Saturday 20 November 2010

PhD: what are your strategies?

adam strikes a pose in front of fenwicks window

with mr snowman!
how fast time flies. not-full stop. fenwicks newcastle dah start their animated window display for the upcoming christmas celebration which marked my second month in newcastle university. lepas cuti christmas, sambung pulak cuti new year 2011. so, maknanya my PhD commitments masuk tahun ke-3 which means my fabulous final year!!! really, i should be describing it as 'freaking' instead of 'fabulous' but hey... negativity doesn't help with your winning strategies.

up to this moment, i thank Allah for everything that He has given me throughout my PhD journey. my very supportive supervisors, family and friends. siapalah aku tanpa kamu ...ececehh my first six months were horrendous!! the reactor was just not working, the influent wastewater overflowed almost everyday, i have no columns (which means that i borrowed someone else's stuff to begin with), i was not happy with everything associated with my rather slow start-up and beyond-me performance. urgh!!  then i started to realize that it is of paramount importance to conduct a comprehensive literature review on your research topic. tak boleh main terus buat lab. haru jadinya. i knew this, of course when my external supervisor came from newcastle for a PhD meeting. he asked for my literature review which i didn't have. after he left, i worked on it, search for journals, get them printed and read them sampai lunyai. my only regret is, i didn't log the journals summary anywhere. i wrote my chapter 2 straightaway without having them logged in endnote (which i am not familiar with). so, if any of you are reading your PhD, kindly log whatever articles that you've read anywhere on your pc be it the simple excel or the advanced endnote otherwise you'll be facing something like "eh..macam pernah bacalaa...kat mana ek??" and tergagau-gagau nak cari the related article among hundreds of articles piled up on your desk (mine is always untidy...i need a secretary!!!)

hmm..enough la ramblings for today. i am currently doing my literature review on multivariate statistics for ecological data. mula-mula, rasa malas nak baca and tak mahu ambil tahu. but, bila dah tahu sikit, rasa nak tahu banyak...bila dah banyak, nak mendalam pulak...i hope this attitude stays sampailaa habis PhD sampai bila-bila. amin.

supervisor's quote: Yati, PhD is deep. you must dig deep, think deep, do things deep:

4 comments:

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  2. hello whenishutmyeyes... thanks for coming! anyway, like i mentioned in my post, i regret having not logged any journals on spreadsheets or endnote, i wrote them straightaway in my chapter 2, hence, i won't be able to share you the copy.. what course are you doing? whats yr blog called?

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  4. hi there! Final statement you tu memang best! memang betul pun. its very very deep .. masalah nye dok korek korek .. korek korek .. last2 nak keluar pun tak boleh hehehe!! to be honest, it is the hardest thing I have to do in my whole entire life. Sighhh why lah I gatal sangat nak buat dulu heheh!!

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