Tuesday, August 17, 2021
7 TIPS TO ACE MASTER'S DEGREE DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC. WAS IT DOABLE? WAS IT WORTH IT?
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
 |
| by AliahMazli |
I
was amongst the first batch to experience online learning when COVID-19
pandemic hits us globally. I further my master’s degree in 2019 after I resigned
from CEFL in 2018. During my 1st semester, the physical classes went
very well with proper precaution as the Covid-19 cases were still below 50. Once it
is confirmed all classes must be conducted online, I felt mundane, anxious,
speechless and empty. I didn’t know where this will lead to. Doing master’s
degree 100% online where all must be searched and worked on your own, the
pressure was no joke. I felt like a baby trying to learn how to walk.
Everything was unfamiliar and I was experiencing many episodes of my “first-time.”
Staying
at home, further my study in master’s degree and had to babysit 2 children on
top of that really pinned me down as I had to plan everything with the help of
my husband. We have to make this work or I was afraid I couldn’t finish my
master on time. However, I am proud of myself as I was able to G.O.T (Graduate on
Time) with Excellent Candidate Award representing my faculty. I was on cloud
nine having to make my parents, siblings, in-laws, husband, children and dear
friends happy and proud of my effort along the years. They witnessed my ups, downs, perseverance, patience, undying
motivation and my fullest commitments to my study knowing I have learned a lot
of skills and gained endless knowledge throughout my master years.
Here
are some of the takeaways doing my master’s degree during COVID-19 pandemic:
1) BUILD ACTIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE
LECTURERS.
How? Let them notice & know you by being involved in class, be
attentive and responsive. Offer yourself with lots of ad-hoc tasks and be in active
with the lecturers. The most important thing is to present your results to the
best of your ability and trust me, they know and they will keep an eye on you. Master’s
students are not that many for every intake and use this opportunity to build life-long relationship
with your lecturers. Who knows, they may be the one who would kindly write a
recommendation letters for you.
2) SETTING THE MINDSET.
Treat your
assignments/research papers as if you are in a working environment. Treat your
groupmates as your colleagues and create a mature, positive, professional vibe and treat everyone as the asset within the group. If there are conflicts, handle it professionally by acknowledging
the problem, listen to all members, propose and discuss solutions that is fair
for all. Celebrate small wins and encourage each other during the presentations and
always push each other to present the best work. Give full commitment, appreciate even the smallest gestures and help offered.
3) PLAN & TIME MANAGEMENT.
Identify
how many hats that you are wearing and create a timetable that can suit all. It
will be overwhelming at times but trust me, schedule helps and they will
eventually keep you sane. Have active conversations with your spouse, family
& friends. You need to talk/listen to keep your emotional and mental health
at its best condition. Do not be shy to breakdown and cry once in a while.
Things happen. Take your time and come back even stronger.
Doing your master's degree requires a lot of sacrifices. Your time, your money, your energy, your attention, your sleep, your gatherings and the list goes on. It will be hard at first but once you know your priority in your study, you will eventually give in and focus on what is important to you the most at that particular time. Like I mentioned above, plan your time well.
4) READ & WRITE A LOT.
Master’s
degree is no era of spoon-feeding. This is an era where you are expected to
know and do everything on your own. Don’t know what to do? Spend lots of time
at the library, reach the seniors and build good relationships with them and
have active discussions with your lecturers. If you just sit around, observe
& wait, say goodbye to your scroll. Don’t know how to write research
papers? Search a lot of publications, research papers and see how they write,
organize and present their papers. Learn and implement. Read a lot of other
books once in a while as it helps to give some breeze and refresh your brain.
5) START EARLY. PREPARE YOUR SCHEDULE ALIGNED WITH ALL SUBJECTS.
Master students, please start early as in your 1st week. Do not just sit around, wait and observe. You may be left behind and the train can never make a U-turn. Master study requires you to do a lot of preparation even just for a presentation. You have to read a lot of articles, research papers and knowing that you have to always insert the citations (where do you take the source from) for every thing that you write, requires you to make an effective reference folder to organize your sources. Trust me, during the final weeks where you have to do a lot of submissions, you will thank your schedule and your efforts for starting early.
6) SAY THANK YOU EVERY SEMESTER.
This is what
I have been doing since my diploma years. Whenever I received my result each
semester, apart from making sujood syukur, informing my husband and my family, I will directly go to
my lecturer for each subject and send them a thank you text.
“Dalam berilmu,
perlu beradab dengan guru.” That is what I always hold on to.
7) SPEND MORE TIME WITH THE QURAN AND TALK TO ALLAH (MAKE DUA'AS) CONSISTENTLY.
The thing that I learned the most was I do not own all of these knowledge. All belong to Allah and He is the One who granted me the ideas and the solutions to all my problems during my study years. Apart from that, the more I read Quran and spend my time with HIM, I noticed that everything falls perfectly although there were hiccups along the way where I was not sure if I was able to finish it. At the end of the day, I want the barakah and to ensure that whatever knowledge that I gained can be of benefits to myself and for me to use it to right way for others as well.
So, to the question:
Furthering my master’s degree during COVID-19
pandemic (100% online learning) - Was it worth it?
Yes, it was!
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Salam !
Writing is a way that I can express myself and be connected with other people. Thank you for taking some of your time here--my blog, my space. I hope you benefit something from it.
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