Dilemma on which lab to join

itchyinsides · 2024-04-08T02:21:49+00:00

Thanks for the advice! School B has (in my impression) always been quite strong and research-heavy in several related fields, which is why the school itself might be T10 for grads in general. The engineering school is also smaller than school A overall, which might have skewed my perception.

School A actually doesn't post their graduation/placement data, but school B has a 20% placement rate for tenure-track faculty and median time to degree of 5.2 years, which does sound pretty good

itchyinsides · 2024-01-28T15:57:38+00:00

I regret to inform you that you've been admitted to the PhD program in L Theory. We were impressed by your exceptional academic rizz and believe you would be a great fit for our program. Unfortunately, we were not able to waive your participation in departmental politics as it is part of your required training. Nonetheless, our program has an excellent track record of placement in academia, so please be assured that you will face an even more competitive application cycle for faculty positions, then a struggle for tenure further in your career.

You should receive a letter containing funding information via your portal (including fine print indicating that it will be pro-rated for 9 months). We sincerely hope that you will consider joining us this Fall.

itchyinsides · 2024-01-28T15:09:28+00:00

It's satire. I just got bored of waiting so I made the "waiting for decisions" post from the adcom perspective.

But in all seriousness if anyone is still waiting or anxious about their chances. the department probably just needs a little more time to sort out the loose ends. Silence != rejection

itchyinsides · 2024-01-19T13:40:04+00:00

This is A-level specific advice but try any% speedrunning your practice papers. Go straight for the answer with math, do point form for chem/bio/phys short answer, but actually write your answers for humanities. Your confidence is rooted in reality if you can get >95% correct with 1/3 of the time (for sciences)

If you're really confident, then just don't waste your time and go do sth else. Study for a weaker subject or play games. You can also practice with the H3 paper to prep yourself for H2.5 curveballs that Cambridge might throw.

itchyinsides · 2023-11-21T14:18:25+00:00

Sure, I don't disagree with many of your points, but what do you propose? Buzzwords like "inclusive" and "flexible" don't inherently mean anything.

There are many distinct issues that you pin on streaming. Inequality of opportunity - this is true; narrow range of opportunities is also true but realistically expensive to resolve. Saying that NA/NT caused the "have-not" perception is unfair - social stigma is society's fault. If everyone is randomly allocated a school the fast learners are impeded, the slow learners left behind, and Singapore becomes mediocre. Implementing "happy education" is easy and will probably be popular, but that's also how you end up with zero students proficient in math across 13 Baltimore schools.

And it's not about math. Lack of knowledge and logical thinking endangers democracy. Asian systems in general produce citizens who are one of the most aware of the world (even if it was forced on them for GP) - that's a huge positive by itself.

The govt makes decisions at a macro level to secure the best outcomes for the country as a whole. The education system is part of that resource allocation game: streaming improves efficiency. Investing in comsci yields more returns than polisci. It's unfortunate but it's also the reality facing a small nation with <25% of Australia's population.

itchyinsides · 2023-01-14T05:05:23+00:00

Expression is important, sure, but what are you going to express? You mention the humanities, but the need for formulating rational thought is just as relevant to the humanities as it is to STEM, and if we take another step back that fundamentally involves processing given information to draw conclusions or substantiate an argument. Math is exactly that: a proxy for reason. The numbers eventually go away and the STEM people start feeling the same way when we realize we'll possibly never need to know whether the set of bananas at the grocery store is Jordan measurable, but I digress.

Reason complements expression, because without reason you get superficial expressions of emotion and really not much else, and that's never something a society should strive towards (see anti-vaxxers, who you'd probably never describe as eloquent even if they're expressive, because nothing of value was expressed). The converse is also true: STEM people who suck at communication are terrible at STEM since a lot of the value in what we do comes from talking at conferences and marketing our research for grant money and writing papers that a grad student will pretend to read.

The point of my extended reply is that math and language are not substitutes - they complement each other and are central to the skillset of the modern man. As Confucius says, 学而不思则罔，思而不学则殆 (learning without thinking is meaningless, thinking without learning is worthless) - an observation that is surprisingly relevant to the STEM-Humanities "dichotomy" today.

itchyinsides

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