Non-teaching jobs, STEM.

[Angelina]

But do bear in mind that coming BACK is an issue for everyone

 

 

come back where?

[NotChinese]

 

 

In computing (if that's what you want to get into) there are some really great people in Taiwan. There's a machine learning guy at Tai Da (forgot his name but you can find him) who's quite famous (enough so that I've forgotten his name!). ML initially uses lots of the linear algebra you'll have done in first year. Matlab will be a nice bridge to that. But do bear in mind that coming BACK is an issue for everyone. Perhaps in future it will be less and less though, as business moves Eastwards.

 

Heh, theoretical physics has had me linear algebra'd up to my eyeballs since the start.

 

When you say 'coming back', I take it you mean if I want to return to the UK?

 

I'm not sure how anything can ever be a step back, unless a person makes one of two big mistakes that are often made: 1. Teach English in China unqualified so they return home with zero measurable 'worth' in the teaching profession (known lovingly as "flip flopping", apparently - hopping all over Asia on the English teaching circuit), or 2. Make money by dealing drugs in China for almost ten years so when they get busted or go home they are again going home with zero. (Yes I really did hear about someone doing this - to leave China on his vastly expired visa he had to cross into Laos on foot to get out. What a knob  )

 

 

 

Taiwan

 

Strangely, I tend to overlook Taiwan when I consider China as a place. Not that I have an opinion either way regarding the independence arguments that seem to fly around, or anything like that. I guess I'm just more of a 'mainland' guy. Never been drawn to islands, as utterly absurd as that sounds.

 

 

 

 machine learning

 

I've never really known much about machine learning, but there's no reason for me to not see what it's all about.

 

Just going to get my head down and learn all the relevant programming I can, I think. Though this is more of a plan for life in general, not just the specifics of getting into China!

 

For China entry, I think the main options will be what's already been discussed:

 

1. Work in the UK, get experience and glue myself to the China job hunt circuit 

2. Masters study, ideally going for the scholarship route

 

Feeling quite drawn to "option 2" at the moment. Another bonus I've realised is that it's actually possible to work on a student visa to some extent. It might be region specific. When at Sichuan University the Chengdu chief of police came and told us we could do part time work as long as we ran it by the uni first. So for example if I took a masters at 川大 I could even start looking for part time work in a relevant area, or do 'volunteering' or whatever it's called when a student willingly works for free at an organisation in order to get essential experience.

[thechamp]

You could probably get on a CS MSc in China somewhere good like Chuan Da with just an HSK 4....and all the learning material is in English anyway.

 

I have a friend in Sichuan actually who used to work in IT for a company with several chemicals factories in Sichuan (in Luzhou). He makes games with C# too!

 

I can put you in touch if you go there. He's very nice.

[Angelina]

There is this one professor from Chuan Da who works on stochastic processes. I will look him up too. 

[NotChinese]

Just had a peek on The Chuan Da website. They ask for HSK6.

 

The weird thing here is that the requirements say HKS6, but, when I was there, the masters scholarship students who couldn't speak a word of Chinese were all expected to do one year of preliminary study and pass HSK 4 before starting the masters (none of them passed it either!).

 

So the website says HKS 6, but experience tells me HSK 4, and the sub-par students still were allowed to continue on as well 

 

Anyway I've just realised another massive spanner in the works regarding this option. My current degree is actually an 'integrated masters' which basically means I do my bachelors then it rolls straight onto a masters at this same uni. All the paperwork's done and as far as anyone's concerned I'm here to the bitter end. It's possible with a bit of rigmarole to drop out after 3rd year and be awarded a plain bachelor's, but it would come across as surprising/rude/mutinous if I turn up and start asking for references, academic transcripts and the likes in order to do a masters elsewhere! Only excuse I could give is that China's courses are cheaper. One bonus of universities turning themselves into businesses. I'm a "paying customer" now...

 

Just discovered "CUCAS" and "SICAS", both English websites with comprehensive lists of all university courses in China, including course duration, tuition language, costs, etc. Useful..! Even more amazing is I signed up to SICAS and immediately received a whatsapp message from a personal adviser I've had assigned to me. China, once again you're doing it right. Heh.

