Postdoc highlight series: Dr. Ken Yan Wong (#3)

This week on the Alternative Postdoc Superheroes I talk with Dr. Ken Yan Wong who combines his academic work with running a business. He also speaks about men’s mental health, volunteer work, and working on strengths versus working on weaknesses.

Enjoy the read!

 Quick notes on Ken
NameDr Ken Yan Wong
Countries he has academic experiences fromSingapore (primary to A level), United Kingdom  (degree and PhD)
Ken in keywordsMotivated, Determined, Dreamer
Ken as a scientist/researcher/academicI am a conceptual thinker. I enjoy theorising and making sense of complex information/data. I tend to take a philosophical stance towards the topic of discussion.
Currently excited about I recently finished the book “Mindset” by Carol Dweck. It describes her research into the fixed and growth mindsets of individuals and explores why some people approach adversity differently and have varying capacities to grow from hardship.
Ken’s typical day:        6am – wake up, roll about in bed
7am – gym and throw heavy weights about
9am – breakfast and emails, catch up with client messages from last evening, and admin work
11am – first client meeting
1pm – lunch, sometimes I take the opportunity to go for a walk nearby
2pm – second client meeting/client work
3pm – third client meeting/client work
5pm – admin from today’s client meetings
6pm – drag myself home to cook dinner
7pm – dinner and rest
9pm – get ready for bed
Contact Ken at:Insta @gymandphilosophy (personal) and @drkenyanwong (business)
Web Drkenyanwong.com
Email Drkenyanwong@gmail.com

Hi Ken, thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Could you introduce yourself?

I am Ken. I am an academic consultant, I support degree to PhD student clients on their research projects. I provide bespoke 1-1 consultation to clients who face difficulties in their research, review their dissertations and theses for academic rigor and proofread their work.

I also speak at universities about academic life hacks, international student-related matters, and how to cope with the PhD life. I also teach at the University of Essex’s online Masters in Public Health programmes and supervise Masters level research.

What kind of student/pupil were you as a kid?

I was very academically competitive, not because my parents pushed me to, but because I found validation and security through academic achievements. I was also very enthusiastic about school activities, my mum calls it my “me, me, me” attitude where I will volunteer myself for anything and everything at my school (I even volunteered to clean the fish tank at school)!

I can’t say there is much I disliked about the school, perhaps besides the fact that I hated having to wake up at 5 am to get to the school at 6.30 am (still not a morning person at the moment).

What did you study in your undergrad program?

I did my undergraduate degree in Occupational Therapy at Cardiff University.

Why and how did you decide to go into a PhD?

While doing my degree, I felt that I was not very good with clinical work, there is a certain aspect of connecting with patients that I felt that I did not grasp very well compared to other students. I also knew that I was a lot stronger with academic work than clinical work.

At that point in my life, I felt that I have spent my entire educational journey working on my weaknesses and it was time I started to capitalize on my strengths and make something out of them.

What was your PhD program experience?

I did my PhD in the UK at Cardiff University. It was a 3-year programme with a closed-door Viva examination at the end where I defended my thesis in front of 2 examiners.

My PhD journey was possibly the most enjoyable period of my education; I was researching something I was passionate about and had the room to develop my ideas. I don’t think I have ever experienced this much intellectual freedom.

Much like my younger years, I was very active outside my PhD, I was a student rep, organized 3 conferences, started a research collaboration with other staff members, consulted on other PhD studies, volunteered to supervise high school student researchers from underprivileged backgrounds, started my first business… I kept myself very busy at that time.

Could you tell me a bit more about that first business?

My first business was about sharing my research findings. My PhD research led me to develop a new theory about how we can learn and grow by sharing our experiences with others and asking questions to prompt others to think deeper.

I realized that this was not the sexiest research out there and this theory is likely to be shelved when I completed my PhD.

So I took it upon myself to share this theory with the public.

