Just read a interesting post today [About the process and defense of graduate student](https://steemit.com/cn/@chenhs/4jkfkr), which talked about the Ph.D. defense at TUDelft in Netherlands. Also, Ms. @TVB in our wechat group is interested in the process of study aboard, so I would like to write a post based on my experience about this topic. 


今天看了一个很有意思的帖子，[关于研究生培养和答辩杂谈](https://steemit.com/cn/@chenhs/4jkfkr)，介绍了荷兰TUDelft博士毕业答辩流程和一些很有深度的看法。碰巧在微信群里聊到 @TVB 姐对国外的留学的流程还挺有兴趣，趁着周末简单介绍一下自己在这方面的亲身经历和所见所闻。

Photo, my convocation in 2015. 图片是我2015年毕业典礼的照片。
![0](http://i.imgur.com/yFktmpM.jpg)

University of Alberta, which is the Canadian university which I got my Ph.D. from, divided their engineering master program into course-based and thesis-based. The duration of course-based master is around 1.5 year to 2 years, this kind of master need to pay their own tuition fee (in total around 20000 CAD). Thesis-based master will graduate in 2-3 years, they have 4 courses and the rest of their time will be working on the research project with their supervisor. Ph.D. only have thesis-based and the duration is around 3 to 6 years, they have 6 courses and all the other time will be research and paper and thesis writing. Both thesis-based master and Ph.D. student have scholarship which may from the supervisor's funding, department funding or salary from teaching assistant. During my Ph.D. period, I got 25000 CAD every year and I need to pay 8000 CAD as tuition fee, the rest of the money was for my living expense. 

我在加拿大上博士的学校，阿尔伯塔大学，工科的研究生分为课程型和研究型，课程型的一般学制一年半到两年左右，主要是上课，需要自己交学费（一共大概2W加元）。研究型一般学制两年到三年，上四门课，其余时间跟导师一起做研究项目撰写毕业论文。博士只有研究型一般三年到六年，上六门课，其余时间跟导师一起做研究项目撰写毕业论文。研究型的研究生和博士生都有奖学金，就是导师项目的经费，学院提供的补助还有做助教的工资。这些奖学金交过学费之后还会有足够的生活费。我读博士的时候奖学金每年25000加元，减去学费8000加元，剩余的就是生活费。

The following is the big time line of my total Ph.D. experience, the process are different from University to University, I can not say everywhere will be the same, but the whole Canada should be similar. 

下面是我整个博士期间的重要时间点，每个学校的流程都会不一样，但是整个加拿大境内应该都比较相似。

Year 0, application which normally need to be 8 month before the program starts. 
Year 1, most of this year will be classes and exam in the class, there will be minimum requirement on the grade for the class.
Year 2, candidacy exam, which will be one of the most important exam during Ph.D. period. It is basically another defense, in my program, a lot of times the candidacy exam is more difficult than the finial defense. 
Year 3, experiments, paper witting, conferences. This year was the most productive year for me and for a lot of other Ph.D. student, maybe 60% of the whole research work was done in this year.
Year 4, thesis writing and defense. My thesis was called paper based thesis, basically one chapter of the thesis was one paper I published, so I did not spend too much time on the thesis, but this year people usually spend a lot of time looking for the next job. 

第0年，主要是申请，一般申请要比学期正式开始时间提前8个月左右。
第1年，主要是课程，课程会有最低成绩要求。
第2年，开题考试，我们学校的开题考试像毕业答辩一样，甚至更严格。
第3年，做实验，写论文，参加会议。这一年我完成了整个博士阶段60%左右的工作，也是大部分人效率最高的一年。
第4年，写毕业论文和答辩。我的毕业论文是小论文式的，基本上一篇小论文就是一章大论文，所以没花太多时间写毕业论文，但是许多人在这一年都要花很长的时间找工作。

Ph.D. was like a job to me, it was not only for learning knowledge, more importantly, practice problem solving skills, interpersonal skills especially with my supervisor and group members.  I never regret I did Ph.D. using my best 4 years in my life. 

博士对我来说就像是工作一样，并不仅仅学习一点知识，更重要的是锻炼了自己解决问题的能力，和导师还有组员交流的能力。虽然用掉了我几乎最好的四年光阴，但是我从来没有为读博士而后悔过。

Cheers for everyone.
诸位共勉。