jasreeve17

I'm always shocked when Mahidol beats Thammasart in some pole or ranking...

It comes down to individual faculties and departments; there's huge divergence. I'd say that the top Thammasart faculties are at least on a par with Chula's Faculty of Arts (commonly acknowledged as Thailand's number 1), and far superior to Mahidol's top faculties.

If we look at the UK uni listings (which vary) then the university of Dundee comes in around 40th, they're just above Mahidol. That's not a bad showing, but not spectacular either: Thailand's no3 = UK's no40 puts some perspective on the numbers.

So, any idea what bias this 'newspaper' has? It's all rather worrying...

To venture another post on the topic itself:

There are MANY very high-quality Thai students. That, I agree. There are MANY very high-quality Thai university professors- that, I also agree. There are probably even a FEW high-quality Thai university professors who can teach at the UNIVERSITY LEVEL in ENGLISH to FOREIGN STUDENTS- that would be only natural. Whether there are **MANY** very high quality Thai professors who can teach at the UNIVERSITY LEVEL in ENGLISH to FOREIGN STUDENTS, I very much doubt.

You bast#**&%#! After all this time you're still after me!

In the last few years I've seen really good students come out of the top Bkk 'English Language' schools into my uni. I don't think this is high and wide, but the good high-schools are good.

These students have probably been a little upset by the 'average foreign lecturer' at university. I reckon that one in four foreign lecturers are good, one in four is okay, and half are below par... My experience of Thai lecturers is that they're better than the foreign equivilents, but then again I work at 2 of the top 10 unis, and see the best Thai teachers (and they are good).

So, the average Thai high-school is exceptionally poor. A few Bkk high-schools are of an international standard.

The average Thai uni is very poor (but well above the high-school level). Some Thai unis are upto international standard (certainly less than 10, probably less than 5).

The Thai education system is shockingly bad - especially the high-schools (I don't blame the teachers for this problem). They cannot educate 90% of their Thai 'customers' to an 'acceptable' level.

Can the Thai educational system become an international / Asian hub? For cheap education, maybe. But, their time would be better spent worrying about the 90% of poorly educated Thais...

I'll end with this pearl of wisdom: Thai lecturers send their childred abroad to study. Why? You make a guess...

Edit to add, before IJWT bans me, again: I basically agree with his post.

Silpakorn (Taling Chan Campus) is a solid course, but I would say that wouldn't I.

Chula and Thammasart will have a more business focus, and will be very strong courses - the best? Maybe.

Bangkok Uni and Assumption are considered by some as unis you pay for a degree, thus not all employers respect these qualifications, rightly or wrongly? I've seen good and bad...

Dusit has a reasonable degree too. Better than the private unis? I'd say so, but...

Good luck.

All the Thais with some hope are going the other way... From Chula to a US university...

I suggest you do the same.

Do an MA at a good American university then get a good job in an American company, with global reach, then look to get transfered to Thailand with a 200,000 plus per month salary (your Thai language skills will help ).

The best this side of the world is a decent Thammasart degree (your GPA is low for that...) then try to get a 40,000 baht a month salary...

Spend as much time as possible, gaining as much experience as possible, in a global leading country before moving to a developing nation!

Good luck.

Yep, as said above; elements of keyboard warrior syndrome and communication 'difficulties' on forums: I'm crap on forums, but probably not quite so bad in real life.

ThaiVisa is also a 'venting place', so you see the worst of folk...

As far as the forum improving? I doubt it. If anything it seems to be getting worse.

13,451 baht and 75 satang.

Edit to improve my otherwise awful guess...

Astral, was a bit worried by your mates PS# as a source, especially regarding the sound, but a very quick browse suggests it's pretty good.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hd-dvd-bl...line-page3.html

MoJo, That's a horrible shop. It could horribly upset the missus, my wallet... In the UK I had a sound system that cost around three thousand pounds, and I loved it. I can't really justify those kind of expenses now I've commitments and stuff. I don't think I could trust myself to visit this shop...

