Thoughts and comments about doing a Ph.D. in Australia

I had written this back in late 2010 and saved it as a draft, then never got around to publishing it. Obviously, finishing a Ph.D. is a tough experience, and I wasn't sure if my comments were biased by that frustration or not. Now, in reviewing this post two years later, I still agree with the way I wrote it. Overseas students in Australia unfairly have many things stacked against them, and it's hard not to view those difficulties as purely coincidental. If Australia wants to truly move forward and be more innovative in science and technology, it needs to grease the wheels more for everyone instead of installing deliberate roadblocks.
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The international move combined with the final writing period for my thesis consumed a tremendous amount of time. We left Australia on 25 September 2010, and I spent most of October putting in 10-12 hours per day writing. Our stuff arrived from Australia in mid-November (winter clothes just in time for winter). My supervisor gave me his o.k. to get my thesis printed, so I really thought I was nearly done. Meanwhile, my co-supervisor wanted to review the thesis. I just got his comments back today, and it's been a bit of a let-down. So many of his comments leave the impression he did not even read the important theoretical chapter of the thesis--and then gave the comment that the theoretical chapter doesn't seem to fit. Many of my co-supervisor's comments contradict the past several months of revisions my primary supervisor and I had worked on.

Writing the thesis has been enormously frustrating. Every time I think I'm close to done, I get shot down. No big deal to my supervisors, I guess. It's only my life on hold, not theirs.

The entire PhD experience in Australia has been a tremendous let-down. There were so many points it's hard to know where to begin.

(1) Welcoming overseas students to the university: There was an official "welcome week" where overseas students have the chance to get details on local living. But if you miss this week due to delays in visa approval, then you are on your own.

(2) University housing is practically non-existent. What is available through universities is either sub-standard and over-priced, or decent by Western standard but horribly expensive. Everything else is all privately-owned apartments, and overseas students are not really given any guidance on how to handle the rental market. From the scholarship provided, about 90% of it would go to paying rent.

(3) Stacking on to point (2), there are typically few affordable places to live that are close to universities, so that means to make ends meet, students must live farther away. But public transport everywhere but in the largest cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and maybe Perth) is severely lacking. Therefore a student must have a car to get around.

(4) Overseas students do not get student concessions on public transport and must pay full price. This further encourages the purchase of a car.

(5) University parking is nearly non-existent. Thought university parking in North America was insufficient? Parking at the University of Wollongong was so bad even university employees would often find themselves unable to park. The official answer to this problem is that (inadequate) public transport is "encouraged," but of course that only applies to the peasants and not university management.

(6) Students are expected to complete an annual assessment. This is supposed to be an official document where issues affecting the student's work can be formally addressed. However, supervisors are not to be criticized, as such comments would be washed over and turned back onto the student.

(7) In my experience, I had two supervisors (one primary and one secondary). The primary supervisor was supposed to be the one who had final say on my work, but the secondary supervisor often contradicted this. Having two supervisors who could not agree on the direction my research was supposed to take really had a hindering effect on the success of my work and the timeliness of my completion. Additionally, these supervisors were split between two campuses, so I was left to fend for myself individually with each, rather than have them together in the same room during monthly meetings. (University parking contributed to this problem, as the primary supervisor would lose his parking spot and be unable to find another upon return from the meeting.)

(8) Actual supervision is practically non-existent. A supervisor can take 8 weeks per year off and be madly busy the 10 months actually on the job such that there is little time to mentor students. There is nothing in university policy that governs such absenteeism, and the students are expected to shoulder the entire burden and guidance of their research. Some students have a very clear picture of what they want to do. Others need more guidance, and absentee supervision fails them.

(9) Australian visa and immigration policy is nonsensically strict. Student visas are limited to a 3-year time period, with the possibility for one extension of 6 months. My extension visa specifically stated no further extensions would be granted. This meant I was up against a visa deadline to finish my work, rather than completing the project on its own. While I did manage to finish enough, there were some additional measurements that could have been done to enhance my thesis. This strictness unfairly punishes overseas students, while Australian students don't have this issue.

