Taiwanese are learning the hard way that a PhD is no longer a guarantee to a successful career.

The News Lens
Date: 2016/08/24
By: Hsu Chia-yu

Taiwanese with post-graduate degrees in the liberal arts, history and philosophy fields are struggling to find jobs, a university professor says.

Hu Chia-yu (胡家瑜), a professor in the Department of Anthropology at National Taiwan University (NTU), said that in the past, PhD graduates could easily find jobs at research institutions, such as Academia Sinica. The ease with which of fresh graduates could find such research positions, coupled with the failure of the Ministry of Education to regulate the number of PhD students at each university, has resulted in a surplus of graduates, Hu said.

Hu tells her students to think twice before applying for a doctoral program and only to pursue subjects they have a genuine interest in, rather than studying for the purpose of advancing their career.

Chen Chao-ming (陳超明), a lecturer in the Department of Applied Foreign Languages at Shih Chien University, said the main goal of most doctoral programs in Taiwan is to train students to become university professors. But as there currently are only a few openings for professors in Taiwan, Chao said doctoral programs should cultivate students’ critical thinking abilities instead.     [FULL  STORY]