Have you ever encountered a problem that is so big it overwhelms you? Have you ever been confronted with a situation that seems so impossible to overcome that you reckon you’re better off just giving up and caving in? Have you ever faced a mountain so huge that any rational assessment suggests that you’d be wiser to not even bother trying to climb it at all?
Well… I’m in that situation and I am very, very, very frustrated. In fact, I’ve been in that situation for quite a long while now. Some of you might already know that I have always had a problem with funding the Ph.D. here at the ANU (see this for background). While I had hoped to raise the remainder of the necessary funding from other sources, these have all come to nought.
(1) ISIS Malaysia turned down my application to the Perdana Scholarship. In fact, they didn’t select me for the interview process and didn’t bother informing me why my application had failed.
(2) I cannot reapply to my current sponsors, Australia’s Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), because in order to apply for the Endeavour Scholarship, I have to be resident outside of Australia and I can’t be resident outside of Australia and simultaneously be pursuing the Ph.D. now that I am here. I have also had this (negative) fact confirmed in writing.
(3) I am also no longer eligible for the major source of funding that most Ph.D. students in Australia rely on - the IPRS. The ANU has a rule that disqualifies currently registered students from being eligible.
The problem really is the huge sum of money that I need. Tuition fees is just over AUD20,000 a year. Cost of living, i.e. maintenance, would also amount to about AUD20,000 a year. Thus, at the very least, I will need to raise AUD80,000 to fund the remaining years of my Ph.D. study, and that’s assuming that my research does not run beyond three years in total. Most students end up finishing in about three and a half years, or four even! I wouldn’t agonise if it was a much smaller sum of money…
I considered funding myself, i.e. “borrowing” money and investing it into this programme. However, several things hold me back:
- it is a very huge sum of money that I need. AUD80,000 is equivalent to about MYR200,000. I don’t really know where to begin raising that amount of money all on my own.
- MYR200,000 would buy a two-storey house in a (less desirable) middle-class neighbourhood in the Klang Valley that would house a family of four.
- it would take your average Malaysian employee at least four or five years to earn MYR200,000
- even if I had MYR200,000 in cash, is a Ph.D. the best, or wisest, thing to invest the money in?
While I am happy to work part-time to fund my stay here, I can realistically only earn about AUD20,000 in the time that I have and still make progress on the primary reason for my being here. I would still need to raise about AUD60,000 from some big third-party source. So, no, working part-time as a tutor, or in a cafe, or whatever isn’t enough. Neither is getting small sums of funding in bits and pieces. I really do need one major guaranteed source of funding that will at least get me halfway there, and provide some stability and security, before this problem becomes even manageable for me to handle the rest on my own.
But as it stands, I can’t even bear thinking about this situation at the moment. It’s very debilitating. Each time it pops up in my brain, I become completely paralysed - both physically and mentally. The only part of me that reacts are my emotions. I feel very frustrated, angry and annoyed all that the same time. It affects my work and I just want to crawl into a hole and stay there. This is one of those (few) times when it’s all too clear that money solves everything.
Meanwhile, the only rational thing that I am doing is “ignoring” this issue by relegating it to the back of my brain so that I can concentrate on my work, my research, and at the very least, make progress on that if nothing else. Although we could certainly ask the question: ultimately, what’s the point in that?
So, what has AUD50,000 of Australian tax-payers’ money bought me so far?
- time out from life
- new friends in Australia
- opportunity to experience living in yet another country
- opportunity to catch up with my (long lost) cousin who lives here
- knowledge and skill of knitting
I can’t really add anything from my academic experience to this list. The skills that I might or might not have learnt so far are not unique, nor many - I could easily have picked them up on my own anywhere in the world - and really these skills and knowledge are of not much use if I do not complete the Ph.D. at all.
Frankly. I. Am. Stuck.
Everything. Seems. So. Futile.
You might ask why I want this Ph.D. The answer: I want to be an academic. I want to study policy issues in the field of international political economy. I want to educate. I want to guide future students in understanding the nature and causes of the societies in which we live. The Ph.D. not only builds the necessary skills and knowledge towards that goal, it is also a partial ticket towards the long-term career. Sadly, because of the “public good”, or “social-spillover effect”, and the generally lower salary scales, it is a career path that doesn’t lend itself well to “normal” cost-benefit analysis where financing is concerned.
I really do not know what else to do. And I honestly can’t think about it any more without it affecting what work/research I am now doing at the ANU. While life’s challenges can sometimes be a good thing, I do wish this situation was more tractable. As it stands, I think I’ve done all I can and I am not getting anywhere…
—
You have to protect the integrity of your own idea - and your own vision - and your own belief. You can share what you feel if you want to. You can invite others to contribute to your cause if you wish. You can adapt and adjust if this is part of what you feel is appropriate. But you cannot allow yourself to be cajoled, coerced, pressured, bamboozled or bothered into dropping something that you sorely want to hold on to. Resist that urge. Make a stand. Defend a principle. Protect a dream that has every chance of coming true.
- Cainer, for Aries today
Posted on July 13th, 2005 by jl
Filed under: Crisis !!! | 20 Comments »
