June 5, 2015, by Lisa Chin
How I have benefited from the Researcher Development Programme…
This post is contributed by Asha Issa Baleche Katamba, a third year PhD student from Nottingham University Business School (NUBS).
I would like to convey my special appreciation to the workshop series organised by the Graduate School, particularly on how to overcome problems, roles of students, roles of supervisors and how to be a positive thinker. In one of the workshop series, I realized that “I am a highly organized person” who gets confused easily when interrupted in the middle of my plans. Since then, I started to change myself from being highly organized into a more flexible person to allow me to adapt to any situation with ease. This is my real-life experience in implementing the theoretical aspect of the workshop series and it happened like this:
I had finished editing my annual review work, (my entire PhD Literature Review) which was about 18,000+ words, and had it emailed to my supervisor for her final checking and approval so that I can print and submit it. It appeared that my supervisor was not pleased with the way I had changed my objectives, especially the main objective, and she sent me her comments suggesting that I rephrase the objectives and automatically the methodology as well so that the two could help me solve the problem with ease. As you know changing the main objective means changing half of the work.
It was 9am, I had finished editing my work and was just about to go to the computer lab and Semenyih town to print and do binding respectively, when I received her call that I cannot submit my work in that form!
I freaked out for a few minutes; I complained to her, I decided to ask for an extension, but was told it was not allowed and I must submit the work the following day! I sat for a while to digest the whole situation, thinking what to do next. That’s when I started recalling the kind words from the workshops that I attended: “PhD research is your work, supervisors are there to guide you; be a positive thinker, researchers must be unstructured people, be flexible to accept any interruptions, others have experienced the worst etc, etc”.
Immediately I went back to my room and started reading and updating my work slowly and progressively. I started writing from 2pm until 8am the following day and I managed to submit my annual review at 1.40pm. I was told I can still keep improving it until the time for my annual presentation in June.
I believe I wouldn’t have been able to cope with the re submission if I had not attended the workshop series. These workshops have changed my perception towards people, towards my role and how to adjust with situations.
UNMC Graduate School’s Researcher Development Programme (RDP) provides free training for University of Nottingham registered postgraduate researchers and some taught Masters Students of the University to develop a range of transferable skills. Full details are available at: http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11606
We are also open to conducting tailor made courses which are driven primarily by the students input and interactions. If you wish us to conduct such courses, please get in touch with us at graduateschool@nottingham.edu.my
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