Things to know about Technion

[nir...@gmail.com]

Hi

My name is Cerin. I have got an offer to do PhD From Biomedical engineering In Technion. I would like to know about the following thing:

1. Is the certificate valid in India as i heard it has problems in Middle-east countries
2. Should i go for a temporary passport or permanent passport to apply.
3. What are the future scopes from there and how is the research environment ,is it equivalent to top 5 IIT's in India.
4. Is there any thing else i should know before i come there.

Cerin

[Sandeep Hans]

Hi Cerin,

First of all, congratulations for the offer!

I finished my PhD from Computer Science Department in Technion, last year.  I am currently a Post-doctoral Research Associate in Virginia Tech, USA.  I will give answers to your queries from my experience in Technion.

1. Is the certificate valid in India as i heard it has problems in Middle-east  countries

This should not be a problem. I have many friends who did their post-docs in Technion, and now they are Assistant Professors not only in IITs, IISERs and IISc, but in reputed international universities, for example UK. I got my position in US because of my degree from Technion. One of my friends who also finished his PhD last year is working in NASA.

2. Should i go for a temporary passport or permanent passport to  apply.

I don't understand this question. I thought passport is always permanent.

3. What are the future scopes from there and how is the research environment ,is it equivalent to top 5 IIT's in India.

I don't have any experience of doing research in IITs, but from what I understood from my interactions with scholars from IITs and IISc, Technion is one of the best in the world as far as research is concerned.   

4. Is there any thing else i should know before i come there.

If you have any specific queries about food, accommodation or campus, this is the perfect platform for that. There are around 50-60 Indians in Technion, which includes families and kids. Please feel free to ask anything.

Regards,

Sandeep

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[nir...@gmail.com]

Thanks Sandeep for sharing your experience.......

[nir...@gmail.com]

Thanks for the reply..........

[Shashank Pathak]

Hi Cerin,

I don't think I am either eligible to comment on how the Technion PhD is or to even elaborate further than what Sandeep said, however I can certainly add my two cents.

Like Sandeep, my background is also CS, though my postdoc technically is in Aerospace Faculty here. I will try to answer two hypothetical questions, with the aim of providing insights which one could have overlooked (at least I did, when I came almost 6 months ago)

1. Is Technion PhD good?

Obviously the question is rife with too many unknowns. What are the options other than Technion, what are the options other than a PhD, what to you is the cost of staying in a non-English society and so on. Usually, your own rapport with the professor is what is very significant. During my PhD applications, finally I had to literally choose between a very reputed place in Germany and slightly less one in Italy where I knew the Prof personally; I went for the latter, and don't repent it till date.

2. What should I know when coming to Technion?

Israel is a member nation in Horizon2020 scheme of things i.e. for EU funding Israel is as good as any other EU nation. Research quality is high and international ranking very good. However, in my humble opinion, there is slightly less international exposure in Israel than you would get in top places in EU (I am comparing with my own experience in Oxford and RWTH, though this minuscule data-set might be unreliable). And I guess the main reason is perceived notion of 'safety', along with freedom of movement too. As many Indians at Technion would vouch for, Israel is indeed a much safer place than made out in media, at least an order of magnitude safer than India. Fortunately, this also means that one has better chances of getting top-notch research experience in Technion than in middle-rank institutes in US or EU. And also, this means there are lots of Indians in Technion. :P

All the best for one of the most crucial decision in your life.

Cheers,

Shashank

[Shashank Pathak]

Very right indeed, esp for research.

It would be safe to say that Technion produces better research than IITs; usually national economy plays a huge part. Though IITs (I know less about IISc) are a very valuable brand-name and in fact in terms of startups (usually BTech guys) it fares better than Technion (not per capita though). Actually, ranked 4th in some ranking. See: http://qz.com/262730/why-iits-produce-more-entrepreneurs-than-ivy-league-institutions-like-harvard-or-yale/

Also it is dangerous to see the overall ranking, humanities can topple the ranking, English too does; for e.g. it shows Oxford significantly higher than Cambridge whereas I have never met someone in CS or Maths or Engg in Oxford that would dare claim that (unless he/she is pathetically biased). :-) Once you put the filter "Engg and Tech" we are in a saner world, with Berkeley managing to be in top 10. 

