STPM bio/physics/further maths is suitable for me?

[seahjiachen]

Hey, i wanna take bio/physics/further maths, however, the subject cap is 5. and i'm forced to drop 1 of these 3 subjects. Should i drop physics and take further math? or drop F maths and take physics? / drop Bio and take F maths?:huh

[Klay]

Hmm, The subjt cap is 5 right? If u r taking these 3 subject plus pengajian am. Hey, Thats only 4 subject. So, u dnt hav 2 drop any of them.

[lookingaround]

I think you are taking science stream in STPM, right?
You should have PA, Maths T and Chemistry now, if i am not mistaken.

If you are really going for all biology+physics+f.maths, you can consider dropping the Chemistry, but it's not a really good choice. Just talk to your class teacher, or even your headmaster. The choice is yours, because you are considered as an adult(?) already.

If you like calculations and thinking skills a lot, then just drop biology. I am sure that if you take F.Maths + Maths T + Physics, you will have to live in the hell. (or maybe in the heaven?)

[frankchong]

I do not know your strength and weakness, not knowing what your circumstances and what you want to do give you a more precise advice. However, you may want to think about this.
You should take as much physic and math as you can, if you can handle them well. It will take a lot of work, but a good mastery will help you a lot in the future. It is easier to pick up biology later and biology will follow the foot step of chemistry to be more mathematical in the future. During my student days in HSC, I did pure math, applied math, physics, chemistry and general paper. I can be done.
In those days, if you want to do medicine you had to have biology, so students preparing for medical school took math and biology instead of pure and applied math.
Now adays, if you look at top students in American high schools, they are much better prepared and would have taken many subjects at college (AP) levels by the time they finish high school. So, if you want to take all the subjects, it can be done too, but you need to have the discipline and work very hard. If you do this and end up doing very well, you would be very happy.
So, examine your strength and weaknesses, you interest and then decide.

Frank

[Athersin]

Frankchong, Would u mind to explain why u encourage TS to take as many maths and phy as possible? does it useful in future if we are good at mastering these two subjects? Or maybe does it shows somehow good prospects in his or her chosen fields later?
Thanks.

[freakyz]

For STPM science stream, PA, Maths and Chemistry are compulsory. Chemistry can relate to Biology or Physics. On the other hand, Biology and Physics are not much related. Hence, you can either pick Biology and/or Physics. There's no subject that is said to be suitable, but whether you like it or not.

For further maths, take it with physics is much better than biology because it normally helps in overseas application for physics or maths related course. However, you must make sure that you have the books that are need for the syllabuses because there's no textbook published for this subject nowadays. Find a tutor for it if you can.

I also have to warn you, STPM is not something that you can score easily like SPM. You have to be very prepared if you want to take so many subjects. Each subject has 2 books which each book is thicker than the SPM science subjects' REFERENCE books...

[frankchong]

Hi Athersin and other interested parties,
There a number of reasons (besides the fact that I am interested in math and physics too), here are some of them:
1. Basic literacy issue and critical thinking: the problems we (humanity) face today are getting more global every day. Global climate change, trade, energy, food, population, disease ? A lot of these can only be solved with the application of science. There will be a lot of opinion on these issues, one has to go through carefully all the tradeoffs to select the right approach, which depends heavily on quantitative skills and sound science/engineering to eliminate some of the ?noise?. If you are the engineering manager/CTO in high technology companies in the first world, you seldom run out of ideas, but spend more time to sort out which are the good ideas to invest in.
2. For Malaysia or any country to move from the third world to the first world, you have to move from low cost manufacturing and resource exploitation to product creation. The one who creates the product also determine where it should be manufactured too. You have to move up in the value added chain. Just take a few examples: MP3 player ? the encryption algorithm is highly mathematical. The same can be said of DVD/BR players, HDTV. When you send a message on the internet, read data from your hard disk, there is encryption and error correction at work. It is all transparent to the user, but not the designer. When you drive a car, take a drink ? someone has designed the product/system using a lot of math and physics. Are you going to be a payer in any of these areas?
3. Physics without math is not physics, so math and physics have to go together. It takes years to master physics and math. I hope some one will reach the point that he/she will be able to do order of magnitude estimation of problems he/she sees in everyday life. When you are in the subway in Beijing, you will estimate the numbers of passengers in the car and estimate the impact it has over cars on congestion, pollution, energy usage and quality of life. While you are at it, see the diffusion rate of disease like SARS, H1Ni in this environment compare to places in Western countries where most people do not use public transport. You will soon get a much better feel of what needs to be done. This will give you the insight (fear) that can happen now going forward, but not much of concern when people are relatively isolated in remote villages.
4. Physics is a field that abstracts large amount of knowledge into a few ?Physical Laws?, the ability to see the world, and the discipline to distill knowledge into a few rules, will add clarity to a lot of things. As an example, we all know what glue is, but how glue work? What forces are responsible for the stickiness? From studying physics we know there are only few forces of nature. If we were to look for a stronger/better glue, at least it gives us a clue as where to look. The same trend in abstracting large amount of information into few rules is happening in other fields.
5. If you want to have high value added (better pay) activities, you need to add value. You can have a design or professional knowledge that you can leverage on or machine you can leverage on. Computers are getting more powerful and cheaper. You will soon have personal supercomputers around, can you leverage on these advances without a strong math background? The answer is no. Whenever you search for something on the internet, make a phone call, there is complex algorithms at work. People who work on those algorithms are being paid handsomely, but where do most of our young Malaysians fit in all these? Are there going to be just consumers?
Hope this helps,
Frank