 

Anyway, I'll mull all this over and give it serious thought sometime soon.

 

Fantastic replies and advice, thanks guys 

[thechamp]

Hmmm, from what I remember HSK 5 was enough to even do a humanities degree let alone a science one, which was 4.

 

Perhaps they're getting better candidates these days so can ask for higher grades in the exams. You could almost certainly go from 4 to 6 in a year of study especially if it was HSK directed study.

 

Try to get an internship one Summer doing some programming and your computational physics modules plus that experience would be pretty good.

 

I'd think pretty serious about a long time in China that will take you into early 30s.

 

But....'Any experiment of interest in life will be carried out at your own expense' (John Wilmot)

[NotChinese]

 

 

Try to get an internship one Summer doing some programming

 

Yep, this is probably going to be my aim this summer regardless of what the next steps are.

 

 

 

I'd think pretty serious about a long time in China that will take you into early 30s.

 

I'm interested in why you think time in China is such an ultimately bad thing if someone does it for a long time or in days beyond their youth?

 

 

 

Aside from all this... A new thread I've just seen relating to masters/PhDs in China... hmmmmm: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/52626-pursuing-masters-degree-or-phd-in-china-is-it-too-hard/

 

So if I were to do it, it would purely be a way of having my feet literally 'on the ground' in China to better start looking for opportunities, rather than for quality education, it seems. Possibly not a great thing to throw 2 or 3 years at...

[thechamp]

'FILTH' stigma basically.

 

Have you heard the phrase 'Failed In London Try Hong kong'? It's a bit more 80s/90s but a lot of people still have that mindset. There's also the fact that in Technology etc innovation tends to clump in very few places. California, Cambridge, Boston, Germany etc.....not so much China (except Shenzhen maybe). Although I guess they've got a lot in Chengdu.

 

I dunno, it's something you should probably take into consideration. I know A LOT of people who've moved back from Hong Kong and tried to get a professional job.

 

At the same time I worked with an electrical engineer recently who lived in Shenzhen for years in the early 2000s and it's not harmed his career at all, but EEs are in demand everywhere, really.

 

I also want to move back to China or Taiwan at some point, but I'm giving it a few years where I am now, and then will either make the jump or start a family here in the UK.....so I've also spent a lot of time thinking about this question! 

[Angelina]

I saw a new poster for 爱奇艺 today.

 

I can share job ads with you if you want and you can try to apply online. The problem is that in China this is done through campus recruitment and if you are not a student you can't participate. BTW you should be interested in your studies if you want to try. Not sure if extrinsic motivation, getting a degree because of the job opportunities available, is a good idea. 

 

http://campus.chinahr.com/2017/aiqiyi/index.html

[NotChinese]

Heh, yeah I've heard the term "FILTH". I thought it was more relating to the high-flying business/banking "Wolf of Wall Street" wannabes though?

 

Either way, times change. Japanese motorbikes were mocked and nicknamed as 'rice burners' when they first entered the international market, yet now all we ride is Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha etc... 

 

I can only see things improving for China in a similar way. They'll be forced to catch up on the quality/standards front as their wages rise and their manufacturing/labour starts to compete more with better quality nations anyway.

 

People talk of the country being on a crash-and-burn route with overspend on housing and infrastructure etc... but I'm not so sure how relevant this is, given the hard facts:

 

 

 

In the end I think I'd rather be a... a DREWTCH: Didn't rate England; Went to China. Heh.

 

 

 

 BTW you should be interested in your studies if you want to try. Not sure if extrinsic motivation, getting a degree because of the job opportunities available, is a good idea.

 

In this day and age I honestly think the huge majority of people only go through university to open doors for themselves.

 

I certainly did it for that reason. Well, a mixture. Firstly because I was at a bit of a loose end and not at all qualified to do anything other than stack shelves, and secondly because I thought it might be interesting to see what the world of theoretical physics was all about. 50% learning for the joy of learning, 50% broadening horizons. It seems I've quite well managed both so far - I know advanced quantum mechanics, for example, and somehow learned Chinese along the way, amongst other things e.g. programming, fluid dynamics etc. So that's 50% interesting-but-overly-specific science knowledge, 50% horizons nicely broadened. 

