- #1
ApeXaviour
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I'll be graduating with a physics degree here in http://www.tcd.ie/" in Dublin in mid 2007 and am heavily considering doing graduate research in east asia. My first choice would be Japan but I'd equivalently consider going to korea or china. However I'm utterly unfamiliar with their system of operation.
In Irish universities, research profs would tend to put up their graduate places on the web, or give brief presentations about them (or sometimes you have to actually approach them to find out). So you'd get in contact with them with grades, resumé etc. And they'd get back to you and let you know if they're interested. The places would either be funded or non-funded. If non-funded you generally have to apply for funding (rarely if ever do people privately finance their own research afaik). Funding would include a salary of usually 12,000 - 16,000euro per annum. Application is initially for a research masters (of 1.5yr length) but 90% of the time this is continued/converted into a PhD (usually 4 year length including masters) so the masters application is mostly considered just a formality.
Now my grades are not amazing. But they'd certainly be good enough for me to get a funded research PhD over here in a leading irish physics/materialscience department in a university. I'd be interested in specialising in solid-state/materials/nanoscience or maybe even optics so I'm not that picky.
So down to the questions :):
-Application: What's the modus operandi? I can find little in the way of advertised places on any of japan's university websites I've looked at. So would it require emailing dozens of profs? Would writing them in english be considered impolite?
-Language: I'm often told "The language of the lab is english". I've heard of people needing JPLT levels for taught graduate courses. Would that necessarily be the case for research? I only currently have very minimal conversational japanese but would be extremely eager to learn it if I knew I was heading over.
-Funding: Is the system there similar as it is to here? I would need to be mostly self-sustaining (i.e. a salary).
Thanks if anyone can fill me in on even any of my questions.
Cheers
-Dec
In Irish universities, research profs would tend to put up their graduate places on the web, or give brief presentations about them (or sometimes you have to actually approach them to find out). So you'd get in contact with them with grades, resumé etc. And they'd get back to you and let you know if they're interested. The places would either be funded or non-funded. If non-funded you generally have to apply for funding (rarely if ever do people privately finance their own research afaik). Funding would include a salary of usually 12,000 - 16,000euro per annum. Application is initially for a research masters (of 1.5yr length) but 90% of the time this is continued/converted into a PhD (usually 4 year length including masters) so the masters application is mostly considered just a formality.
Now my grades are not amazing. But they'd certainly be good enough for me to get a funded research PhD over here in a leading irish physics/materialscience department in a university. I'd be interested in specialising in solid-state/materials/nanoscience or maybe even optics so I'm not that picky.
So down to the questions :):
-Application: What's the modus operandi? I can find little in the way of advertised places on any of japan's university websites I've looked at. So would it require emailing dozens of profs? Would writing them in english be considered impolite?
-Language: I'm often told "The language of the lab is english". I've heard of people needing JPLT levels for taught graduate courses. Would that necessarily be the case for research? I only currently have very minimal conversational japanese but would be extremely eager to learn it if I knew I was heading over.
-Funding: Is the system there similar as it is to here? I would need to be mostly self-sustaining (i.e. a salary).
Thanks if anyone can fill me in on even any of my questions.
Cheers
-Dec
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