Lambrtz’ Blog

What a weird weekend…

1. Happy Saturday

• I went to Adi Sucipto Airport to accompany Wanda depart to Jakarta. She is working in Schlumberger, the training will be in Abu Dhabi, and the placement will be in China. Ah…worldwide adventurer…I wonder when I can be like her, travelling to many countries…
• I and the remaining friends had a breakfast.
• I rehearsed with my friends, playing music from 80s…you know, the kind of Skid Row, Bon Jovi…because we lost our vocalists (some are already working, the rest is seeking (desperately :p) for a job), I became the lead vocalist. The members of the band said that my voice is good for singing those songs…gosh, I hope they REALLY know my voice’s characteristic! I think I’m better at singing 60s and 90s rock songs…and pop, of course . Please don’t give me high-pitched or full of growl songs!! I lost my voice shortly afterward…but only for a few hours.
• After rehearsing, I ate Acehnese food for the first time.
• At night, I applied for student dorm at Nanyang Technological University online.

2. Emotionally-mixed Sunday : Sad, Weird, Nostalgic

• Morning, my cell phone rang loudly. Lukman sent me a message that Cosmas’ mother had passed away…the requiem would be in 12, and the burial would be in 14. Rest in peace, mam…
• I wanted to take my mother to local market, but I got tire leak on my motorcycle…
• I took my motorcycle to nearby tire plugger, and then saw a mentally sick person…what was he doing? Praying? Meditating? Practicing Kungfu? (here in Indonesia you can sometimes find mentally sick people wandering on the road)
• I accidentally put the motorcycle’s kickstand on my foot….Ouuccchhhhhh!!!!
• I attended requiem for Cosmas’ mother
• Things get happier…I had lunch with several friends…
• At night, I had a nostalgic event : I had a chat with the 1st
• Finally, I wrote this post.

Note : I have to state that beside the university rank systems’ website, Wikipedia is used as the main source of information, so some may doubt the validity of the information. I use it since I don’t know any scientific sources. I don’t have any experiences with universities stated below, nor even have contact with people affiliated with these universities. I haven’t found forums and blogs that discuss about "underrated" universities in international scope yet. Many are only about universities in specific countries (I found USA, UK, and Phillipines). Many others analyze university rankings and are not specifically about these "underrated" universities.

When I applied for graduate study, I heavily relied on universities’ ranking systems, especially Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s and Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan’s (no, I don’t count the THES-QS’) (shame on me!). I often underestimated universities outside that rank. However lately I found that choosing university can not be done only by taking into account such rank systems. There are many "underrated" universities, that do not present in the list or ranked low (and this description applies each time I write the word "underrated" in this post). Below are in my opinion some of those :

1. Tilburg University. My friend who is studying in Netherland said that the Economy-related programmes are highly selective and entering those programmes will be as hard as Oxbridge.

2. Some former parts of University of Paris. How can parts of such a legendary university disappear from that list? Is it because of they are not focusing in natural science (I am referring to the kinds of Paris I)? Or it has been represented by other universities such as Paris VI, 11, etc?

3. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Referred as "MIT of Russia", it is one of highly-appreciated Russian university in the former USSR area, but less known abroad. I, myself, have just found out this university only from School of Computer Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (in which I will study shortly ) since they have an agreement in a double degree program. Probably due to their unusual educational and research system (see Wikipedia), they fail in the university rankings.

4. Gakushuin University. Being relatively "unknown" in international community, this university remains an elite university in Japan (I get this information only from a short article in Wikipedia, so if I am being eirrelevant, please correct me. However, why would Japan’s members of royal family apply to this university if it is only of middle or even low quality and reputation?)

5. Warwick University. As a top-tier university in UK, it ranked quite low in ranking systems. I think its rank should be higher…

6. French "Grande école"s. Probably since ecoles are only focused on certain (sub)field of study and theirs staffs are also affiliated with other institutions such as nearby universities, the number of published papers and staffs are not counted as done and worked within these ecoles. People who are not familiar with French education system (such as me) may not recognize them as good places to study (I read about this somewhere several months ago, but I can’t find this article anymore).

Any criticisms and suggestions?