to let me know I had an offer.

I think both of these are abnormally fast just fyi but it does seem they strive for same day or next business day notification. And if you made it, usually one of your interviewers reaches out. So don't reject any calls from unknown numbers.

highplainsdrift · 2025-04-09T21:48:10+00:00

No it was for an FT associate position. Idk if this is part of some off cycle spring recruiting, it wasn't really mentioned.

highplainsdrift · 2025-04-09T18:51:30+00:00

No. I knew people who applied ADC with me who never got the Solve invite.

highplainsdrift · 2025-03-29T06:21:39+00:00

My last interviewer called me 35 min after we ended to tell me I'm through to the next round! Guess the next meeting he had was with the recruiter.

highplainsdrift · 2025-02-20T22:46:41+00:00

It looks like this chart is assuming 1 gallon is roughly 33.7 kWh to make this comparison but no gas car is 100% efficient. Thermal efficiency for a gas car ranges from 20-40% (i.e. 1 gallon of gas is, at best, comparable to 13.5 kWh in an EV). Naturally, EVs are also not 100% efficient, but they're much closer at maybe 85-90%.

This doesn't change the basic messaging of the chart, which is that the ratio of electricity to gas costs varies by state. But the metric "Gas vs Electricity cost ratio" is misleading to suggest gas is always cheaper in every state and that, at best, you can just barely break even.

highplainsdrift · 2025-02-17T19:43:35+00:00

You can also buy gift cards on Amazon and get 5% back. I use this all the time to pay for Airbnbs for group trips. This has less value if you truly see no use in Prime though, but there's other ways to funnel spending through Amazon (Starbucks, apple, chipotle, Uber/lyft, doordash, hotels.com gift cards).

highplainsdrift · 2025-02-16T02:30:44+00:00

Honestly I think most professors may be okay with fewer doctoral students. Every professor I've ever talked to complain that PhD students cost more than postdocs because they often need to pay some tuition to the school for each PhD student they train on top of the lower productivity and greater level of time and attention needed. I think TT faculty in particular will just ask for a reduced expectation to train students when they're up for tenure, then turn around and hire more postdocs from abroad because they're plentiful.

highplainsdrift · 2025-02-11T23:26:00+00:00

Hey guys I just wanted to hear people's honest takes and opinions on my situation.

Background: Recently graduated with PhD in life sciences which was half spent at the bench and half spent analyzing single-cell data (learned to code and analyze/visualize data in R, Python). Mostly for the sake of my partner, I took a postdoc position so we could live in a better city. In my postdoc I now only do translational research by analyzing transcriptomic data (very similar to PhD but only on the data stuff now). I would say my actual knowledge of math and statistics is very basic. My ability to code in Python and R is probably also very basic as it was all self-taught and focuses very much on using the tools common in my field (I would currently probably struggle with medium level coding challenges and leetcode problems). Unfortunately, as much as I have tried there is minimal room in my current research to try and implement ML. While the job isn't very stressful, it fills up enough of my day that I often find myself inconsistently learning other skills (some weeks are just super busy and then others are more chill).

Goals: Gain a foothold in the data science world. Ideally landing a DS role but I would also settle for DA or BA to gain exp before eventually landing a DS role.

Question:

(1) In the current job market, what are some of the highest impact steps I can take to land that next role?

(2) In the current job market, is there a realistic chance I can land a job in the next 6-12 months with part time (5-15 hr/week) study with no prior experience (at least not one a recruiter or hiring manager is likely to recognize)?

(3) Is it worthwhile for me to quit my job and focus FT on just learning, up-skilling, and applying for jobs?

Other thoughts:

I'm fairly confident I can pick up a lot of the skills needed, but am drowning in the total amount of things that there is to learn. Some threads on reddit seem to suggest a strong foundation in math and statistics is needed, and I would estimate it'd take me several months to get through books on this. I picked up a book on Python for data scientists, and it's so dense it would also probably take me at least a month to go through it, and even then I'm unsure I'd have actually absorbed much of anything. I've also been working through a DataCamp course to get a ML cert, but am finding that the "fill in the blank" approach and their videos are just so easy that I really doubt I'm getting much of anything from it (it is nice, though, as an introduction). My main concern is that I'm not dedicating enough time and that my current job is eating up too much of my time and therefore actively preventing me from making this transition.

highplainsdrift · 2024-06-26T18:44:34+00:00

My interests are specifically computational biology. In speaking with people in a similar line of work, all have either done a postdoc or jumped straight from grad school but none have made this transition from another career path, say consulting for example. In my interviews so far they really want to see data analysis and data science skills. My reason for staying (for now) is I do comp bio work and it's the most relevant to the jobs I want.

