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?

Is WOU's CEMBA recognised overseas or not?

Is Wawasan Open University's Commonwealth Executive Master of Business Administration (CEMBA) recognised overseas or not?

The above question is very misleading. Allow me to clear this up.

1. An MBA is not a professional degree. It is an academic degree.

So, there is no such issue as whether Singapore, Australia, US or whatever countries will recognise it or not. It is because an MBA is not a professional degree. There are no professional bodies like a professional accounting body or a professional engineering body to validate certain degrees from certain universities from certain countries.

In fact, even ACCA allows everyone to study ACCA regardless of you having a degree or not. If you have a degree and upon inspection of the syllabus of your degree, then you might be given exemptions by ACCA.

2. MBA is usually taken by those wishing to advance their career in the corporate sector.

No matter where you work, no employers will outright reject you just because your MBA is from WOU. WOU is an accredited university in Malaysia, so why would anyone wants to reject WOU?

As long as you don't BUY your degrees from some Internet sites representing some non-existing universities, your degree is accepted whether it is from WOU, USM, UM, UKM, UPM, Limkokwing, Multimedia, Uniten, etc.

But of course, some employers may prefer to hire candidates who graduated from a certain top ranking university but this is a totally different issue. This is just their recruitment criteria. This is not a recognition issue, definitely.

3. There are also people who studied MBA as a stepping stone to pursue their PhD provided the MBA has a research project component.

This is my personal opinion. I have friends who have studied coursework Masters (even from overseas universities) that do not contain any research project components. If they wish to continue their studies to a doctoral level, then I believe they would face problem in conducting a doctoral research.

If that's the case, the university may require these students/candidates to do a MPhil (Master of Philosophy) or an Honours degree programme as a prerequisite to their PhD research. Then, they would have to spend probably a year or two years before they can begin their PhD research.

Again, this does not mean that a university does not recognise your Master. You are still allowed to continue your studies provided you complete their prerequisite course first. To be safe, study for one which contain a research project component

4. In my opinion, an MBA with a research component is much better compared to an MBA without a research component. WOU's MBA has a research project component.

In my opinion, the WOU's MBA should be good because there is a research component in the syllabus which requires you to do a research project using either a quantitative method or a qualitative method. This would prepare you well for a more thorough and comprehensive doctoral research.

MBA recognised or not recognised. Let me clear this up.

I think one common question that everyone would like to know is whether Wawasan Open University's (WOU) MBA is recognised in other countries or not.

For example, someone asked "Is WOU Commonwealth Executive Master of Business Administration (CeMBA) recognised in Singapore"?

And a lawyer (I don't know this lawyer, thankfully) once gave a statement, "Why study in WOU when the courses are not recognised overseas"

I don't mean to be rude but the above picture exactly depicts what I felt on hearing especially that statement by the lawyer. I find it funny that the ignorant lawyer could say such thing when he himself cannot practise law outside Malaysia.

Let me clear all this confusion.

First to the question on whether WOU's MBA is recognised overseas or not. Seriously, I don't know how to answer this. If you asked this question, does this mean that if you have an MBA from WOU, no employers would hire you just because your MBA is from WOU? Don't you think that's nonsense?

Also, I have heard people saying that Malaysian's public universities degrees are not recognised in Singapore. What nonsense. So again, if you graduated from a public university from Malaysia, no employers would hire you just because your degree is from a Malaysian public university? That's nonsense, don't you think so?

I will drone on this misconception in a new post above.

CEMBA has finally been accredited. Yay!

The Commonwealth Executive Master of Business Administration (CEMBA) offered by Wawasan Open University (WOU) has finally been accredited by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA). You can read the news here from TheStar.

The course is given the accreditation after the first batch have graduated. I was told that this is one of the requirements set by MQA that the first batch have to complete the entire course before it can be accredited.

The WOU's MBA was already given recognition by the MQA and the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) three years ago. It is only a matter of time before it is to be accredited. So, the day has finally arrived.

