Report on Career Talk #2 - Academia

Speaker: Assoc Prof Lan Luh Luh
NUS Business School; Faculty of Law, NUS

Date            : 29Aug2009, 2.30 to 4.30 pm
Venue           : RI Lecture Theatre 3

The below notes are taken to supplement the powerpoint slides used by the speaker in the talk.

1. Brief  background of speaker
- Prof Lan graduated from NUS Law School
- Worked in a renowned Corporate Law Firm for 2 years
- Received scholarship to pursue Masters of Law from University of Cambridge
- Obtained her PhD while serving in NUS Business School
- She teaches Executive MBA courses in both English and Chinese
- She is also a writer for our local Chinese newspapers, Zao Bao.
- Has been in NUS Business School for the past 18 years

2. Are professors a strange breed? Answer is “No”.
- they are just people who study a lot
- they have a lot of domain knowledge
3. Why do people become professors?

Noble reasons:
- passion for researching and teaching in a particular field of work
- they want to make a difference in the way people live
- they create new knowledge

Practical reasons
- well paid but not answerable to the bottom line
- they mix with the youthful students and remain young
- there is minimal office politics in their working environment
- teaching hours are quite short, about 6 hours per week, but time is set aside for research

P/s. For Prof Lan, it  could be “accidental” that she found her career in Academia for she has always wanted to be a doctor but was offered to study Law in NUS and worked in Corporate Law for 2 years before furthering her studies and working in NUS Business School. She enjoys teaching and also likes the sparring sessions with the students.

4. Full time employment in Academia:
- Tenure Track
- allows one to work till age 65
- Different pay scheme for different ranks (pay scheme was shown in her slide)                      
- Research Track (judged by quality of papers published and conferences attended).
- Teaching Track (Fellows, lecturers)
- Practice Track (from SMU or the industry)

5. Comparable pay renumeration based on US Salary survey results, 2006- 2007.

6. Job scope: Research, Teaching and Admin (RAT life)

7. Qualifications to be a professor
- PhD (masters) UK-3 years, US (4-5 years)
- doctoral programmes normally have full tuition fee waiver

8. Job Prospects
- good
- Singapore is and continues to be an exporter of education

9. Prof Lan also went through the Admissions criteria of the NUS Business and Law School – please refer to her slides for details.

10. Prof Lan encourages our children to study in NUS; she cited the academic rigour of the local courses and also emphasized that these courses are heavily subsidized by tax payers, like us, the parents! Of course, she is also supportive of overseas education in top universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Watten, UCLA and the likes.

Questions & Answers Sessions:
Is accommodation for academic staff paid by the universities
Do they have fixed or flexi working hours
How’s the bonus?
How can students do double degree at the Business School?
Are there any occupational hazards, like the “stabbing” case which happened to the professor at NTU?
On the increase in foreign students...
What do interviewers look for? This refers to interview for admission to Law faculty.
How long does it take to do the double degree in NUS and what is the percentage of students who get to do double degree?
What are the requirements in terms of CCA involvement? 
NTU vs NUS vs SMU On studying Law overseas vs local U…

Last but not least, Prof Lan’s advice for our children:

Achieve academic excellence, be willing to work hard, be Eloquent, Confident, Sincere and Think Broadly.


Notes taken by Jacqueline Tan, Parent Volunteer

Report on Career Talk #1 - Medicine

"Career Choice in Medicine"

The 1st RPA Career Talk. “Career Choice in Medicine” was successfully held on July 11 at RI(JC) LT3 from 10.30am to 12.30pm. Approximately 120 parents and students attended the talk. Dr Chan Tat Keong, a Senior Consultant from the National Eye Centre, delivered a highly informative and interesting talk which helped increase parents’ awareness on what it is like being a medical practitioner.

Dr Chan is an excellent speaker; his anecdotical and humourous talk left a lasting impression on his audience. He was also sincere and forthcoming in his views on what it really takes to be a good doctor, especially in listing of expectations of the job and the personal sacrifices one must be prepared to make should one decide on medicine as a career choice. Dr Chan spoke for about 1 hour covering many issues close to parents' hearts.

A summary of Dr Chan's talk can be found on the link at the righthand sidebar on this page.

After the talk, there was a Q&A Session with 3 panelists : Dr Chan, Mr Andy Chua (a 4th year medical student and RI Alumi) and Mr Chua Wah Ann (Andy's father and RPA Chairman). The questions asked covered a wide variety of topics, eg., admission requirements to medical school in NUS including the assessment of a need for an illustrious portfolio ; studying medicine overseas ; comparison of overseas medical graduates and local graduates ; parents’ roles in the life of an aspiring medical student, as well as the search for life partners of doctors, etc, etc. Through the panelists, parents were able to receive different perspectives from a veteran doctor, a medical undergraduate and a parent of a medical student.

Parents found the session very useful and enjoyable. The talk received a high average score of 4.75 upon 5. 100% of those responded said they would attend future RPA Career Talks. Many parents expressed interests for Career Talks in Law, Research, Civil Service, Banking & Finance, etc. RPA is planning a 2nd Career Talk in the near future. For those who like to attend, please be on the look out for our notice through email.

Last but not least, RPA would like to thank the following parent volunteers for helping to make this career talk a resounding success :-

· Wai Kiong who patiently compiled the registration list after reading through more than two hundred emails;

· Ann Leong, Jayne Khoo, Wai Kiong, Sofhi who helped with registration.

We look forward to having more parent volunteers for future talks !

Reported by: Ho Siew Fay, Organisor of RPA Career Talk Series

Edited by: Julie Chew