Doing a PhD in China – the financial side (questions)

[山东朱]

What renzhe describes the situation pretty accurately. Most universities don‘t require coursework, the quality of your doctoral thesis is what counts. You don't even have to enroll most of the time, so it's free, unless of course you want the student benefits, e.g. public traffic pass. Basic tuition in state universities, where around 99% of students are actually enrolled, has never reached 800 Euros, and has mostly been taken back to around 200-300 Euros in most states.

 

After a series of scandals with plagiariazed doctoral thesises from a number of high-ranking politician, including Guttenberg and Schavan who were part of the Merkel administration. Especially conservative politicians love to get a doctorate just for the title, most of their works though involve no real research and still manage to get great grades. I hope by now universities are back into stricter quality management in their evaluation, at least thats what is supposed to happen.

 

Scholarships are of course pretty important as part of your CV, so after finding a doctoral advisor, getting at least one will be a necessary next step.

[OneEye]

The other side to what I posted earlier is that in the west, the language proficiency bar is set low. I know a guy who finished his PhD in Germany last year who can't read a paper in his field in Chinese. His research topic was drama written during a certain dynasty (don't want to get too specific), and he could read his primary sources fairly well, but has no idea about the current scholarship on his topic in any language other than German and English. Needless to say, he's having a hard time finding a job now.

 

Another friend made it all the way past his qualifying exams at a major research university in the US (actually, one of the top 10 worldwide), again, without being able to get through a paper in Chinese. He thinks he can ("I can get through it as long as I have a dictionary"), but experience has shown that he's not comprehending it as well as he thinks. He's now having to spend a year studying Chinese intensively in-country, so that afterwards he can actually get started on his dissertation research. I couldn't imagine trying to do PhD work in Sinology without being able to read Chinese, or trying to select a dissertation topic without knowing what's being said about it in the countries where the most scholarship on it is being published. He'll probably have to study in Japan too, because the Japanese have published a ton in his field. So that will be at least two years away from his dissertation topic just to get his language skills up to par to be able to do the research. That's expensive, and getting funding for that kind of thing is not easy.

 

I know plenty of other examples. I also know of people who have taken the time to live in country for a few years and develop their language skills, some even doing MAs, before starting PhD work. Their course is much smoother sailing, as you can imagine. So I would really encourage anyone wanting to do a PhD in any aspect of Chinese studies to live in China or Taiwan for a few years. Spend a few in Japan, too, if you can and your field requires Japanese. I moved here thinking I'd spend an academic year here and then be ready to go back, but I soon discovered how wrong I was about that. If I'm able to, I'll be moving to Japan next year to study there. That will be 3 years in Taiwan and 2 in Japan, and it will probably shave 2-3 years off the time it takes me to finish my PhD, make the process much smoother, and allow me to do better research in the process, so it will have been well worth it, IMO.

 

I really think too many people see "getting a PhD" as the finish line. This causes them to think of things like "passing the minimum requirements." If they thought of their future career as the goal instead, I think a lot of this kind of thing would be blindingly obvious. If the goal is getting the best job you can, then you realize that in everything you do up until that point, you need to do the best you possibly can. If you want that job, it's to your advantage do your dissertation under the most respected person in your field that you can manage. In order to do that, you have to actually get in to that program. To increase your chances of getting in, don't you think having unusually good language skills and a solid knowledge of your field compared to other applicants would be beneficial beforehand? And since as many as 50% of graduate students never finish their PhD, don't you think it's worth spending some time up front to minimize the number of potential sticking points? And since the very best programs are all funded, it pays well to think in terms of applying for a job. A tuition waiver plus ~$20,000 per year means you need to convince the department that you're worth $50,000 or more annually. I have friends who have visited campuses looking sloppy and unkempt (students, right?) with no clear idea of what they want to do in graduate school, and then were surprised when the department told them not to bother. Present yourself like a professional, take yourself seriously, and then maybe others will treat you the same. Nobody is impressed with someone who's "passionate about Sinology" but has no idea what he wants to do, and they're sure not going to pay you 50,000 per year to come to their school and "discover" what you want to do, unless you have some pretty impressive qualifications otherwise. (That's not directed at anyone in this thread, just some general thoughts)

 

Anyway, there's my rant. I may or may not be right about all this, but it's sure how I see things from outside the PhD world.

[山东朱]

OneEye, I am glad on the insight that you are offering, and indeed, that was one thing that scared me away a bit from German universities, or Western ones in general - the rather low Chinese proficiency. I have met quite a number of people who studied Sinology and have exactly the deficiancies you are describing - though they didn't have a PhD, but rather Bachelors and Masters. Still, the same applies to some PhDs, and is an openly admitted problem. One or two semesters of exchange in Beijing, Shanghai or Taibei just doesnt cut it, but alas, this is what alot of people do have as a "China experience" while studying for five or more years in the field.

 

Another aspect of this all: it is not your degree that counts, but rather what you make of it. I know a number of Germans who did a Masters in Sinology who work as German teachers for years, and I have recently received an application from a teacher who has a doctorate in classical chinese literature from a first-rate university in Germany. Well, the application is for a third-rate language college where the income is less than 5.000 yuan.

 

I will still, even after choosing a German university, continue to live here and in the process of doing research engage with the language on a deeper, academic level. Anything less I would see as unexaptable towards myself, since mastering Chinese is one of my goals in that process, and not impossible, but just requires time and interest. And while not doing full-time studies at a chinese university, doing the doctorate in a field related to China will allow me to spend at least some time at one of the universities that I was planning on applying to here on the Mainland.