In Malaysia, a program has to be given recognition first by the MQA before a private college/university could run that program. Once it has been given recognition, the private college/university could then start offering that program to students. After the first batch of students have graduated, the private college/university could then apply for accreditation from MQA.

This is definitely the selling point for WOU's MBA because there are so many MBAs out there offered by various colleges where the MBA are not even recognised by MQA.

The only biggest competitor for WOU's MBA in Penang is definitely USM's MBA. The Penang branch of Open University Malaysia (OUM) offers an MBA as well. But somehow I wonder why OUM does not do much promotion on its MBA.

Of course there are other MBAs being offered by various colleges in Penang. But I doubt those MBAs are recognised by MQA.

I was told by a lecturer that some courses (especially the executive diploma courses) being offered by a certain public university are not recognised by MQA! I was surprised. So, please do not think that all courses being offered by a public university are recognised by MQA. The one you should be wary of are those executive diploma courses.

Why do I study so much?

A friend once asked me why do I have to study so much?

She told me her husband don't even have a degree and yet he could earn so much. Well, he's a businessman obviously.

I replied her saying that I'm pursuing an academic career and that means I have to study my way up. And yes, I plan to start my PhD research next year.

Anyway, her question made me ponder something about society today. Does this mean that education is no longer important? And it's all about money?

Now I see it. No wonder kids today lack manners. No wonder today the F-word seems to be the norm even among fellow bloggers. No wonder today Ah Beng and Ah Lian generation seems to be on the rise.

Another friend of mine once saw someone drove a Mercedez into a mechanic workshop. My friend was pretty impressed with the car. He was curious to see who was the driver. The driver soon stepped out from the car. And when the driver starts talking on his handphone, vulgar words were the only words that came out from that Ah Beng.

So what do we have here. Yes, he may be making a lot of money but he has no education. So what moral values these Ah Bengs are going to teach their kids? Nothing. It is because you can make a lot of money without proper education.

So what will happened when their child misbehaved in school and get caned by a discipline teacher? The parents will rush to the school demanding an apology from that teacher. That's what happening now. Not surprising. The parents already cannot see what is right and what is wrong, so how can their kids do the same.

So, now I see it. Just walk around shopping malls and you will see kids with nasty manners. Thanks to their Ah Beng parents.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

I love sketching since I was small (about 4 or 5 years old)! I would sketch on anything where one could sensibly sketch on such as blank papers, exercise books, cupboards, walls, doors...yes, that's what I'm talking about. Something sensible to sketch on. I would just draw anything. And all I like to do is drawing! So, I wanted to be an artist!

When I was in primary school, I upgraded my drawing skill to some designing skill. I like designing buildings. I remembered back in 1991, I drew up a plan of a twin tower with a bridge connecting the two towers. That was many years wayyy back before the Petronas Twin Tower plan was revealed to the public. My idea was stolen!!

Anyway, I enjoyed looking at pictures of hotels with fancy architectural design and I would like to improvise on the design of the hotels. I was especially impressed with the architectural design of Marina Mandarin Hotel in Singapore at that time. So, I wanted to be an architect!

From buildings, I expanded my design skills to toys, cars, and video games. I was obsessed with Transformers at a particular time and I would design new characters I could think of for Transformers. Yes, I also like to conceptualise new design for cars. So, I wanted to be a designer!

Then came secondary school and I have to put aside my favourite hobby for more serious time of studying. I did put full use of my talent on my Art Education from Form 1 to Form 3. By that time, I wanted to be graphic designer after knowing that there is such occupation.

When I was in Form 4, I chose to go the arts stream since I loveeee art. Many people were shocked over my decision as they expect me to choose the science stream. Well, it is a decision that I never regret. Somehow, by now, I began to think pragmatically and I aimed to be an accountant.

But when I was in Form 5, I was told about the advertising industry, for which I have never heard of until that day. So, I wanted to be an advertising creative director! I'd love to design advertisements for everyone to see!

Somehow after SPM, I studied accountancy. It is something that I am not really passionate about. However, I had to pursue accountancy because a design course fees is really really expensive such as in Limkokwing or in The One Academy compared to an accountancy course.