Exams are important, but the main purpose of going to school should not be just preparing for exams, it should be a place to acquire and create knowledge that would be useful for the individual's development. Not only Malaysia has this problem, other places have the same problem too. Here is a link in Chinese on what they are worried in China.

http://club.backchina.com/main/viewthread.php?tid=803008&extra=page%3D1

Frank

[Athersin]

thanks for ur insighful post there..:)
i wonder what is your current work? you have a very good perspective and a good tendency to motivate people by sharing a bunch dear of your experiences and the real look of the world. it helps a lots.
however, i have a few ques to ask .
As an example, we all know what glue is, but how glue work? What forces are responsible for the stickiness? From studying physics we know there are only few forces of nature. If we were to look for a stronger/better glue, at least it gives us a clue as where to look. The same trend in abstracting large amount of information into few rules is happening in other fields.

1.i would look for the chemical properties of glue to determine the stickiness of the glue. Mind to elaborate on the usage of phy principles to that?

2.would you encourage life sciences student to take up phy and maths subjects to train up or improve their basic literacy and critical thinking skills ?

3.When there comes a situation like this: A graduates of phys and a graduate of chemistry, both of them wanted to work in bussines and marketing fields, looking at their own respective qualification without interview, will the employers highly valued or preferred the phy graduates more just because phy involved a lots of critical thinking skills though i can't deny that chemistry does involve analytical skills too ?

[frankchong]

Hi Athersin,
Sorry, I was tied up over the last few weeks. I am taking a break to do my own work, involve in a startup company and my own investment. I spent most of my working life in Silicon Valley, starting from engineering and management in MNCs to startup companies. Science and engineering has been and still is part of everyday life. We had to create products and technologies that did not exist before, and to do so effectively, one has to see what is needed or possible years ahead of the public. I have since use my knowledge and experience to study new technologies and companies that will be in the best position to take advantage of these opportunities.
Coming back to glue, physical and chemical properties do give a clue, but if you look for something new, most of the time, their properties are not know or not published.

There are 4 forces of nature (2 of which could be combined): gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak forces. Strong and weak forces can be ruled out because glue does not depend on nuclear interactions. Gravity can be ruled out because glue involves small mass (not like earth, solar systems). Thus we are left with electromagnetic force, of which magnetic can be ruled out because glue is non-magnetic or depend on electric current to work. We are now left with forces that is electric (or electrostatic in nature.

Now, how do we demonstrate this?
If we take a roll of sticky tape, go in a dark room (do it at night), wait until you eyes get used to the dark room (maximum light sensitivity), peel the tape quickly while looking at the boundary of separation. You will see electric sparks! The work you are doing separating the charges has created a large potential difference to cause the sparks to occur. (please try it out in a dry environment). This also means that the glue molecules has to be polar to crate opposite charged areas to attract each other.

