Assalamu'alaikum and greetings,
I need to write something tonight. After posting few thoughts about Ph.D. Journey on my Facebook, I think I need to materialize and enhance my thought in my blog. One of the important things that I learned, observed, experienced a lot in the USA, while I was a Visiting Scholar at Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania is "Passion". It is not easy to define "Passion" but in general, Passion is related with "enthusiasm, eagerness, energy, spirit, desire, love, obsession, and warmth". Of course, I had my own experience as a Ph.D. candidate when I completed my Ph.D. in entrepreneurship at the University of Essex, U.K. Those experience, either good or bad will influence and sharp my style in supervising Ph.D. candidate. But as far as I am concern, I don't want my supervisee to face similar problems and those bad experience that I encountered before. Alhamdulillah, even my Faculty did not have a Ph.D. program after I completed my Ph.D. (in management or entrepreneurship area as another faculty, UKM-GSB has been offering a Ph.D. program in this area), I managed to get and have two students completed their Ph.D. under my supervision. That's before I continued my academic journey to the U.S.A.
I do understand that my colleagues, my faculty and my university have very high hope and expectation for me after I finished my term at the Wharton School. Certainly, Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania have changed and transformed me a lot. Two years attached to these institutions, Masya-Allah, I learned a lot. After completing my Ph.D. at the University of Essex, I thought I had sufficient experience and exposure to the international university, living in other countries, experiencing diversity, understanding Western culture, observing and learning attitude and behaviour of people from developed countries...the list goes on. Frankly, after being in the Wharton School and UPenn for only three months, I am thankful to Allah for the opportunity given for me and my family to live in the U.S.A. It is not about celebrating the U.S.A culture or lifestyle, appreciating their values, (in which some values are rejected in Islam) or other things, but I am personally attracted and impressed to those positive values, exceptional attitude and behaviour, analytical,critical and rigorous thinking, and outstanding efforts among academic staff, students, administration staff and others.
In brief, my experience in the U.S.A have enumerated my knowledge and experience and changed my worldview (tasawwur) about top Business School (Wharton is always considered top 10 Business School in the world) and university (UPenn is one of the Ivy League University). I observed, learned and experienced on how Top Business School and University should be operated, how academic staff should be recruited, behaved and developed, how students should be selected, what are the values, habits, and conduct among students, how a university system could be enhanced, and how entrepreneurial ecosystem and world-class infrastructure should be evolved and flourished.
Two years in the U.S.A have changed me, inside and outside, but mostly inside, so most people won't notice about this. Even I perceived my journey in Wharton and UPenn as more spiritual journey rather than an academic journey, I will fully employ my academic journey back to my lovely country, Malaysia. That's it. Nowadays, I am a bit different of my approach in supervising Ph.D. candidate. I maintain 'my old way' when I supervised my first two Ph.D. candidates but I enhance and transform 'my new way' in supervising the current Ph.D. candidates. My supervisees know my way and approach, those questions that I always asked them, the need to clarify your intention and motivation in a Ph.D. journey.
Back to our topic, What is your true passion for your Ph.D.? To really understand this passion, back to these words, " enthusiasm, eagerness, energy, spirit, desire, love, obsession, and warmth". What makes you wake up early in the morning? Observe your enthusiasm! What makes you sleep a bit late or very late at night, in order to finish something? You should understand your energy and spirit to do this. What is the thing that you can spend 10-18 hours per day, working on it for seven days a week? Try to understand your own eagerness and obsession. Can you maintain your energy and spirit on this area/topic for 3-6 years? The period when you have difficulties in your Proposal Defense and Viva, face many personal problems, encounter many financial issues, confront with your family members and good friends, the era you don't receive any support even from your father/mother or your lovely husband/wife... Only love of the topic you are working on and your desire and/or drive will empower and influence you to work and complete your Ph.D. journey. Ask thousand times on yourself, "What is my passion?"
What else? Would you buy more books, even it will cost you hundreds or thousands of Ringgit, in your area/topic? Would you read at least 300-500 academic articles, related to your topic before your Proposal Defense? Sorry, not just reading!!! Trying to understand, analyze, synthesis and write something about it. Will you navigate internet on your research topic, let say 6 hours per day for 15 months before your Proposal Defense? Will you try to write again and again on your research topic, even you fail to do so in time, even you face so many difficulties, even your supervisor asks you to change the topic?
You need to love your research area and your topic. It should come from your heart dan mind. Nobody squeezes you or compress you or ask you to study this area/topic. You know, your area/topic will bring you somewhere in the future. You should be confident of the future of this area/topic. Not just confident OK!!! Justify why your research area and your research topic will be flourishing in the future! Please support with relevant policies, reliable info, necessary data, and statistics, and so on. Don't forget, believe in yourself. You say in your heart, "I can do it. I know I can do it".
Clarify on yourself. Will you be the champion of this area/topic in Malaysia (or international)? Don't waste your time for anything you have no ambition, expectation, value or interest in it. Don't sacrifice so many things in your Ph.D. journey and at last, after completing your Ph.D., you don't want to pursue your research in your Ph.D. area/topic or you get nothing of it. Many Ph.D. holders applied for a position as a lecturer in my Faculty, about 50-60 applications, some of them from a very well-established universities in Malaysia, but with their CVs, expertise, publications, and experience, nobody was recruited.
Will you become the consultant or the expert or the referred person in your research area/topic? Can you provide a training or coaching or mentoring in your research area/topic after completing your Ph.D.? What type of Intellectual Property (IP) can you produce from your research topic? How your research outcome can assist you to become the consultant or the expert or the referred person in your subject area? Will the government or industry players refer to you after your Ph.D. journey?
It is not about getting a "Ph.D.", or to be called “Dr.”, but what can you do to transform yourself to become a better person? Would you change your attitude? Can you refreeze your old values, grab and integrate new values? Can you change or modify your behaviour in order to transform yourself and complete your Ph.D.? Are you sure you will become different people after completing your Ph.D.? Quality as a person is important for me as a supervisor aka Tok Guru or Scholar. I don't want to produce many Ph.D. holders with no quality or very low quality. Quality for me is not only about passing the viva and producing many academic articles. From my point of view, quality as a Ph.D. holder is, somebody with sufficient and relevant knowledge, master his/her research area, skillful, the one with integrity, the right adab, discipline, and good manner, the one who is trusted by the society, a scholar or researcher who can discover new knowledge on its own, of course, a scholar who will produce a better scholar than him/her and somebody that can solve the world/nation/industry problems.
Completing a Ph.D. program is not just a ticket to become an academician or a researcher. As for me, Ph.D. is not only about the academic gaps, either theoretical gaps, contextual gaps or methodological gaps. Obviously, you should fulfill those conditions required for your Ph.D. program such as publication and so on. However, what and how your research can do to contribute and solve the nation @ industry problem? What is the problem you are trying to solve? When I attended IMAC Conference (11-12 Nov 2018), few Ph.D. candidates were trying to present their research models (look quite complex with so many relationships and variety of variables), but when I asked "What is the problem you are trying to solve?", they cannot answer!!!
It is not your research framework or your methodology, or how many pages of your thesis are or how many references have you referred to, but the contribution of your research. During my Ph.D. viva in 2012, my first PowerPoint slide is "Contribution of the Research" (my supervisors requested me to do this), not as the one we presented or examined in Malaysia (i.e. Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Data Analysis and Findings, and Conclusion and Implication). Novelty, originality, newness, or uniqueness are the key things in your Ph.D. journey. Once, ask yourself again, "What is my passion for this Ph.D. journey?".
Wassalam.
2 December 2018 - 1240am