I started a personal development brand called The Little Philosopher. It was a business designed to teach people how to think deeper about their everyday lives through intellectualizing activities and events like grocery shopping using philosophy. It started as a blog and was built to grow into workshops and talk events targeted at large companies for their employees.

I started this business in my second year of my PhD but it became too much to handle as it got bigger. I then had to make the hard decision to close it because I was mentally unable to cope with the pressure of it all.

What advice would you give your younger self starting a PhD program?

I would tell my younger self to stop worrying about the future. A lot of my impetus to get involved in other projects was due to my constant fear of being “yet another generic PhD grad”.

I feel that if I took that pressure away, I would be able to celebrate my achievements more wholeheartedly rather than constantly moving on to another project.

What have you decided to do after your PhD and why?

I started a business to help other PhD and Master’s students on their research projects. I struggled to find employment after my PhD. After I finished my PhD, the PhD students whom I supported in the past told me that they wanted to pay me to continue helping them with their work.

That was when I realized that I have something that people find of value and were willing to pay money for, so I started to explore setting up a business around that.

After a year of job hunting to no avail, I decided to “make” myself a job.

How was job hunting for you?

Job hunting was hard for me. I was told by a few companies that my business seems very fulfilling and that they were impressed with my CV but they warned me that joining them meant leaving all of that behind. Two directors who interviewed me for a job in pharmaceutical consultancy told me that they had to give up their dreams for their company!

I was interviewed for a job at a university and was questioned about my business and my willingness to take instruction and be supervised. I was passed over for a fresh graduate job that involved consulting on health education policy (my PhD field). They hired a fresh graduate in economics instead and told me that they felt that they were concerned about my ability to work with a team since I was already running a business. Part of my motivation to have my own business was due to circumstances as well.

What PhD has given you (knowledge, skills, mental aspects, etc.) and how you use it now?

The PhD has challenged me philosophically. It has made me think more critically about things around me. Being more reflective has led to a great amount of personal growth, I have learned more about myself as a person.

It also taught me to take a step back and consider the big picture of whatever I am looking at. This was particularly useful for me when working with clients now because I am often able to provide a broader perspective on the matter. It has enabled me to work with clients from a variety of disciplines, from physics and biochemistry to business, education, and anthropology.

What are your other superpowers?

Aside from work, I do Olympic weightlifting (@gymandphilosophy) and I hope to compete in the sport some day.

I also volunteer at HUMEN, a charity organization that encourages men to open up about mental health issues. I run group sessions with a group of volunteers and I am responsible for setting up space in the room. Now with the restrictions of Covid, our sessions have been moved online and we have people joining our sessions from all over the world!

What is the hardest in doing what you are doing?

I believe business management is the most challenging aspect of what I do now. Coming from an academic background, thinking like a businessman is quite difficult for me since the most intellectual decision is not often the most profitable decision.

Working on a client’s research is what I am most excited about but that, in reality, makes up only 5-20% of how I spend my time. Most of my time is spent doing accounting, planning, marketing, liaising, building customer relations etc. However, if I don’t manage my business, I will not have any clients to work with so I had to learn how to develop my business management skills.

How do you deal with this problem?

I often sit down with other entrepreneurs in other fields to discuss our businesses. This helps me bounce ideas off someone else and also have someone to help me identify if I am perhaps not making the best business decisions.

I developed my entrepreneurial skills through the university when I was still a student. I attended workshops in the evenings, listened to podcasts by Lewis Howes, watched videos online. My first business was a great way to practice those skills that I’ve picked up and the lessons I learned were carried over to my current business.

Now, I access local business support and enter business competitions to gain more access to training programs. I was once tempted to do an MBA at the Open University but I was told by the lecturers there that my business itself is a great source of learning and even more valuable than the MBA.

What are you the proudest of?

I am proudest of PhD achievement. I am the fastest student to complete a PhD by thesis at my university. I submitted my thesis within 2.5 years and defended it successfully.