(10) The Australian work ethic amounts to extremes of laziness and the worst British or Soviet-style bureaucracy one could imagine. For example, at the University of Wollongong, the fabrication of keys (which are important for PhD students needing access to labs after-hours) is outsourced to a contractor. This arrangement would be fine except for the fact that the contractor does not follow a regular schedule. It might take a few weeks to make a set of keys or a few months -- it just depends on whatever the contractor feels like. With the strict deadlines imposed on overseas students, this kind of erratic schedule is unacceptable.

(11) University parking permits are a hassle to obtain for students. The process requires a form with a stated reason for why the parking permit is needed, and the supervisor and the dean must sign it. Surely the dean has more important things to do? And that's just for a lottery style-draw for a parking permit -- not a guarantee. If public transport was more robust, and overseas students weren't penalized to pay full fare, this issue would diminish significantly.

(12) Lab space and office space only gets allocated months after an overseas student arrives. Again, with the strict deadlines imposed on overseas students for visas and funding, this is unacceptable.

(13) There is a more severe shortage of post-doctoral opportunities in Australia than the rest of the world. So if you go to Australia for an advanced degree and want to immigrate there following graduation, then do not study science! Look at the Australian job market and see what jobs companies are  desperately hiring for, then study that skill at university. Even doing that, though, will not guarantee you an easy immigration experience. Unless you are very (VERY!) wealthy such that you can sponsor your own way in, you will likely need a corporate visa sponsor upon graduation. Most companies don't want to deal with the hassle of sponsorship, because it requires them to "certify" that they could not find an Australian with the same skills. Only universities truly do sponsorship routinely, but they use the "academic expert" trump card which is rarely questioned. Most new graduates are not thought of as academic experts in their fields.

So my advice for anyone wishing to pursue an advanced degree outside their home country would be to inquire from other former students who have studied in those countries as to how they can expect to be treated. Make sure to have a substantial amount of cash handy for unexpected expenses (something unexpected will happen requiring you to have such cash: a death in the family and you wish to fly home for the funeral; a medical emergency). Treat the experience as just another stepping stone in life and not a stopping point (as in immigration). That way, you are not deeply disappointed if you are forced to leave at the end.

What if we are the ones...?

Nearly all of my posts have been about details of my life since 2007. However, I intend to write about other stuff, too, now that many of the transitions into a respectable adulthood have passed. I often think of large-scale ideas, and rarely write them down. One such idea focuses on the current poor economy and the bleak forecast for the next decade or so.

To begin with, the overall social pendulum seems to be heading in the opposite direction now, towards greater uncertainties, risk, and upheaval. What I mean by this is compared with the "park yourself and prosper" approach to life in the past 75 years, the world population appears to be shifting to that of near constant migration. People who were born 50 or so years ago often did work hard for many of their achievements. But there were also many places where the path was made easy.

Houses used to cost only 2-3 times a person's annual salary. In Australia, the current average price of a house is about $500,000, and in Canada, it's about $250,000. Only in USA can a person buy a decent house for closer to $100,000 -- but that's only because the economy is especially bad in USA. Average middle class salaries are about $45,000 per year in Canada, $55,000 in Australia, and $37,000 in USA. So between these three countries, it is clear to see that someone earning a middle class income in Australia has no hope in ever outright owning a home. In Canada, house prices are about 5 times the middle class salary. So Baby Boomers were able to reach complete home ownership in much less time than people today.

Employment used to be done in a much more humane manner. Once you got a job, you didn't have to keep looking over your shoulder for the corporate ax. You could focus on doing your job well, and you could trust management to make the right decisions for the prosperity of the company and its employees. This brought about an economy where major purchases, such as a house or a car, were far less risky. People could work no more than 40 hours per week and expect that time away from work would always be theirs. Today, employment seems to have the impersonal characteristics of a livestock herd. When times get tight, the herd gets culled. The herd is grazing comfortably, when suddenly they are forced to move this way, then that way. Every minute is micro-managed. And if the owner of the herd wants to recklessly drive them all off a cliff, so what? The smarter members of the herd will choose to migrate to other companies, but the same pattern of micro-management and recklessness is quite pervasive. At some point, people just gamble and choose to stop moving around because constant moving is tiresome.

