File 3 @ IMRE: “Which boss should I take?”

Right now it is supposed to be the end of my 12th week and it is end of week 10 at the 2 major unis. But actually, I’m watching Aston Villa vs. Tottenham right now. Both are good teams under great managers. This match reminds me of the similar current situation I’m facing at work and future. The I-don’t-know-which-one-to-choose dilemma, hits hard on the television screen and the following problem I’m going to face.

Being a 3rd year engineering intern, I constantly face questions and questioning about the upcoming senior year, or more specifically the Final Year Project. My peers are a little more apathetic to the situation but I am helpless to it. In IMRE, there are tons of people doing their FYP; hence I can understand its nature and requirements better than my peers. Most of them work at private corporations.

Some idealists think that to do FYP, the project has to be interesting, so that you would end up enjoying the whole FYP experience. Truth: The project, engineering especially, is not important. Interest can be cultivated. On the other hand, no matter how much interest you have the start of the project, the two tons of academia and bureaucracy would pulverize your soul.

Some FYP students I met chose to come here. Most didn’t. They were most likely pushed by their profs to be attached here to suffer under a indifferent supervisor. This brings down to the issue to be tackled: Find a good mentor/supervisor/professor. Some of these highly figures are nonchalant about what happens to you. They throw you to other asst profs, postdocs, postgrads, attached you out, whatsoever. (Normally, these are the full profs who have “no time”.) Some of these nice figures actually push you hard and demand answers every week. (Asst profs fits here.)

My Viet supervisor is a Singapore MIT Alliance scholar, the smart young (29 yrs) playboy. He do not care what you do, hence explaining my freedom in IMRE, he just wants results. You can leave office by 1pm if you want to and have nothing to do. Such freedom however, comes with stress to produce something for meetings. My S’porean supervisor (36 yrs) is the traditional scientist: Hypothesis, Circumstantial Testing, Experiments, Research, Experiments, and Conclusion. He pinches your every step and hounds your every movement, with great concern. You won’t get lost with him as supervisor. For me, I need someone to tok cok to, which both satisfy. I need guidance, but also want freedom. So how?

All in all, it boils down to the situation: I have a Popsicle and an ice-cream placed in front of me. I hesitate to choose. In the end both melted. “Must make a good decision fast!”, yet “good” and “fast” aren’t really accommodating.

Disclaimer: Dr. Quang and Dr. Andrew, If you happen to read this, don’t fuck me. Think you know who I am right now. Haha…

Tottenham is currently leading at halftime, with a Jermaine Jenas header. File 4? Haven’t thought of it yet.

－异客拍客 @ IMRE －

File 2 @ IMRE: “You really want to know?”

It is already in the 11th week. Haha… But I still see Michael Essien scoring against Manchester City. Anyway, this is week 9 at school, a good time to pick up your studies and to decide whether to do honours or not, or determine you can do it or not.

My job at IMRE is to help my boss do stuff. I’m a research assistant after all. Good enough? Not really.

Basically, there are 2 parts to my job. One is to grow film; the other is to analyze the defects. To grow my required film, which is zinc oxide (ZnO), I need to thermal clean my spinel (MgAl2O4) substrates by scrubbing... Heat to 750 deg C overnight... Placed in some prepared solution... Heat to 90 deg C for 4-6 hrs... Seed layer of ZnO formed... Cleanroom (the 9pm show) for patterning (photolithography)... Photoresist spin coat... UV rays through mask... Activate the unmasked areas... Etch... Grow the Laterally Epitaxial Overgrowth film of ZnO... Place in another solution... My job is mostly to vary the parameters of this final stage of growth and to check the morphology and size of the film.



The 2nd part is a little more jiatlat. I was to use Transmission Electron Microscopy to view the samples and to analyze the defects in the films that I’ve grown. I have to cut my samples to 3mm by 3mm... Wax to stub... Polish spinel to 50-100 microns... (1 micron 1/1000 mm) Stick face-to-face + 2 similar sized silicon epoxy... (industrial superglue). Polish one side using wax and a glass slide... Wax standing on stub... Grind to flat... Polish... Fix 3mm copper grid to top... Cure... Flip... Grind to 50 microns thick... Polish... Dimpled using a dimple grinder to make a dimple... (WTF!) Ion milling for 20min to 2 days... Then, the sample can be viewed under TEM.

The long tedious steps make my sample fail every time, with a success rate of only 5-10%. Felt like a rookie oncologist. Realized that my films get delaminated under strong mechanical shear, the traditional method mentioned above is not useful. We are using Focused Ion Beam technique to get our samples done, and it is none of my business.

Can’t tell you much anyway. Yar, I purposely wrote them in long paragraphs. Read again if you do not understand. Key words: hydrothermal growth, photolithography, lateral epitaxial overgrowth, transmission electron microscopy, ion milling, focused ion beam. Haha…

Well, it is the end of the rich vs. the richer game, Essien being the only scorer. My next file would be about my bosses. (Not a good idea, eh?)

－异客拍客 @ IMRE －

File 1 @ IMRE: "It’s my nth choice!"

Hi, long lost people. It has been 10 long (maybe, not so long) weeks since my internship started. Should update you people once in a while.

I’m now currently at Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), which is one of the many institutes under A*STAR. Yar, I know it sounds like high and mighty, but actually, not really once you start working there. For a start, it is actually located behind business school. So it is like I go back to school this half year for internship.

Given a choice, I’d rather go to a private company to do my internship. But you know, last year isn’t exactly what I’d call a good year, so they aren’t hiring much interns. Adding agony, the 45 of us were up against the 220+ savages from NTU, for those diminished number of internship “opportunities”. Luckily we are on an S/U basis, so… we… can… slack… a… bit…

IMRE wasn’t my 1st choice, or the 2nd, or the 3rd. I can’t remember, nth probably. I remembered I flunked the interview at Credit Suisse, due to all the pretty and captivating OLs there (Excuses!). Then followed by no responses from 3M, Micron, Rohm and Haas, I turned towards our dear government. Surely they have a place for a lost sheep like me.

They do. As usual, for an interview, I would dress up with business pants, well pressed shirt and polished leather Hush Puppies. As, my interviewer-cum-future-boss comes down, I stunned. I was dressed much better than him. Polo and jeans? I bet he was laughing loud inside.

Rather than he giving me an interview, I was more or less subjected to a sales talk. Many times, I heard this: “So, you interested or not?” My mind was all in a whirl. “Go back and study lah.” Vs. “I need work experience.”

I grabbed it. And here am I. And 10 weeks have gone. 14 to go.

People ask me so often: “So what do you do there?” My instantaneous reply: “You really want to know?”

－异客拍客 @ IMRE －