My thesis was written and ready to submit by the end of my second year but due to academic regulations, I could only submit 6 months later. So I spent my time taking a break by going back to Singapore to see friends and family, teach, publish articles, and go to entrepreneurship workshops.

WAIT! What? So you were doing your PhD abroad?

I am a Singaporean, born and raised. After finishing my A levels, and serving 2 years of military service, I left Singapore at the age of 21 to study my degree occupational therapy and later, my PhD, at Cardiff University in Wales, United Kingdom.

In my thesis, I developed a new philosophy of life which describes how we learn and grow as humans by sharing our life experiences and interacting with people whom we trust. It is a grand theory, and my supervisors and other professors told me that it was ambitious and risky to argue something like that in my PhD. I was not discouraged by that because it was what my research findings elicited and that was the thesis I wanted to defend.

Who was the most influential person in your science journey, and how so?

The most influential person for me is a 15th century philosopher, Michel De Montaigne. He has a very lighthearted approach to life which I really admire, and his thinking has reframed some of my beliefs and writing.

Who are your mentors/people you follow on social media and enjoy their content?

I use social media mostly for content related to weightlifting but I am quite inspired by the work ethics of Joey Szatmary, Ben West, Nathan Bird, and Brandon Hasick on Instagram.

They are gym owners/coaches from all over the world who are passionate about their respective businesses and always seeking to bring high-value services to their clients. That is something that I am working towards myself and they have been a great source of motivation even though we work in vastly different fields.

Are there any tools, resources or software you are obsessed with at the moment (or were obsessed while doing your PhD)?

Dropbox was the most important for my university life in general. I never had to deal with external hard drives or thumb drives nor have I had to worry about whether I am working on the most updated version of my document when I switch computers/devices.

Notion is something that I use now to organize my notes for my business and Hubspot for maintaining customer relations.

What are your future plans, upcoming projects, what is next?

I am currently working on my new YouTube channel: Dr Ken Yan Wong. The videos will be about how to survive academic research as a PhD or Masters’ student. I will also be featuring some client case studies to show how we overcame the issues in their research.

Apart from that, I have 2 books that I am currently drafting, one is a monograph based on my PhD thesis and the other is an academic life hack guidebook for Masters and PhD researchers. 

Instead of publishing my PhD as a series of papers, I decided a book/monograph was best since the entire thesis surround a single philosophy. A greater number of word count would be required to put forth a solid argument for my philosophy.

I wrote a book proposal for several publishers in the UK and found out that they would like to see more development of my philosophy so I decided to draft the book in greater detail so that I can push my ideas further, beyond my PhD research and findings.

The academic life hack guidebook is an e-book that I was looking to self-publish, I am still considering if I want to sell it or offer it for free.

Is there anything you would like to add?

One quote that has been quite influential for me was from my personal tutor when I asked him if I should do a Masters programme after my degree. He said “If you are ambitious enough, why don’t you do a PhD straight away”, and that led me to research something that I am deeply passionate about.

Now, when I find myself fearful about taking the next big step, I tell myself that if I am ambitious enough then why don’t I do it.

It has pushed me to start my first business, my second and current business, write my first publication, give my first talk, win my first entrepreneurship competition.

It reminds me that my desire to achieve and develop myself is greater than my fear of failure.

I am always interested in connecting with other entrepreneurs or PhD students or graduates who are interested in entrepreneurship, so feel free to drop me a message at Drkenyanwong@gmail.com!

Where people can find you?

Insta @gymandphilosophy (personal) and @drkenyanwong (business)

Web Drkenyanwong.com

Email Drkenyanwong@gmail.com

Thank you!


If you want to read another interview with an academic coach, read this:

Postdoc highlight series: Dr. Renske de Leeuw (#2)

1 thought on “Postdoc highlight series: Dr. Ken Yan Wong (#3)”

  1. Pingback: Postdoc highlight series: Dr. Wojciech Ambroziak (#7) - Alternative Postdoc

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