Hi there, I’m considering doing a PhD in Taiwan, but need some information. I already have a masters degree, so I’d be looking to skip that and go straight into the PhD part.
Anyway, I’m looking to do something education related or related to language acquisition. Where are some local universities that have such programs in English? Anyone have experience doing this? Thanks!
Hi, this list has the English programs and cover by the Taiwan scholarship. For more info about the scholarship, you can go to the Taiwan website of your country.
okay, I’m not necessarily interested in it for the scholarship aspect, but if I can get one, it would certainly help. Thanks for this, it looks very useful. I also found this:
http://transculture.nchu.edu.tw:9002/index.php
Seems interesting, but I’m not sure if I would be able to explore the specific topic I want to through this program or not.
Three of my colleagues completed a PhD in Applied Linguistics while working full time as lecturers. Quite impressive, I think.
I’m meeting up with them on Wednesday so will ask if they have any comments.
For me post grad qualifications are mainly a question of logistics.
Zhongli area, btw.
which university did they do their PhDs at? Local one here? Are they foreigners? was it in English?
In the Linguistics field, I would do a very close inspection of their curriculum content and core theories. I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with some locally trained linguists and let´s say there was some disagreement at very basic theories level.
At any other field it would OK but this was like in Medicine saying blood is blue…
I don’t know which university. It was local here. Two are foreigners, one is Taiwanese. The course would have been in English for sure.
okay, please do share what you find out. Ideally, it would be one with a scholarship.
As for the scholarship, I’m a permanent resident, would I still be eligible? Are you prohibited from working while on scholarship? I have an open work permit of course, but if I were to get caught, would it result in losing the scholarship?
I was on a JFRV and was offered a scholarship to do a master’s a few years ago. I didn’t take them up on it.
You need to apply with the uni where you want to study and see what they offer. Just be up front about it
okay, are PhDs done in Taiwan reasonably well regarded in other countries?
In my opinion a Taiwanese PhD degree is only prestigious in Taiwan. A diploma is very much like a currency. A third tier diploma from the USA beats first tier diploma from smaller countries. Majority of Americans, Canadians, and Europeans don’t know where Taiwan is on a map. Many mistaken Taiwan for Thailand. Any investment in education must be positively correlating to pay grade and the labor market place. Will a PhD diploma equate to future job advancement or upward mobility? If so then definitely go for it.
Fuck no-- do it for the love of learning not for the dineros cuz a Taiwan humanities degree is not gonna make u rich or give u any upward mobility. 
Han Guo-yu studied English literature at Soochow University, and he has attained the position of Mayor of Kaohsiung, and has a chance of achieving the presidency.
Ma Ying-jeou often lectures there.
You could do worse than that uni: and you could do better.
I am sure there are millionaires or other high profile folks with gender studies or Taiwan studies degrees but there are many more with them brewing coffee or singing nursery rhymes. That is ok and normal. All I am suggesting is people study for the love of learning not with expectations of upward mobility.
PhDs are useful if you want to publish research or get a professorship. I probably wouldn’t pursue a PhD at a Taiwanese university unless I was planning to stay here permanently. Otherwise I’d wait until I was back in the west.
I’m not saying don’t do it for the “love of learning”, but a PhD would help you get tenure as a professor at a prestigious university here, for example. I have a Masters and teach at a private uni, but I’ll always be an instructor on a yearly contract (and any year they can decide not to renew me if they want) with no possibility of tenure or pension. So I can definitely see the need for it. But it is 5 to 7 years of hard work and you have to really be interested in a lifetime commitment to academia.
Nothing is permanent, my friend.
Just to be clear: there is no formal tenure system in Taiwan (though promotion to the rank of associate professor seems to function as a sort of de facto—though not formal—tenure).
What a legitimate (i.e. recognized by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education) PhD does is make it possible to be hired at the assistant professor rank. No “prestigious” university (here I am following Drew’s term) hires people at this rank or higher without the candidate having a PhD in hand.
I agree with this. You have to really want it.
Cheers,
Guy
Depends on the subject…
But in general no unfortunately…
Some insight 3 years through my PhD…
If you’re not looking for a life in academia as a professor, don’t go for a PhD. For virtually any other reasons than professorship, you’ve got a more enjoyable, more effective way to reach your goal.
You gotta change your way of thinking. Nobody’s going to hire you solely on the merit of your PhD, except if you’ve got a brand name like Harvard or MIT. The career that follows after a PhD is entirely built on connections, networking and on the product of your work during your PhD years. All of that depends on you and your professor, not on the university.
and this is the question - are TW professors up to the mark to get their students published? do they have enough connections? is there budget for lab equipment or travel to conferences?
from my anecdotal experience, there are quite a few famous TW professors, but they all teach overseas… it also seems to me that TW universities are rather snobbish, to be a professor you better have a PhD from overseas, so if the local university system prefers graduates from overseas, it brings the question if one should go into this.
if you come from a less developed country and plan to return there, a PhD in Taiwan is great. if you come from a country with a developed university and research infrastructure, there is no benefit to do PhD in Taiwan unless your research is in specific TW related fields.
Actually, if you ask them, most people who own the coffee shops actually have degrees in Medicine, Engineering, etc. that they got for their parents but their dream was always just to open a coffee shop and live a simple life. You will find a lot of this folk also doing organic agriculture.