Salam w.b.t and hello people.
I always get this from many people, "Hey
Atiqah, don't you want to pursue studies?", "Don't you want to be a
lecturer?", "Are you going to do Master after this?", and other
questions but with similar meaning.
Always, my answer will be “NO”. Then, the common
following question from them is, “Why?” Saying “NO” is the easiest part in this
situation, whereas the “Why” is the most difficult part.
I have a lot of reasons of why I am not doing
Master or pursue studies. When I say ‘a lot’, I really mean it. One sentence
would not be enough to describe this. It is not that I did not get the
opportunity, in fact, I got two chances to pursue studies at higher level.
The first one was Master in Chemical Engineering
at UWA, Perth and the second one was Master in Aerospace at Cranfield
University, UK. Both were sponsored, and I declined. You guys must think I am
an imbecile for rejecting the chances, right?
I have my reasons, people. Therefore, I summarise
them here.
Responsibility
Before I completed my undergraduate course,
pursuing studies in Master was not my favourite idea, even now. My goal is to
make my mother live happily, fulfil all her dreams, and stop working. I am the
eldest, and I have huge responsibilities. Therefore, I must work to support my
family. I started to apply for Master when most of my friends did so back in
mid-2013. At the time, I was not really clear with direction I want to take, so
I just go with the flow. My mother was not really happy with the idea and she was
worried. In the meantime, I also found that I did not really into this. I want
to work, support my family, and gain money as well as experience. For me,
experience is much more valuable than the beautiful postgraduate transcript.
Purpose
If you want to pursue in something, in this case,
studies, you must have a purpose. Ask yourself first, “Why do you want to
further studies?”. When I first start doing my final year project, I read a
saying, “Doing thesis is not about just experimenting or whatsoever, it is
about contributing to the academic world”.
From my stance, I am not sure how and what can I
contribute to the world if I do Master. During my degree, I did my thesis for
the sake of finishing my degree course, not more than that. Consequently, I had
a hard time and I did not enjoy doing it. I do not want to go similar
experience again and waste another year by doing Master without a clear
objective, then regret my decision.
Whatever it is, I do not have any objective to do
Master. Besides, I don’t know what course to do.
Schlumberger
Yes, even though I have not yet start, I am 150%
confident that I will learn and experience more once I am start working with
Schlumberger. It will be the mix of theory and hands-on experience in extremely
challenging environment.
And, I am really looking forward to it.
Escape
From my personal opinion, people who pursue
studies is like fleeing from reality. It sounds negative, huh? But that is my
opinion, my personal opinion. I am
sorry if it hurts your feeling.
I often heard my friends said, “With Master, will
get a fat paycheck compared to Degree”, “Recruiter’s attention will be more on
candidates with higher level of education”, “I don’t want to go back to my
homeland yet, so it gives me more time to stay oversea”, “Follow my
husband/wife finish studies”, and the list goes on.
So far, I heard none said like, “I love doing
research and I believe I can contribute to the world through my research”. None.
Thus, I conclude that they are escaping from
reality or should I say, delay their time from facing the reality.
You know, reality is harsh.
In reality, having Master will not guarantee you
will get much higher pay than degree/diploma graduate, particularly in
Malaysia. In addition, with current state of economy, the employers want the
best employees but with low pay. Other than that, HR’s attention will not
necessarily interested to the person with higher qualification. It is a competition,
real life competition with infinity number of rules.
Whatever it is, reality is bitter and difficult.
The sooner you face the reality, the better you adapt to it.
Sharing your experiences, not your theories
In small part of myself, I always want to be a
person who shares knowledge. You can acknowledge it as a lecturer, teacher,
educator, or whatever. The knowledge I would like to share is the knowledge I
got from my experience, not the theories from textbooks. In order to share the experiences, I must first
experience it myself.
Someone once said to me, in Malaysia, a lot of
lecturers at the universities. However, they are lacking industrial
experiences. Not all lecturers of course, only some. These people can only
teach from textbooks, which is not really helpful as students can also refer to
the textbook themselves.
Back in Australia, most of the lectures have
knowledge and experiences in the industry, thus the learning process become
more fascinating for me. The faculty always invited the guests from well-known
companies in related industry to share their expertise. This is so valuable,
and indirectly inspired me to become “the guest” one day.
These are my reasons, and everyone has their own
reasons. No problem though, as we cannot force people to accept our reasons, as
we also sometimes prone to object other’s reasons. Well, maybe in the future,
Allah S.W.T destine me to further studies, we never know. But for now, I am
comfortable with my decision of not pursuing studies at higher level.
That’s it from me, people. If you have comments,
do not hesitant to drop it below. As usual, take care and Salam w.b.t.
P/S – Sir Lokman, from SLB came to my house last
Saturday together with his wife and kids. What an unexpected guests :D
