it is wierd feeling to read your blog as an ex-student of yours.
first time when I heard about you becoming a taxi driver, I flashed back the comments and hard time you gave me, sigh, and asked have you ever thinking about what you can give to others to make life easier? or at least in a more pleasant way?
I complain IMCB is far away from a good place for scientific work (research work, maybe), not for professors like you, or students like me. bosses are bosses but not mentors, the training system is like nothing at all...
after complaining, I feel confused since I just started my career here, a NUS PhD must be even much cheaper than a Stanford one, right? and scientific field here fits me or I fits here or not? with own family and a baby, I keep talking to myself that I should wake up and try to work for boss to please him for hopeless promotion or 2% perfomance bonus, or switch to industry for more $$ directly.
there is no way to get a PI position with background like mine, not even yours nowadays, but I may end up like you years later when scholars flood back, with a quarter of your salary. hmm, life is not easier for most of us.
you are individual among PIs, not a good thing to get a comfortable life here. I guess this is the best lessen you gave me. bitter, although.
all the best
August 17, 2009 5:17 PM
-------------------------http://sgblogs.com/entry/mingjie/357853
#15 by Rachel at August 20th, 2009
Reply | Quote
Before everyone starts diving into an impassioned defence over the terrible fate of Dr Cai, please, for once consider exactly -why- he was kicked out, and -why-, despite sending numerous letters to academic institutes, he remains, unemployed.
I, for one, was guilty of feeling sorry for Dr. Cai at the beginning. Stanford PhD turned cabbie??? What in the world is Singapore coming to??? However, while reading his blog, I noticed that his command of the English language is less than commendable. Being trained in the Scientific field, I gathered that scientists are frequently far more comfortable expressing themselves with complex scientific terms than with fanciful vocabulary. Nevertheless, I would have expected good grammar usage at the very least, coming from a Stanford PhD holder. This was, disappointingly, lacking.
Eloquence aside, apart from serving as a Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator at the Institute of Molecular & Cell Biology, he also acted as an Associate Professor in the National University of Singapore. A friend (X) working in the Science department of the above named prestigious university threw light upon this matter. Have it ever crossed your mind exactly why Dr Cai was, curiously, unable find a job in NUS, NTU and the 5 Polytechnics in Singapore in spite of his dazzling credentials (”PhD from Stanford and a proven track record of scientific accomplishments”)? Not even as a laboratory officer? Was he blacklisted in all the academic institutes? X revealed that Dr Cai was actually the PhD supervisor of an associate (Y) at NUS. And he did not even bother to read Y’s thesis! Y then filed a formal complaint with the Dean. There, the fog is cleared.
By portraying himself as the victim he never was, he is in fact trying to salvage his remaining pride and to appeal to sympathy which he does not deserve.
I am not trying to discredit Dr Cai. I just want to demonstrate that there are always two sides to a coin.
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