On 14 May 2016, at 22:42, Robin Augustine <robinau...@gmail.com> wrote:

Please check the ranking of universities (QS ranking, accepted everywhere).
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=

It says,IISc and IITD comes above Technion. This is overall and if we are considering research only, the result will be different (Technion produced 3 Nobel laureates and well recognized for its history of producing startups.).

Dr. Robin Augustine

Postdoctoral fellow
(Council for Higher Education- PBC, Israel)

Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Nanomaterials Science

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

De-Jur Building, Technion City, 3200003 Haifa, Israel

Emails: robinau...@gmail.com, ro...@robinlab.in, aro...@technion.ac.il

Group website   I   Google scholar profile  I   Personal webpage

On Sat, May 14, 2016 at 9:23 PM, Robin Augustine <robinau...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Cerin,

Indeed what is mentioned by both Sandeep and Shashank is the right answers for your questions.

I believe while considering international reputation and ranking Technion may come above all IITs (I think so, that is why many IIT PhDs coming as postdocs here). Sometimes you may find difficulty to find a job in Muslim countries like Saudi with the certificate from Israel university.

A few more points to remember, (This is in general, may be you knows. But when I joined for PhD, I did not have a clear idea about these things)

1. Selection of the supervisor: I think much more important than the institute. If the supervising teacher is not cooperative, nothing worse to happen other than this. If he put his name as first author in all of the publications, you will be in trouble. If he/she dont have a good track in research/reputation/funding/publications/collaborations, give less preference to them. Freedom of thought is very important in research (if you are ambitious about your research career). This depends up on your ideology too. Somebody will be happy if supervisor suggesting much of the things to do and easily getting results (But sometimes suggestions will never work but you will be insisted to follow them).

If the supervisor has good reputation and collaborations, it will certainly open new opportunities to work with them and you will have a good network of researchers. 

2. Here, the work is more focused to a particular area. Say for example in biomedical engineering, if your project is focused on the development of a sensor using CNT, a piezoelectric polymer (also will be specific) and the analyte is BRCA1, you need to develop that. You are not supposed to use graphene instead of CNT. You cannot say "Prof. I could detect BRCA2 instead of BRCA1 which is also equally valuable". I am telling based on a few experiences. Sometimes I am wrong. May vary with group to group.

Above all, you only knows what you are and what you want to be.

If you are preferring to work academia, I mean like assistant prof (Indeed the question where is also important, IITs, NITs, central universities, colleges), the H-index, citations, total impact factor, average impact factor per publication, the best publication (may be best 5), patents, book chapters, awards etc will be considered.  (Of course in India the bad politics and other things that are beyond the quality of research). What we are going to get will not be much better than the best the supervisor had and will not be much bad than his or her bad one. NB: Exceptions everywhere.

I suggest to ask some one from Biomedical engineering about the supervisor if your supervisor is already fixed otherwise you can approach the best based on the information that you can find from the web and the opinions. If this is your best option or no other best option, nothing to think a lot, this is best only.

Dr. Robin Augustine

Visiting scientist (Present addess)

Biopole, Universite de Lorraine, Nancy

France

&

Postdoctoral fellow
(Council for Higher Education- PBC, Israel)

Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Nanomaterials Science

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

De-Jur Building, Technion City, 3200003 Haifa, Israel

Emails: robinau...@gmail.com, ro...@robinlab.in, aro...@technion.ac.il

Group website   I   Google scholar profile  I   Personal webpage

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[nir...@gmail.com]

thanks guys for ur reply........it was truly informative.........