Do you want to be an academician?

A couple of years ago, I asked myself, "Do I want to work my way up?" or "Do I want to study my way up?". I chose the latter path so that I could avoid the typical corporate bullying and corporate politics.

If you choose to study your way up, this means you have to equip yourself with a postgraduate qualification, preferably a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy).

But of course, with so many profit-driven private colleges around, you don't need to have a PhD to be a lecturer. With just a master degree or just an undergraduate degree, you can already apply to be one and probably an underpaid lecturer. I can testify to that. So, with a PhD, you can only demand a better pay.

Being a compulsive learner with a passion for academic, becoming an academician is the right career choice for me, I believe.

Unfortunately in Malaysia, most of the academic institutions especially the private ones are profit-driven with no strong emphasis on research at all. Instead, all they care are student intakes, student intakes, and student intakes (I can testify to that as well). On the other hand, the public institutions of higher learning are government institutions and that means, I as a non-bumiputera will have great difficulties to be employed by them, even if I were to have a PhD one day (I have acquaintances with PhD who can testify to this). Well, what to do? That is why we have brain drains in Malaysia.

So, how well academicians are paid in Malaysia? Let us take a look at USM. I got this information from their ad.

Professor = RM10,885.75 to RM12,422.50 per month
Associate Professor = RM5,910.42 to RM7,610.50 per month
Senior Lecturer = RM5,276.92 to RM6,899.50 per month
Lecturer = RM3,073.50 to RM5,969.42 per month

Hmmm...not bad, eh.

Once you are armed with a PhD and depending on your experience, you either start your way up from the Lecturer position or the Senior Lecturer position. As an academician, your KPI will be heavily based on your research publications on peer-reviewed journals. It is the usual practice that academicians are hired on a three-year contract basis and you are required to publish your research articles consistently or else you will be shown the door.

One professor once mentioned that the reason why he chose to be an academician is because it is the closest to being self-employed. That can be quite true.

So, do you want to be an academician?