If you are looking for good adhesion between two different materials, as an example, if I need a metal to stick well to ceramic, I can use an adhesion layer like chromium or titanium, and the energy of formation of Titanium oxide and chromium oxide would give us a clue as to their relative bond strength to alumina (ceramic).

Physics and Math for life science students:
It depends on which level we are talking about, for the very strong students, yes. Math and physics on top of life sciences would open up new frontiers like biophysics, computational biology, genomics etc. For the average and weaker students, these combinations could be too much and hence depends on how much the student can handle and do well.

Physics or Chemistry graduate, which would you hire:
There are multiple factors involved in hiring, it is about seeking out which candidate has the best match for the job. If the job needs domain specific knowledge and there is no time to train and the job is relatively well defined, get the one with the domain knowledge and the right aptitude. So, if you sell chemicals, then get a chemistry graduate.

However, if the problem is not well defined, and it is new and the scope is wide, get someone sharp with critical thinking skills, a strong back ground in physics and math would be preferred. Please note, some of the best chemists are very strong in math and physics too. Sometimes, it is hard to tell whether they are chemists or physicists and vice versa. Have you seen the ?Quantum Mechanics? book written by Linus Pauling?

Also note, hiring decisions varies a lot from organization to organization. EDB in Singapore had many engineers among their staff, but SEDC in Kuching had mostly arts graduates, even though both are in promoting economic development.

Regards,
Frank

[lawteoh]

Interesting post. Just wondering. Are you somehow related to the biomedical engineering field in Singapore? I am deducing you are working in Singapore since the name 'Silicon Valley' sounds familiar. :)

[caramel_nut]

Interesting post. Just wondering. Are you somehow related to the biomedical engineering field in Singapore? I am deducing you are working in Singapore since the name 'Silicon Valley' sounds familiar. :)Sorry frankchong (it's weird calling you Frank when I always refer to you by your other name), I couldn't help but reply to this one. Wikipedia's article on Silicon Valley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_valley. It's on the other side of the world from Singapore...

[nickvl]

Interesting post. Just wondering. Are you somehow related to the biomedical engineering field in Singapore? I am deducing you are working in Singapore since the name 'Silicon Valley' sounds familiar. :)

Erm..I thought Silicon Valley was in California somewhere there?

[frankchong]

Thanks Caramel_nut. I have used my Chinese name in all my professional work, even all the time in USA.

Yes, Silicon Valley is in California, the Southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Large percentage of the technology you use daily have their origin in Silicon Valley. It is the place where companiies like Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, HP, Apple, Yahoo, Google, Cisco ... started.


I am not involved in the biomedical engineering field in Singapore. However, I do track a number of biotech companies and study their competitive advantages and weaknesses (I do own shares in some of them at some time). Singapore, through its ASTAR program had planned to sponsor up to ~1000 PhD level researchers people in biotech, which started a number of years ago. 1000 researchers does sound a lot, but when you compare with some of the very successful biotech companies or even some biotech start ups, it is not that many. Take a look at this startup company, 2944 scientists (end of 2008) in a contract research company. It is run by experienced researchers from the West.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MzM4OTg2fENoaWxkSUQ9MzI0MTQ2fFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1

Here is a summary of their team:
Management Team with Broad
International Experience
Chairman/CEO with Ph.D. in organic chemistry from
Columbia University and a founding scientist at
Pharmacopeia
Senior management also includes:
? Leaders with significant work experience at Biogen Idec, Bristol-
Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Guidant, ImClone Systems,
Mallinckrodt, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Pharmacopeia, Rhone
Poulenc, Schering-Plough, SmithKline Beecham, Tanox,
TargeGen, Wellcome Biotech, Wyeth, McKinsey,
PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and Deloitte
? Ph.D.?s/M.D.?s from Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, NYU,
Northwestern, and Yale
? More than 100 U.S.-educated scientist returnees


regards,
Frank

[chongkeat]

Hmm, I wonder what life as a researcher must be like....

Working alongside 2944 scientists, people who think like you, know what you know, who are interested in the same things as you are, being paid, day in, day out, to just think and learn. Man! If that's not heaven, then I don't know what is anymore.

Or maybe I've been watching too many episodes of The Big Bang Theory...


And yes, I realize that this has nothing to do with the topic being discussed. At all. Moving along...