To all the Singaporean students out there who might want to do a PhD:

You should be aware that it is actually possible, and, if you aim low enough, not terribly difficult, to do a PhD in a US university without having to pay anything out of your own pocket. In the sciences and engineering, it’s not difficult to get a funded PhD offer even if you have an undergrad degree from a local university, so long as your grades and research record are good. (In the social sciences and humanities, it may be rather more difficult to gain admission — although once you are admitted, you are typically fully funded. The reasons for this are a bit complicated — feel free to contact me directly if you really want my take on this.) I feel that I had to say this somewhere public, because I’ve recently been encountering a fair number of students in JC or university (or in between) expressing surprise when I told them this. I have to say, I find it shocking that some of their so-called “mentors” in the local universities perpetuate their students’ ignorance of this fact by not informing them of it and instead encouraging them to take up PhD scholarships offered by government research agencies. Given that there are such “mentors” around, I thought I’d offer this small bit of countervailing opinion, however little read it turns out to be.

It’s not just PhDs — there are funded Masters courses in the US, even in the humanities. Please, before you sign any binding contract, talk to people in the field, and talk to as many people as you can find, not just your so-called advisors.