11/12/2020
My critiques on Taiwanese PhD student's professionalism, or not.
PhD is not for everyone. If you don't like it, get out and have a better life.
WHAT DO U EXPECT? Just "洗學歷", answered by Taiwanese postgraduate students. (Re: my good friend Prof. Chun-che Chang's FB posting of his Opinion piece in United Daily [see image below])
I, however, am not going to be so gentle in responding to CCC's posting. Here is my 2nd response:
Look, I am going to be a lot more straightforward; call that American straight-shooter style, if you will (because I taught at Ohio State for nearly two decades).
IMHO, Taiwanese students need not to be reminded of this common sense. If it comes to the point that a professor needs to write an opinion piece to remind students not to do that, the crisis has long entrenched in the system and the sign of the Taiwanese higher education decay has already been written on the wall.
I think Taiwanese grad students must never be treated like kids. I would flatly refuse to do so. In fact, I pointedly told students that if one is not even aware of the fact that one is over age 20, and still does not have a sense of professionalism, then one should NOT be here in the first place.
In short, (not saying out loud, though, but in my heart) "go f### yourself and I predict your life shall be even more miserable down the road, if you refuse to change your mentality and do the right things".
I strongly believe students must be told the reality from the very beginning, in a straightforward and well-balanced manner, instead of the sugar-coating fairytales. I refuse to spend time and effort training this type of people. In fact, they should be asked to drop the hell out of graduate school. I did exactly that at Ohio State and was highly praised my departmental colleagues. See we jointly refuse to babysit graduate students and they understand (there IS the difference!!)
Why? University/College and post-graduate education are NOT a JOB. The mandatory education ends at high school, period. From that on, the higher the education goes, the higher the demand of professionalism and total commitment is rightly expected. NO WAY, JOSE! Don't you want to have the cake and eat it too.