Now, finally after all these years, I have found another field which I am passionate about. The academic research field! So now, I wanted to be an academic researcher!

Would you like to share yours?

Mischievous students

When I was teaching in College XXX (a college where rich spoilt kids like to go), I saw unimaginable things that I thought it only happened in schools.

There was a case where someone or a group of mischievous students threw down wet tissue papers down on someone's car. I'm talking about lots and lots and lots of wet tissue papers. The entire windscreen of that poor fella's car was covered with wet tissue papers. LoL... Well, the victim was a girl. Eyewitnesses claimed that the wet tissue papers were thrown down from a few storeys above.

The parents of that student came to the college to complain to the principal.

With help from eyewitnesses, the college's management staff managed to identify the classroom from where it was thrown. Based on the time and classroom number, the management staff knew the students (of a particular semester of a particular course) who did it, but they are unable to pinpoint exactly who did it. So, case closed.

Eventually, I found out that the students who were in that class at that particular time were my students! I'm not surprise at all. Rich spoilt kids.

There was another incident where someone threw an ice cream with a cone down on someone's car. Could it be the same culprit? Perhaps. I didn't know much about this case because it happened before I joined the college.

College XXX....what a college!

Why do we study? We study for ourself or for our parents?

That's the question one of my ex-student posed in his facebook account a few months ago.

I feel like slapping myself in the head when I saw that post. Don't you too?

I used to teach in a particular college and I find some of the students there don't deserve to be there. They are in the college just because there parents want them to be there. Some of them are so rich that they do not know the reason why education is important. They just don't seem to be interested in their studies.

There are unfortunate people around who want to further their studies but do not have enough money to study. It is sad to see that there are rich students who don't appreciate that they have a chance to study but yet don't make good use of that opportunity.

I used to teach in two different colleges. One college is like a budget college meant for the poor and the other college which I recently joined is a 'luxury' college where there are a lot of rich students in it. And yes I saw a big difference between the students in these two colleges. The rich students lack discipline and have no interest on their studies. Some of them played with their handphones in the class, some of them didn't even bring their notes/textbooks to class, and some didn't even bother to hand in their assignments.

I don't see such students when I was teaching in the so called budget college. They are very disciplined and studious and I respect those students.

Internal Control

I am writing this due to a personal request from S. It was a request asking me to help out on the Internal Control assessment. Since I can help, I will try to help. No beans will be spilled out though.

Okayyy, here goes. I will only share with you the weaknesses. The recommendations that you should implement, you got to figure out yourself. Instead of just telling you what are the weaknesses, I will pose questions to you instead.

1. All computer personnel were trained in system design, operation and programming. Don't you think they will know too much if they were trained on everything?

2. Again, there is one specific employee who could run the program and make changes. Would you let someone do everything? Don't you think that will lead to something bad? He can easily make any changes he wants, don't you think so?

3. No records are kept? What do you think? I'm sure your mom would always tell you to keep all receipts on any daily transactions, even if you buy a bread.

4. Every staff has access? Would you give your house keys to everyone you know?

5. Backup files kept in an unlocked cupboard? Mom always said never leave the house without locking the door! In addition, what kind of cupboard? A plastic cupboard that anyone can break it apart easily? Would a bank store their money in a plastic cupboard?

6. No computer checks? What if there is no spelling check on Microsoft Word? That's a nightmare! Go read your textbook from page 238-243. There are so many types of control in an IT environment. With so many types of control, there will be so many weaknesses in this particular area. Go figure.

That's all folks. You should thank S.

Bachelor of Science

Woooopiiiieeeeeee! That's exactly what I exclaimed after receiving an email telling me that I have been awarded the Bachelor of Science.

Ahem....ahem! My name is Gabriel Gim, BSc.

After 3 months of hardwork and lack of sleep, I got what I have put in tirelessly. A degree! The 3 months of research I have been through is one of the most enjoyable experience I have ever had. Full of agony, satisfaction, frustration, and networking! It is indeed invaluable!

Now I'm just waiting for the postman to give me the certificate. Waiting, waiting....grin!