I've never experienced Blue Ray - so to see it on a big TV with a good sound system would be interesting.

It is....................

Would you reccomend a player / set-up Astral? Do you reckon the video shop'll open up a Blue Ray section, any time soon?

I'm just selling my little condos to buy a much bigger house, and I might as well have a 'special' TV room where the missus isn't allowed (other than special occassions...).

OP, if you like the double Big Mac then go to a Burger King; they have a big surprise for you...

I've been a tad flumuxed (is that a real word? Doubtful, especially with that spelling...) by some longtermers worrying about street vendors. In China I never ate from street vendors - they're dirty... But, Thai street vendors are clean and fine. Good fresh food that's probably far healthier than your UK Tesco plastic produce. Fruit and vegtables here are primed with stomach cancer inducing chemicals, but the street food? No, it's fine. Fresh and fine.

I've had mild food poisoning three times, and all were down to cut meats from Foodland (all 3 times was a chicken roll down to it's final cuttings); Mild sickness for 24 hours only.

Edit to add: BkkJames is a braver man than I. Don't eat the street vendor shellfish, especially the 30 second splash in hot water little clams. I take the missus to hospital at least once a year due to these little blighters...

It's nice to have a high-end system to come home and relax to, maybe a little fridge filled with your favourite beer next to the sofa...

I've never experienced Blue Ray - so to see it on a big TV with a good sound system would be interesting.

What ever suits you. I do love my 46" HD Sony with 200MHz Motionflow. Coupled with proper Pioneer BR player and set of decent speakers and amp the movies look and sound much better to me than they did with my 10 year old 21" tube coupled with 3000 baht chinese dvd player i bought 12 years ago. But maybe it's just a hype in my head...

I was talking about a Sony 29" TV with SD; pretty much the standard 10 years ago.

I was not talking about an old cheap chinese branded 21".

Any digital signal, like HD, is lower quality than the the original analogue signal obviously enough - digital / HD is cheaper for producing programs and distributing those programs - so you can receive 100 channels instead of 10 for example, that's all. Good for Sony to sell more TV's too.

I used to work with many of these standards as they were being pressed forward and introduced. The broadcasting industry and film production companies and consumer groups weren't involved or interested. It was all pushed by the manufactures: Sony and Philips are traditionally the big players. Check out the boards for international standards like MHP and HD, goto the conventions and industry shows, all this stuff is controlled and pushed by manufacturers.

It's nice to have the latest and greatest, but it's really just a ploy by the TV manufacturers...

I used to work for a manufacturer of colour correctors, which are an expensive bit of post production kit for movies, tv, etc. Everyone used to say that for home TV SD is all you need, indeed many disliked true HD because, say you're watching football, you really don't want to be distracted by a blade of grass moving (in real life our eyes / brain choose to ignore it), it makes your eyes sore and uncomfortable. We used HD (amongst other standards) for very large cinema screens, and digital is also easy for TV because production costs are cheaper, but it's not better for normal home TV watching.

Now, many of us (I love to buy the latest gimmick myself) have bought into the HD idea, but we hardly benefit by it, as the manufacturers know full well and hence why they are desperately trying to increase the screen sizes - so you can actually see the difference. Back in the good old days a 29" SD Sony TV had a great picture, a 29" HD Hi-res Super-New-Max doesn't have a better picture quality, just like a digital signal is always worse than an analogue signal, but it makes TV cheaper for the broadcasters, and an opportunity for Sony to bring out the latest new standard and sell more TV's, that's all. It's all <deleted>.

It was not only PAD, it was Chalerm speaking on behalf of Thaksin and PTP, too, and the reds demands coming from the streets.

Now they are collecting signatures for reinstalling 97 charter. All of that has happened only in a couple of days.

My feeling is that they expect problems from the opposition, have army backing, support from the courts and are prepared to deal with it.

Problems from PAD are more likely to upset their coalition with the army.

