Saya kongsikan tips dan motivasi daripada Dr. Rahim Munna, yang saya ambil daripada DSG. Sangat sesuai diambil perhatian oleh calon-calon yang baru mendaftar Phd, yang masih blur macam manakah perjalanan Phd ini sebenarnya. Dr. Rahim Munna ni buat bidang criminal, beliau dah interview 100 orang pembunuh untuk data phd beliau.
Greetings brothers and sisters. I would like to share few tips and steps that I followed during my PhD journey. Hope this post can benefits the PhD and Masters students.
1. BE HAPPY. Always be happy. Enjoy each and every moment of your life. Go out with your friends for dinner or lunch. Share your happy momments with ur beloved ones.
2. TAKE BREAK IN BETWEEN. Pls take 5 or 10 mins break when you are writing your thesis. During this break time, you can go tru the newsfeed, read your friends comments and like the pics. Dont spend your time by reading the emo or some negative posts.
3. DRINK COFFFE/MILO. Try to drink coffee or milo when you are writing ur thesis. N make sure it is hot / warm. Dont take cold or iced drinks. This will make your mind relax, active and you will be very alert too. Nescafe is one of the secret for my GOT Award.
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4. LISTEN TO MUSIC / PLAY ANY AUDIOS/ MOVIES. I always used to play few movies while I am writing my thesis or articles. I feel the audio is a great companion. Make sure you play something that you already watched and some nice movies or inspirational songs. Dnt watch the videos, the audio is just your companion, so that u dnt feel lonely. Choose a movie with a nice& happy stryline. I used to watched few tamil movies that makes me happy.
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5. SET DAILY / WEEKLY GOALS. Make sure you set your goals. I always write few goals everyday. For example: find 10 theories related to criminality, learn how to present kruskal wallis output n etc. Make sure you put adequate efforts in finishing each goal. And please cancelled each goal after u achieved. You will feel as a hero whn you cancel the each goal evrytme. One more thing, pls set different tasks for each day. For example, reading and writing. If you set a goal to read 20 articles on that day, sure u wil get bored. Instead of reading 20 articles on that day, you can read 10 articles and learn how to perform some statistical tests.
6. OPEN YOUR MIND. Pls open your mind by approaching experts relaed to ur research. Dont confine yourself with ur supervisors. If you feel that particular lecturer good in qualitative analyses, seek for her advice. You can approach statistical experts to enquire more abt your tests. Dnt feel shy. And dnt expect the lecturers will come and assist you. If they criticise ur research, dnt be defensive. Be open to such critics. Say thanks to them and discuss with ur friends/sv. Before u discuss with others, ask urself wheater such critics are relevant or not. Improve urself.
7. READ OTHERS THESES. Pls pls go to your uniersty library and look at the theses. Pls go with a pen and piece of paper. Write down all the important subheadings or any important points. You aso can go to other uni libraries to look at their style. Ur external not frm ur uni..remember that. I used to go few uni libraries and read the phd theses. Evrytime u read a new thesis, you will find something new component. I improved my thesis with that. My examiners didnt asked me to add any new component cos all the components were there. Pls do this. Very helpful.
8. ATTEND WORKSHOPS /COURSES. Pls make urself free and try to attend few essential courses like academic writing, thesis wrting, statsitcal workshop, atlas ti or nvivo, validation of questionnaire and etc. Dnt force urself. You wont gain anytng. Go with the good intention. If u dnt understand, pls raise ur ques to speakers. Dnt feel shy. Be interactive. I alwyas prefer small scale workshops so that it wil be more interactive n u can ask lots of ques.
9. PUBLISH PAPERS. yes, you must publish papers. If can be ambitious to publish each of your research objectives. Whenver you publish, it will improve ur self confidence. Again, you will feel as a hero. If ur beginner, try publish in local journals. Get some confidence. One more thing, whenver you publish your papers you will receive reviewers comments. Thats d best part. You can learn ALOT. With that reviewers comments, you can improve ur thesis contents. I learn so many things frm reviewer comments. Keep publishing.
10. PRESENT IN CONFERENCES. Another exciting part of postgaduate journey. Pls present ur papers at local and international conferences. Dnt wait for the grant money, i always share money with my my svs and present in conferences. Dnt choose poster. Oral is better. Why? You can improve ur presentation skills and at the same you will get fascinating questions frm the audience. If you cant answer, its k. Not a big deal. But make sure you find the ans for such quest whn u get bck to ur hotel room. Those type of questions will make u to develop the thnking skills and who knws that particulat ques might be raised in ur viva. I stil remember one of the delegate frm Punjab India asked me 'what makes you to put knives, parang and sharp wepons? I thnk all of them are same!'. Then i realised that i shoud change to sharp objects instead of wepons and i found tthe ans that knives and parangs deserved to be placed as a separate category due to the prevalent usage. N this quest helped me during viva. So immediaely present ur papers. Dnt wait until ur viva. Afta you finish performing analysis for each research obbject, come up as a paper n present it. N yeah, pls mix arnd wth others, who knws ur examiners particpate in the same conference.. hehe.
Best wishes friends. I will write other tips tmrw. DREAMS DNT WORK UNLESS YOU DO!!! REMEMBER THAT. PHD IS YOUR DREAM!!! WORK FOR IT. All the best friends and goodnight.