 

I mean it's quite possible to be interested in studies and use those studies as a means to finding better employment.

 

However the masters route makes it questionable. I've always thought masters and beyond are a little bit too specific, so if I do study a masters it'll be in something with real world applications. The computer science suggestion sounds quite interesting to me. In fact even if I stay here in Leeds I may consider seeing if I can change the masters from theoretical physics to computer science. 

[imron]

not so much China (except Shenzhen maybe)

Beijing and in particular Tsinghua University actually has a good reputation for software.  A lot of big Chinese tech companies are headquartered in Beijing.

[NotChinese]

 

 

Beijing and in particular Tsinghua University actually has a good reputation for software.  A lot of big Chinese tech companies are headquartered in Beijing.

 

I have a feeling this may increasingly be the case. Well, until the foreigner labour market saturates and wages drop. That or living costs end up being the same as any other nation, but with over 1 billion in China, and with a still evident disparity between rural and urban lifestyles while under the same currency, I can't see that happening any time soon, if ever.

 

For now I imagine more tech may start drifting to China. I met someone this summer who said he had a French mate who'd worked in Shanghai for years with a French software company. For the whole time he'd learned zero Chinese. The only reason he was in Shanghai was because it was cheaper to employ him there than in France.

[Angelina]

try this for  爱奇艺：

 

扫我直接投简历

 

[NotChinese]

The 爱奇艺 website has absolutely tons of programming jobs but I'm not ready yet!

[Angelina]

oh 

[thechamp]

Yea it's definitely there and increasingly so. I'm just not sure about how it will work for a Westerner atm. I know the CTO of a Dutch start up who just raised more than £10 million for their Series B, and they've decided to put their R&D department in Taipei, whilst their other offices are all America and European. The R&D department is basically just the programming bit. They're offering 7k TWD to foreigners, without pension or benefits, to move there right now, and for quite specific skillets. It's not a lot for a software engineer, although it's good locally. 

 

The Sichuan programmer friend working at the chemical factory had a huge salary all paid into an account in HK, which was so massive because it included his pension contributions he wouldn't receive, and what was then considered 'China pay'. He moved to Sichuan at 30 and is now 42. I just don't think these kinds of contracts exist in the same way as they used to though. I'd be interested to hear other stories if others know any. There are certainly a lot of positions at Microsoft etc advertised all over China, but you're not going to get into any of these as a grad....they all require years of experience in your home country it seems.

[imron]

They're offering 7k TWD to foreigners, without pension or benefits, to move there right now, and for quite specific skillets. It's not a lot for a software engineer, although it's good locally.

 

7k TWD a month?  You'll be lucky if you can even find a shared place to rent for that cost, let alone cover any other living expenses.  Are you sure you haven't dropped off a zero?

[thechamp]

sorry yes, 70k TWD a month! It's a flower selling start up called Bloomon. Pretty cool thing to work on but it's not going to pull a lot of developers out of jobs in the West. 

[BenjaminB]

Hello

I am in a quite similar situation: I recently completed a master in physics in Switzerland and now I am looking for a job in China.

From what I have experienced it is quite difficult to find a first job or an internship in China. I have sent applications for finance and software engineering jobs mostly, in mainland and Hong Kong, but so far without answer whereas I would probably get some interviews for similar jobs in Europe. Many international companies don't accept foreign applicants for entry level jobs because of the working permit procedures. I have been told that one or two years of work experience can be very helpful.

Studying for a while in a chinese university might also help. At least in Hong Kong there is a special working permit policy for non local graduates from Hong Kong universities.

Most of the interesting ads for STEM jobs I found were on linkedin or directly on the companies' websites. There are also some good job specific websites such as efinancialcareer.

I have read that there will be a new working permit policy soon and it seems to favor people aged from 25 to 45 so being in your late 20s can actually be a positive thing.

I hope this is helpful and not discouraging. Good luck!

[NotChinese]

Quote

I have read that there will be a new working permit policy soon and it seems to favor people aged from 25 to 45 so being in your late 20s can actually be a positive thing.

 

Small update for this thread: China opens its job market to foreign postgraduates

 

So I most certainly shall be sticking around to do that masters!