Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by Aquarius33

Should I pursue my Masters and proceed to

Aquarius33 — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 11:45:10 +0800

Hi all, I'm reposting my question on r/malaysia here and looking for more response. I think Education Essentials is the right forum to post this compared to Jobs & Careers since it is more inclined to my choice to further postgrad studies or not at the current moment. You can choose to comment on either here or Reddit, whichever is more convenient for you. Thanks in advance.

Original Reddit Post

After working for a year and taking another gap year or so (partly due to covid) to reflect on what I should do with the rest of my life, I decided that I shall pursue an academic career. This decision simply means I'll return to the university once again to continue studying for my Masters. As I was a Mass Comm. graduate, the most reasonable choice for my Masters would be a research-based MA Degree in Communication; and for that, I have chosen a local university to continue my study.

Classes are starting soon in March. As much as I'm looking forward to being a student again, I'm equally uncertain of my own decision in the meantime. I'm not sure if the academia (in my subject of interest) needs more academics or researchers like me. To be frank, I've been reading a lot of posts in this sub about how a comms/social science/arts-related degree is being regarded as a useless "Mickey Mouse" degree". I'm not sure how much of that notion is applicable to higher/postgraduate degree, but it has surely contributed to my dilemma nonetheless.

In addition, having looked into a possible career as a researcher/academic, I've read about the pressure to publish or perish in the world of academia. I even come across a previous post just few days ago saying how Malaysian academics resort to publish in fraudulent/predatory journals to secure the university ranking as well as their faculty positions. Ngl the more horror stories like these I read, the more I question myself if the academic route is really fit for me or not.

Long story short, if there is any academic/researcher/scholar lurking in this sub, I hope you could chime in and share with me your stories and insights working in the ivory tower in order to help me make an informed decision. Thank you so much!

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A context of my previous employment and how it propels me to venture a career in academia

I used to be a content writer in a digital marketing company, just one of the many jobs that having a Mass Comm. degree would guarantee you with (like journalism, etc..). To give you a rough idea, my previous job mainly deals with curating and producing contents (mostly blog articles on my part) to help optimize one or several websites to rank in search engines such as Google (aka make them possibly appear in the first page of search results, thus driving conversions and sales). In short, my job is an essential part of search engine optimization (SEO).

However, after doing that job for about a year, I find no passion in continue doing it further simply because I'm no believer in that tactic. Yes, SEO does work, but only exclusively for big name and top performing companies (think Shopee, Lazada, Grab, etc..). For no-name, small companies like the one I was working for, not even a chance! There's no guarantee of website visibility simply through a few marketing articles or sales copies as there are many other factors to consider like website loading speed, bounce rate, engagement rate, and (insert other digital marketing lingo here). While they are not my specialty but more of that of SEO specialist, I'm still very much concerned by it.

Think about it, let say one day we really manage to make our (no-name) website appear in the first page of search engine, would you choose to buy something from us rather than those big brand names? The answer is obvious. It really takes a long long time and lots of human effort to search-engine optimize a website. Let's face it, we still rely on word-of-mouth or traditional advertising to gain exposure, even more so for companies that are set up in underdeveloped/developing states which I'm living in. SEO is only a sorcery that works in developed states or countries. By the way, this makes me remember I even blatantly blabbered about this very issue to my ex-colleagues last time on our work WhatsApp group lol.

Three months before I called it quits, I remember I ended up copying contents from other websites shamelessly to take the easy way out of my job. I put very little effort to paraphrase just to make them read like they are my own articles. At that stage, I'd lost all motivation to work any longer as soon as I realized we were simply treated as article churning machines. During peak period, we were even tasked to manage the article curation for four to five websites! I didn't understand what makes my ex-company thinks a few articles from only two to three of us could help drive the website traffic. Heck there are even content farms or content mills solely dedicated for this purpose. I don't want to churn out poor-quality articles non-stop soullessly; I want to write articles that HUMANS would read!!! Needless to say, my ex-company had now shut down its operation (long before covid and lockdown somemore!) and the articles that my colleagues and I once poured all our efforts into to craft, had unquestionably turned to dust.

I reckon, if I were to put effort into my writing, why not doing it in academia aka writing thesis or research papers. At least I can find interesting insights during my research in my subject of interest, which is not possible in my content writing job because we just had to write for whatever topics we were assigned. I could feel more valuable of myself and my research could contribute to the society, who knows? Though nobody would really read academic journals, except academics themselves (of course, lol). I'm aware of the fact that the "article churning mechanism" does happen over in academia as well, after reading that news, where the quality of research paper has suffered due to public and perish culture. Since I have yet to step into the academic realm, I might think of this industry too naively or one-sidedly (positive or not) so I need somebody inside to give me a reality check, if possible.

