BURMA DIGEST

BURMA DIGEST

11.02.2007

Graduate School 101 tutorial for Burmese students and graduates, part 3

_ By Aung Kyaw Soe

The next step in writing your proposal is to prove that that particular piece of research has not been done yet.

This section is usually called Literature Review. Inside it, you have to enumerate and critically analyze an impressive list of boring bibliography. The conclusion you should - objectively! - reach is that your idea of research has not been undertaken yet. Even more, you use this opportunity to prove solid theoretical knowledge in the field, and build the theoretical bases of your project. One tip: don't review all the articles and books in the fields even if you mention them in the bibliography list; pay attention in your analysis to those you will build on.

Another one: avoid jargon when writing your RP. The chances are great that the person(s) who will read your and another 1000 research proposals are not specialists in that very field - niche you are examining. If you are applying for a grant with or foundation or something similar, it might happen that those reading your paper are not even professors, but recruiters, donors, etc. And even if they actually are professors, one of the reasons busy people like them agree to undertake a huge, and sometimes voluntary, work, is the desire to meet some diversity, some change from their work - so maybe they'll read applications for another specialisation. The capacity to get your message across in clear, easy-to-grasp concepts and phrases is one of the winning papers' most important advantages.

So far, you have proven you have a research idea, that you are familiar with the field, and that your idea is new.

Now, why should your project be worth researching? Because it advances knowledge, ok.

But is this knowledge that anybody will need? Maybe nobody knows for sure how the shoelaces were being tied in the XIXth century, but who cares, beyond two lace-tying specialists?

Find arguments to convince the reader that s/he should give you money for that research: practical use, accelerating the development of knowledge in your or other fields, opening new research possibilities, a better understanding of facts that will allow a more appropriate course of action are possible reasons.

Be clear and specific. Don't promise to save the world, it might be too much to start with.

Even James Bond succeeds that only towards the end of the movie. We approach now one of the most difficult parts of writing a research proposal: the methodology. In short, what actions are you going to take in order to answer the question? When will you know whether the hypothesis has been proven wrong, or has survived enough tests to be considered, for now, valid? Those tests and the way you are supposed to handle them to give rigor to your research is what is understood under methods. Methods divide in qualitative (interviews, questionnaires) and quantitative (statistics, stuff that deals intensively with numbers).

For some projects qualitative methods are more appropriate, for some quantitative, while for most a mixture of the two is adequate. You should pick your methods and justify your choice.

Research methodology, however, is too a complicated thing to be explained here.

And this is why it's so tough: not much attention is given to teaching it in Eastern Europe.

Try, before writing your RP, to read a bit more about methodology - on the Internet you will find for sure some articles - and decide which methods suit your project best.

Don't forget: reading theoretical pieces of your work and providing a critical analysis of those is also a kind of research. It's fine to provide a rough schedule of your research; some grant programs will also require a detailed budget, even though for scholarships this is unlikely.

Conclusions:

After working your way through the difficult methodological part, you only have to write your conclusions. Shortly recap why your hypothesis is new, why it advances knowledge, why is it worth researching and how, from a practical point of view, are you going to do that. Overall, the capacity of your project to answer the research question should come out crystal clear from the body of the paper, and especially from the conclusions.

If this happens, it means you have a well-written RP, and you have just increased you chances for having a successful application.

One last word: how big should your RP be? In most cases, this is specified in the application form.

If it is not, we suggest that you keep it at about 1500 words (that's 3 pages, single-spaced, with 12 size Times New Roman). In fewer words it can be really tough to write a good RP. With more you might bore your readers. Which we hope will not happen.

List of Graduate Schools categorized by country (Eligible Undergraduate backgrounds for admission is mentioned in the bracket) urls can be search from internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc..

Singapore National University of Singapore

M.Sc, M.Eng & Ph.D Research programs (EcE, EP, ChE, Mech, Civil)

M.Sc, Ph.D in school of computing (Computer Science, Mathematics, Computer Engg, EcE)

MPP/MPA (Master of Public Policy/Administration) (senior civil servant under age of 45 or journalists, leaders of NGO may be eligible to apply for MPA while MPP is for youths) (All)

Singapore MIT Alliance (EcE, Computer Science, ChE, Mech, Civil)

Design Technology Institute joint degree NUS and TU/Eindhoven

(EcE, Mech, Computer Engineering+Science)

Asia Pacific Logistics institute double degrees from NUS and Georgia Institute of Technology

(Mathematics, Computer Science, Industrial and System Engr)

German Graduate School in Singapore with TU/Munich (Industrial Chemistry, ChE, EcE)

NUS+UIUC (joint PhD program with University of Illonois Urbana Campaign) (ChE)

MBA, MOT (graduates with working experience and good TOEFL+GMAT scores) (All)

NUS+UCLA EMBA (senior executive with 10 years plus experience and TOEFL+GMAT) (All)

NUS+Duke University Medical School offering MD degree (TOEFL+MCAT) (Chemistry, MBBS)

NUS+Bejing University International MBA

Nanyang Technological University

M.Sc, M.Eng & PhD Research programs (EcE, EP, ChE, Mech, Civil)