Of course, Abhisit is under attack from Newin's group too. I reckon he'd like to keep the PAD onside if he can. Also, it's harder to get the army out to clear the PAD from the streets, much easier to get the army out to clear the reds. So, I stick with my original thought; he's backed down from a potential PAD conflict - IMO that's not good, once Sondhi thinks he's powerful enough (he probably does already...) the political situation will just get worse, if possible. A PM needs to lead, not bow down to a nutter like Sondhi.

I agree with almost all the above comments.

RU is well respected, very easy to enter, study by yourself (maybe never going to class), difficult to pass the tests and graduate. If you manage to graduate then you've applied yourself well; employers respect RU degrees.

Thammasart is better, but hard to gain entrance onto the course. I've met some very smart Thammasart law graduates - one of the (if not THE) top departments / faculties of any Thai uni.

It's a very strange situation... And maybe there's no point in continuing if none of the parties are interested anymore.

I would comment that last week Abhisit said he'd continue regardless of what the other parties say, then the PAD threatened to take to the streets, now Abhisit says, 'oh, well, what's the point...'. - I'm not blaming him, but he does look weak and scared of the PAD threats; that's not good.

Good luck Robbie.

Remember: if the stress builds up too much then it's no disgrace to move out and move on; get away from these muppets and instantly improve your quality of life.

What a poster.

Proven completely wrong, but keeps on diggin... And makin friends...

Once the OP had decoded the system, he played it to his advantage.

I would have done the same.

All's fair in love and shopping.

Lighten up jasreeve17, it's not a big deal like you seem to think.

I agree it's not a biggie.

I simply stated that the Thai staff were overtly reasonable, plus the OP was wrong. When that was suggested to him, he replied with more aggression and rudeness... Now that there is clear evidence to the fact, I'm interested in how the OP next replies...

Me and a mate were stuck in a small room with 5 very large mean bouncers and a closed door, at Astoria once. They weren't very nice, but in the end they just kicked us out; threat of extreme violence, but no violence, just threw us out...

Not a good situation Jas, lucky you and your mate got out of that one. The bouncers were nuts back then in the 90's, I think a cocktail of steroids and "e" made them all insane.

Yep, they wanted to search us for the obvious reasons (not out of duty, but profit), we wouldn't let them and suggested they call the police instead... They didn't like that answer, it was touch and go, at least two of the bouncers wanted to force the issue (one thumped my mate), but the top dog stopped when he saw some membership cards I had in my wallet...

These insomnia bouncers will be slaughtered sooner or later, plenty of unbalanced folk around that don't like taking a beating...

More information is required.

Do you have individual meters or do you just receive a bill from the office, for example?

Before I bought a place, I rented 5 or 6 condos in Bkk; the folk in the offices have been dishonest scam artists more times than not. The one time that the owner of the condo managed all the affairs; everything was fine, she ran her place well. It's usually no great government conspiracy, just some pleb who buffers the bills for personal gain. More times than not it's a female, building manager.

I'm thinking about moving to your area to sully the neighbourhood. I might even buy myself a Jaguar to sully in style - do you have a foodland and / or villa close to home?

As soon as the missus' skin creams start working we'll fit in just fine...

All good, but I don't think any of that would help you.

Maybe I'm not on the top 40 list, but being around affluent folk can't hurt me. It may well motivate me, inspire me, build my merit...

(Rich people have earned more merit than poor people haven't they?)

I'm thinking about moving to your area to sully the neighbourhood. I might even buy myself a Jaguar to sully in style - do you have a foodland and / or villa close to home?

As soon as the missus' skin creams start working we'll fit in just fine...

It appears ironic to some, but perhaps not to a Chinese / Thai landlord come sweatshop owner come tuktuk mafiosi, that the song for Thai nationalism and protectionalism is sung loudest by folks whose grandparents didn't speak Thai...

I'll take comfortable irony over apparent mediocrity any day.

And in the end, what can it be other than better karma... and likely God's will as well?

Heng, I find that insulting! My mediocrity is more than just apparent.

Thanks for posting that Meg.

I'm looking forward to an apology...