Reflection 1: When I Was a Student

What I felt when I was a student?

This reflection is based on my PHD journey. When I was doing my PHD, one thing I realised is that a PHD student needs a good time management skill. PHD is a lonely journey. We do our own research with our own physical and emotional strength. PHD has no class timetable. Neither the school nor supervisors will provide us the schedule (as in my case). One thing that I had is the target period of finishing PHD which is 3 years. I had to be very discipline in doing my PHD work. I tried to build my discipline as maximum possible by going to the office from 9 am to 5 pm every weekday. Sometimes I went home at 8 pm. During my first 1 and half year of my PHD, I was single and I had my own time without needed to spend it for other people. So, some of my weekends were spent at the office if I did not go somewhere else. My supervisor barely monitored my timeline and therefore, I made my own initiative to contact them for meetings. Otherwise it could be only one meeting in a month. When I went travel, the maximum off days I took were only 4 days in a row. I also made my own Gantt chart my PHD so I had the milestone to achieve from time to time. A lesson that I learned from this is that as a supervisor, I need to always remind or guide our students or otherwise they will loss their pace. Some students are good in manging time but some are not. Therefore, as a responsible supervisor, it is my duty to remind them to keep on working. A good student comes from a good supervisor.

Second, writing proficiency is very important for a postgraduate student. The best strategy is to master the writing skill, both academically and grammatically before students start their PHD. I said that because it happened to me when I was doing my PHD. I was not good in English. My grade for English subjects during my undergraduate were never above B. When I started my PHD, I did not pay serious attention on my English. Only after 1.5 years I started my PHD, my supervisors asked me to go language centre to seek for assistance. I went there and got my one-to-one tutor. We met once in two weeks when we discussed about my weaknesses. I then did my self-learning on grammar and gradually improved my English for the rest of my PHD. When I looked back at my written work sent to my supervisor before I took the tutorial, I smiled and felt sorry for my supervisors because they had to read poorly written work. A lesson learned from my experience is that as a supervisor, we should identify those students who have poor writing skills at the beginning of the PHD. Ask them to sharpen their skills before it is too late. Direct them to learn English at Language Centre because with good writing skills, the ideas can be conveyed in more efficient ways.

Third, familiarity with top journal articles is essential to build good writing skills and to produce publishable PHD thesis. When I was doing my PHD, my supervisors asked me to read only top journals because of their quality and thorough reviewing process. By reading them, I learned how top journals argued, how they were motivated, and how to perform good empirical tests (my PHD used secondary data and was empirical). I also had to look at the latest published journals in order to get fresh/current ideas and to know current trends in methodologies. By knowing these, the thesis that I wrote helped me a lot to publish in top journals. Alhamdulillah, one of my chapters in the thesis was published in Q1 Web of Science in May this year. The takeaway here is that as a supervisor, we are the ones who need to guide students during their early year of PHD. Ask them to read top journals to learn how to write and how to do the test. Based on my experience, publishing in top journals requires hard work and robust piece of work. We do not want to publish in predatory journals that weaken our credibility as scholars.

Fourth, work-life-balance is crucial especially when a student is married. Every human being deserves to have their own life, similar for a PHD student. When I was a PHD student, I went back to Malaysia to get married. My supervisors did not stop me from getting married. They just advised me to keep working on PHD during my marriage leave (I say this because a friend of mine was questioned by his supervisor when he was getting married). When I brought my wife to the UK, I spent the weekend with my wife and less likely to focus on my PHD work. I could not just focus on my PHD seven days a week and let my wife bored. During weekends, we went out to the town. Sometimes we travelled around Scotland cities and went to other European countries. The point I want to make here is that, how tough our PHD is, do not let our loved ones neglected. They are the ones who will take care of us when we fall ill. Therefore, as a supervisor, I will not let the PHD work burden my students too much. However, they must be reminded about their duty as a student to complete their PHD in stipulated time.

Fifth, networking is also a vital part as a student. Attending conferences is the best place to create wide networking. I attended few conferences and met new friends during my PHD. When my school organised seminars, I mingled around with many scholars in my field. This is important in future career as academics. As a supervisor, I will encourage my students to attend conferences and mingle around with other PHD students in UUM. They might work together in publications and research in the future.

Sixth, motivation is always a key in completing a PHD. Without motivation, a PHD student might quit his study in the middle of the road. The main source of motivation normally will come from family. As a supervisor, we can also motivate our students by giving them credit when it is due. If the student is facing with a problem, we must try to ask them what the problems are. We should try our best to help them if we can. If not, enough by giving some motivational words so they will become better. My experience as a supervisee, good words from supervisors mean a lot to me because we know that they understand our journey. We can also ask students to talk with other PHD colleagues to increase their motivation. Not only him/her is facing problems in the school/university.