PhD in Thailand

My ponderings as an American as I work on my PhD in Thailand

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Persistence can be a powerful tool towards achieving your success and goals.

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Where is my experience worth more?

As an American pursuing my PhD overseas in Thailand, I often find myself wondering what will be made of my academic experience once I graduate. Will I be overlooked because my PhD is not from the US? Will my previous experience in academia and industry carry weight overseas if I try to stay here and work? These are questions I have been giving some thought to.

Before actually applying for the PhD program I am currently enrolled in I did some research of my own, I looked at the universities background, ranking, the faculty where they earned PhDs from and what their research was. All of it seemed to stack up fairly well, but I just didn’t know enough to make that call myself. So, I reached out to my graduate school advisor as well as the dean of my undergraduate university and asked for their opinions on the mater, I consider both to be experts in higher education given their positions and time in academia. Both looked over the same points about the university that I had and both felt that given the strengths of the university coupled with my background in industry that getting a PhD from a this non-US university would be acceptable. I am sure that I will still have an uphill battle to fight if I do decide to return to the US and pursue a career as an academic, but that is still a ways off.

The second part of my problem is how much is my experience at American universities and in industry from the US actually relevant here in Thailand. From all accounts that my fellow PhD students and the faculty have shared with me, if I do want to stay here and pursue a career as an academic here in Thailand my experience from the states will go a very long way to helping me accomplish that goal. Though the downside to this is that most of the faculty at the major universities in Thailand have their PhD from western universities, not Thai universities, so it is still unclear how that will play out in the end, even though the university I am working on my PhD at is one of the top in Thailand for engineering and technology, and, it is an international program.

I still have several years to explore these questions as I am just beginning my journey as a PhD student and a researcher at this level, but still, I cannot help pondering these questions from time to time. I know that I have taken a very large risk, one which I have no idea the odds of it paying off. 

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