Education and health care were not priced to the edge of affordability. People didn't pay $100,000 for an undergraduate degree that ended up being worthless towards employment, nor did they walk out of a week's stay in a hospital with a bill for $100,000.

So what could these trends mean for people trying to establish themselves today? Certainly, a greater chunk of a person's life has to be dedicated to becoming established. One can no longer really be considered an adult at age 18, but rather more like age 28. If real adulthood no longer arrives until age 28, then that means stable relationships and home ownership also get delayed. More people are waiting until later in life to have children, and this choice is not out of vanity, but of economic necessity. Family stability simply isn't there unless job stability exists. These adverse social changes mean years of transience. At some point, society will simply be broken, and the transience will be nearly permanent over a lifetime for most people. Jobs will be limited, as will resources for self-sufficiency.

Where is this discussion going? As the title hints, I wonder when will this tipping point come, where it will be apparent that people find the road to becoming stably established blocked. The prosperity enjoyed by previous generations cannot continue forever, and this notion is supported by some thought experiments on the growth of energy consumption, which in turn fuels economic growth.

Therefore the question is what if we are the ones who will be the first to experience this severe downward shock of reduced prosperity? What will be the social consequences? What will be the psychological consequences once masses of people realize they are permanently stuck in a new peasant class, each day having been reduced to essential survival matters?

Here again after another long gap

Life has really turned around again since my last post. My thesis corrections were approved, and I got the hardbound copies printed and sent off. I was starting to get a little depressed at the lack of responses in my job search. Then, at the beginning of May, I found an ad for a start-up company that wanted someone with qualifications similar to mine. The job title said "vice president," though, so at first I was skeptical I would even be a contender since I have never held an executive position before. I convinced myself to apply, and that turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made! (Three interviews, a couple of them at a decent restaurant, and I got the job.)

After about 3 weeks of a verbal offer over the phone, I finally got the official offer letter, along with a full document package to take to immigration to get my work permit. THAT was an ordeal (details of which I won't post here), but I succeeded in getting the work permit. About this same time, we managed to find a nice house to rent near UWaterloo, where I would be working, and moved out of Michelle's parents' house (FINALLY!!!) late June.

Chloe has been growing up so fast. It's hard to believe she's not even 1.5 years old, yet. We got financial assistance from President's Choice charity and were able to purchase hearing aids for her. The benefit of these hearing aids has been remarkable. Michelle took a leave of absence from her job to stay at home with Chloe.

Unpacking has brought back many memories. There were boxes that hadn't been opened in 4 years. Straight away, we found plenty of stuff to get rid of, and we continue to try to keep our possessions as minimal as possible (our massive book collection is the only real indulgence). We've been at the new house for a month and we are still unpacking.

The job has been delightfully busy, and I'm happy to actually be drawing on all my skills and experiences each day. It has been well worth the effort to get a PhD to finally have a job where my skills are deemed important, and not trivialized like they constantly were in I.T. (And, yes, the PhD is official now...I graduated a week ago.)

Thesis approved!

Yesterday morning I got the email with the examiners' reports regarding my thesis, and it has been approved (with a few very minor revisions)! I would like to say I jumped for joy when I read the report, but because of all the emotional exhaustion over the past 6 months, I really didn't feel anything. I was fairly confident to begin with that the thesis would be approved (my supervisors would look bad if it wasn't), so in that respect, the report is what I expected, nothing more, nothing less.

I am glad the approval is official now, though, because that means I can get the revisions done, get the final hard-bound copies of the thesis printed, and graduate in July. From that point on, the Ph.D. experience will be behind me, and I can truly move on. (On a positive note, I emailed the professor for my most promising post-doc opportunity, and he replied back that he would let me know pretty soon what is going on with the funding.)

The revisions will only take me 2-3 hours, tops, and most of that will be spent making sure the formatting in Latex is appropriate. And I am looking forward to holding that final, hard-bound copy in my hands.