As to why I study Mass Communication and what is its appeal to me, I want to make an impact to the society through the means of communication and media, I guess. Maybe taking part in the production of a thought-provoking documentary or video that addresses the social issues plaguing the country? Think influencers or youtubers but focusing on societal issues lol, but I don't think I have the capacity of being one as of yet. If all of these are not reachable, I wonder if pursuing a higher degree by research would move me one step closer to my goal, since I could take this opportunity to become a subject matter expert in social issues lol. One fact I couldn't deny is that during my undergrad studies, I do have a strong interest in a particular subject that talks about people, cultures and social inquiries. I could barely remember what I had learned by now since it was nearly three years ago (shit, time flies so fast).

When I took my gap year last year, I did a lot of personality tests to understand my own behavior and find out just what kind of career path is really suitable for me. One test says my public and private behavior is of "The Researcher". Not sure how much does it correspond to being an academic researcher in the university, but it definitely gives me some assurance in my plan to explore the academic route. Also, just for the sake of mentioning, my personality type in the 16Personalities test is Architect (INTJ). If there is one thing about myself I could learn from my previous employment, it would be that I'm probably not somebody who has strong pursuit of worldly success like money, luxury and fame. I have absolutely zero interest in climbing the corporate ladder. Instead, I'm more of a person who put higher priority on personal development and professional growth.

Should I Move to KL?

Aquarius33 — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 19:50:42 +0800

I can't stand this anymore, not even the slightest bit. The growing weariness of my life is driving me crazy day by day and I simply feel that it's about time to make some changes to my life.

Before moving on further, let me give a little more detail about myself. I'm a 22-year old Sarawakian guy who has not been stepping out of his comfort zone for the past two decades. In a certain sense, you can perceive me as a papa/mama boy because let's face it, I admit I'm. Now you must be thinking what a blessed, or spoiled kid I'm now right? No, not at all, there is reason behind this. My parents would not want me to move out because living outside would mean higher costs (rents, utilities, meals, etc.) - I have to fund my life on my own, which could all be avoided if I stay with them. Yes, I know my parents are not going to fund my life (which they have started doing so as of late) because they have their own share of debts to struggle with. Before your assumption kicks in, I need to emphasize that I'm not some filthy guys or flower boys who wear branded Uniqlo/H&M clothes and other bloody expensive apparels/accessories. Instead, I'm just typical, under average normal guy who was born from a (used to be middle, but now low)-income family and has to depend on myself on everything. Although my parents do pay a portion of my university fees, I still have to borrow PTPTN loans to cover up the full amount. Despite working occasionally as a part-time waiter and limiting my personal expense in order to not worsen my family’s already terrible economic situation, they are still struggled to make ends meet, in which case I can’t be bothered anymore because this is ultimately THEIR problem (I'm sorry if I sound harsh here). Due to these shitty things that are ongoing in my home right now, I gradually feel the pressure of staying in this deteriorated comfort zone. Even if they don’t say so, I know I'm nothing more than a burden to them plus their circumstances are also emotionally burdening me in some way. This comfort zone does not look all that comfort now because I know my parents are no longer a reliable backing to me and they won't be capable to support my life anymore, let alone their uncleared debts and huge expenses. I MUST leave this mess once and for all to keep my sanity.

In the nick of time, I’ll be graduating from my degree in two months’ time, in which case I asked myself, “Why not taking this golden opportunity to leave my hometown and kick start my career in KL?” As I was told by my lecturer last time, my Mass Communication Degree technically sets my destiny to get a job in KL because the career prospect of media-related jobs is greater there. Indeed, her words are true because all my ideal jobs are mostly in KL and surrounding areas after I did some job searches in LinkedIn. Since I have a strong and valid reason to come here, money would be the last obstacle that stops me from doing so. Yes, I will be starting from scratch with a clean slate as I'm entirely responsible for my own expenses here. Therefore, as KL people (which I assume is the largest population in LYN), I have several questions to all of you:

1) Would you advise me to do so?
2) What sort of things should I look out for?
3) What is the living cost in KL?
4) How much should I prepare to barely survive the first month in KL?
5) Any Sarawakian who has moved to KL mind sharing your previous experience as a newbie here?

Last but not least, thank you in advance for your time to read the concerns of a Sarawakian guy here

Job Market in PR & Communications Industry

Aquarius33 — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 15:41:09 +0800

I am due to graduate in two months time and now actively seeking a fresh graduate job (I hope it's not too early to do this now?) in PR/Communications/Marketing Industry. Since I am majoring in Mass Communication and Public Relations, I reckon working in the aforementioned industries would help me gain some hands-on skills as a freshie.

By the way, I do find some corresponding job openings (albeit limited) in LinkedIn. I wonder if jobs of this sort are still less desirable and unpopular because of its possibly low starting salary (which I have kind of expected it already ever since I decided to pick this degree three years ago) ?

Not to mention that I could barely find any post about this as most threads are talking about IT/Engineer/Finance/Banking/etc.. So anyone working in the similar industry/company mind sharing his or her experience here? I am most curious about its job market and prospect (in KL specifically) though since it is not frequently discussed here.