Nanyang-Standford University M.Eng and PhD program in Environmental Engineering

Nanyang Financial Engineering (Mathematics, Computer Science, Finance, Accounting)

Nanyang part-time M.Sc in embedded systems (EcE, Comp Science+Engg working in Singapore)

Master of Accounting for people without bachelors in accounting degrees

Singapore Management University

Master of Financial Engineering (Mathematics, Computer Science, Finance, Accounting)

Insead Singapore campus

MBA (on par with Harvard or Wharton school or can say best non US Business school)

Best candidate is a bachelor/master degree holder plus 5 years of working experience including

Junior or middle level manager roles in a respectable organization, very good TOEFL and GMAT scores are mandatory, 100% loans are available from ABN-AMRO bank and no need any warrantee for securing the loan, very demanding and you need an extra third language like French or German to graduate, I don't think they will accept Burmese language as third language

And if you can speak, read and write well Japanese or Chinese may be they will let you graduate and you need to prove your language proficiency by taking standardized exams they have. University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB) Singapore campus EMBA NUH+John Hopkins university Bio Medical sciences

Singapore Institute of Management part time academic programs

MBA from Buffalo, SUNY (State University of New York) distance learning program seems not bad.

Also the London University external programs seems good

United Kingdom

Oxford University (Social sciences) Oxford university has more than 100 colleges and although some of them are very prestigious some of her colleges are not so prestigious, good ones are like Trinity college etc.. Students should know that Oxford XXX University is not as prestigious as Oxford University and don't be fooled or cheated by agents in Yangon.

Cambridge University (Science and Technology, Engineering)

University College London, UCL (rival college for Imperial College)

Imperial College (best Engineering college/university in UK)

King's college

Royal School of Mines, Royal Schools of Medicine

Brunel University

UMIST

University of Readings

Cardiff University

Herriott Watt university (it's Earth Sciences programs are world class, it's MBA program can be taken online/corresspondance and you don't even need a degree to pursue its MBA program, but you can switch to its on campus full time student status after passing 2 core modules (out of total of 9 modules).

Note: Keep in mind that while some departments or programs of a university or a college may be first rate but the other program in the same university may not be the first rate. One of my friends told me that he went to a university where its graduate medical school is of first rate but his program Electrical Engineering is not best-in-class. Also there are differing standards for part time and full time students, one of the very good university in UK won't admit her own part time evening students to her prestigious graduate program. If you are following distance learning, 2+1 or 3+0 programs in UK for your UG studies, you should check whether it is accredited although you are sure that the full time on-campus degree is best-in-class.

(Check with Peterson's graduate school guide for rankings)

Harvard

MIT, Cambridge

Yale

Princeton

Stanford

California Institute of Technology

Georgia Institute of Technology

Brown

Williams and Mary

Dartmouth

Carnegie Melon University

8 Colleges of University of California (UC LA, UC Berkley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC SB etc..)

University of Texas A & M

University of Michigan

University of Wisconsin Madison

Iowa State University

University of Southern California

University of Illonois Urbana Campaign

University of Indiana Purdue

John Hopkins University

University of Maryland

University of Boston

California Polytechnic University

Australia

University of New South Wales

ANU

QUT

RMIT

Monash University

Norway

NTNU, Trondheim Norwegian University of Science and Technology

University of Oslo

University of Bergen

The Netherlands

TU/delft

TU/eindhoven (Technical University of Eindhoven)

TU/twente

Germany

TU/Munich

NIT

6 public German universities offering DAAD scholarships:

TU/Aachen,TU/Darmstadt,TU/Karlsruhe,TU/Berline,TU/Stuuttgart and TU/Dresden

Sweden

Lunds university

India

Indian Institutes of Technology

Indian Institutes of Management

Indian Institutes of Science

Indian Institutes of Information Technology

China

Tshinghua University

Beijing University

Beijing University of Aerospace

Fudan University

Shanghai Jiangtong University

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Chinese University

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

City University of Hong Kong

Taiwan

National University of Taiwan

New Zealand

University of Auckland

Korea

KAIST

University of Seoul

Yonsei University

Japan

International University of Japan

Keio University

Tokyo Institute of Technology

Waseda University

Thailand

Asian Institute of Technology

Chulalongkorn University

Thai German Graduate School

KMITL

Malaysia

University of Malaya (Engineering)

Multimedia University (Engineering and ICT)

University Sains Malaysia (Science)

University Technologi Malaysia (Engineering)

Monash University (Malaysia campus)

More links

http://g2.ucgateways.org/gre/

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

http://web.mit.edu/provost/presfellow.html

http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/gop/index.shtml

http://www.cmu.edu/home/education/education_grad.html

http://www.yonsei.ac.kr/yu/eng/

http://www.800score.com/takeessay.html

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/424421.cms

http://www.greguide.com/download.html

http://www.ets.org/

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/

For further information

1. All about Bachelor's degree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_degree

1.A. British undergraduate degree classification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_undergraduate_degree_classification

2. Master degrees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_degree

3.PhD degree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorate

4.Professional Degrees

4.A.Engineer Degree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_degree

4.B. LLB/B.A,B.L or Juris Doctor or LLM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor

4.C. MBA degree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBA

Read part 1, 2

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