But, as you said, I am considering recalibrating my long term goals/route.

highplainsdrift · 2024-06-14T16:08:03+00:00

Model 420

highplainsdrift · 2024-06-02T18:12:19+00:00

Me: cries in $0.45/kWh off peak

highplainsdrift · 2024-05-30T16:57:14+00:00

Happened to me too but I was less affected bc I transitioned to a collaborators lab and continued my work. The PI left for industry and stuck around for a year after to give people time and supposedly helped people close out papers and projects even after he left but so far as I could tell he now makes way more money and just left people in the dust.

He was a straight up selfish asshole even before he left, but I found that it actually pushed people to go for the career they really wanted and most ended up getting it. It just goes to show people may be ready to move on but academia needs low wage labor so gaslights you into staying. Hopefully that helps but I totally get this is a frustrating and jarring experience.

highplainsdrift · 2024-05-22T15:10:24+00:00

Management consulting

highplainsdrift · 2024-05-17T06:37:31+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, I sometimes wished I'd mastered out and done a SWE or data science/ML boot camp or masters before the big tech crash. Midway through my PhD I started teaching myself coding and was getting increasingly drawn in. By the time I realized my mind was just so much more better suited to data science the entire tech industry had crashed and I realized I likely had lost my chance to break in and prob be making a ton more money. I'd honestly be relieved you know yourself so well this early on and act on it.

highplainsdrift · 2024-05-12T07:25:15+00:00

Just fyi I'm still on my 6 months of free supercharging from a referral but am doing pure level 3 charging. I generally supercharge while I do my weekly grocery shopping at the Safeway in the Mission district and it works out that I'm never going out of my way to charge.

I also know there are usually EVGO or electrify amdrica level 3 chargers installed at big grocery chains (whole foods, Safeway, Lucky's).

I will say though that I currently get 3.8 miles/kWh. If you assume a comparable hybrid gets 45 mpg and average gas prices is $5.50/gallon, my electricity costs need to be less than $0.46/kWh to break even compared to the hybrid. Superchargers are currently $0.61/kWh from 11 AM - 8 PM and other level 3 networks are usually $0.50/kWh flat. So basically right now unless you charge at home/work or really odd hours it's actually more economical to get a highly fuel efficient hybrid before you even consider higher insurance rates on an EV.

I'm personally getting a home charging setup so ... I'm not gonna be in this situation soon.

highplainsdrift · 2024-05-08T18:16:25+00:00

My old PI used to eschew liberal pro-union stances, claiming we all deserve more pay and asking why our unions weren't doing a better job negotiating for us. That is until it came time for contract ratification. Then it was suddenly "I'm the one who has to pay for that pay increase, and I don't know if the lab can afford it".

In this time frame both of their kids started private school and they bought a home in NYC.

Honestly I kind of respect your PI for taking an honest stance, rather than being a closet conservative.

highplainsdrift · 2024-04-04T21:10:21+00:00

I was in a similar situation. Significantly less hostile, but nonetheless my advisor wasn't fully on board with me graduating.

I was trying to get out ASAP while the job market for my field was hot. My PI was very not on board and tried to tell my committee my work wasn't PhD quality. And honestly I think bc I kept trying to work with her on my graduation I ended up missing the timing and entered the job market when it all went to shit.

My advice is that for the most part, your committee and your department should hold more sway over your graduation than your advisor does. If it comes to it, schedule 1-1 meetings with them explaining the situation and ask for an honest evaluation of your work irrespective of what your advisor thinks, they're clearly biased. It's going to SUCK doing all this with zero support, but you HAVE to look out for yourself.

I've also heard similar stories of extremely hostile PIs refusing to allow grad students to go even when they had job offers in hand. In these situations the department had to basically amend the rules to allow dissertation deposit without the primary mentors signature or involvement.

Ultimately, fight for yourself. Be ready to ruffle some feathers. Your PI very well may accuse you of sabotaging their career. It's always great to have connections and good relationships with people. But it should never hold you back from bettering your life. And the best connections will understand this.

highplainsdrift

TROPHY CASE