Alhamdulillah… all praises to Allah…
You can see the commencement process of my graduation ceremony in this video. It’s funny, they missed my certificate (gift), but the dean help me quickly (right side). Don’t judge the fate, everything has a meaning, because of this, I got photo twice with president (left side). Thank you, alhamdulillah… 😀
I also take photo with my lab mates who graduate with me this year. It’s look happy, right? Sure, it’s because we happy on this moment only. But, we spend a lot of time for crying and struggling about our remaining scholarship money study.
Somehow, if you think that Ph.D is easy, you can try by yourself. It is because the graduation requirements of Ph.D in here is high but I think is reasonable to make you a real researcher with many academic skills after graduation. I need to pass several oral defenses, complete courses, experiments, and publish at least 2 articles in high impact SCI/SSCI journals within 4-years, which is covered by the scholarships. Thank you, my advisor and NCU! (click the link to read)
However, the problem is, we don’t know when we can got accepted letter and then publish our article/manuscript in SCI/SSCI journal, since it has high difficulty and unpredictable for each journal. You upload the article/manuscript right now, maybe it takes several round of the revisions or maybe you need to wait until 3 months? 6 months? more than 1 year? Yes, I also have experiences to wait more than 1 year only to got the rejected letter from a girl editor journal. Sad? No, it’s a process to become skillful researchers. Oh yaa… It’s just for one publication, how about if the requirement at least need 2 publications? Hence, I suggest to you, don’t ask to PhD student about their graduation time, it’s difficult to say 4 years or more, but how much? No one can answer, just give them encourage and pray to finish their PhD program.
Hence, you cannot compare graduation process for Ph.D program with different university or country or department. They have different graduation requirements. Maybe more easy, maybe more difficult. It’s depend many factors. In my case I need to pass several steps (this steps only for exam, there are a lot things I need to doooooooohhhhhh), such as:
- Qualification exam 1: Oral presentation with the committee members are all professors in my department.
- Qualification exam 2: Oral presentation with the committee members are all professors in my department.
- Proposal exam: Proposal manuscript and oral presentation with the committee members from internal and external. In my case, I’m with several professors and a dean as my committee members.
- Publications checking: The internal committee will check my published SCI/SSCI paper, wether it’s aligned with graduation criteria or not.
- Pre-Oral Defense: Dissertation manuscript and oral presentation with the committee members from internal and external. In my case, I’m with a president, a vice president, a dean, a chair and two experts as my committee members. It’s looks like a whole university asking me a lot of questions.
- Final Oral Defense: Dissertation manuscript and oral presentation with the committee members from internal and external. In my case, I’m with two dean and several experts who in charge as editor journal. It’s looks like many reviewers asking me a lot questions.
Hence, I think you can see clearly that the quality of the PhD from their publication, how many their publish articles, where their article/journals, and how impactful their articles in this society, particularly for academic society. This is why maybe is more easy to call them as PhD.SCI/SSCI. I respect a lot for anyone who struggling to publish in SCI/SSCI journal. You can do it! Jiayou!!!
In the end, how to become PhD? my answer is MONEY TRY, CRY, PRAY, and LOVELY ENJOY. Is it EASY, right?
Thank you for my advisor, collaborators, and all friends who always help me a lot during my study, and also thank you for my relatives family in Taiwan and my family in Indonesia as well who always support me. It’s time go back to reality and contribute to society and family. 😀
I’m nothing without you. Yes… it’s you…