Plan ahead. When you receive information about your courses, please enter all your important dates related to your study into a calendar (physical, digital, anything). Even if you don’t refer to it regularly, it’s good to know ahead of time which weeks will be the most demanding and thus get a sense of when you’ll have to start working on each assignment. Find out more about your programme of study and also understand what your postgraduate research journey would look like.
Check your Siswamail regularly. A lot of important information and reminder notifications are sent directly to your Siswamail. While your siswamail is often flooded with emails about on-going events at the university, there are ways to manage a large volume of emails. You may begin with developing a habit of checking your email on a daily basis, so that you don’t miss out on important remidners. You can also learn how to manage your student email account properly by regularly mass deleting emails (i.e. https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/how-to-delete-all-emails-on-gmail)
Participate in a community of learners. Now that we are slowly returning back to meeting each other face to face, the Postgraduate Office is committed to fostering an intimate environment where students and staff have the opportunity to know each other better through the events and activities that we run. Our teaching staffs meet with students regularly, both formally to discuss about research in progress. In addition, individual departments also organise social get togethers for students and lecturers.
Get to know your seniors, too. They’re here before you, and, as such, they often have the most up-to-date advice about surviving postgraduate studies!
Our postgraduate student representatives are: Andrew Igai and Lulu Yu.
Learn how to take notes. While we often think of note-taking as simply records of information you have read or heard, good note-taking skills can help you to make sense of unfamiliar or new information. The notes you take should help you organise your thoughts, enhance your memory, discover new connections between topics, and respond knowledgeably when you write. We highly recommend you to learn how to take notes effectively at the early stages of your postgraduate journey. There are many different ways to do this and the internet offers a lot of different strategies. Here are two options for you to explore: the first is one of the most recognisable note-taking system for those preferring a manual approach called the Cornell Method; Secondly, if you are willing to try out a computer software, you might want to explore using Obsidian. This article provides a good overview of the complex ways in which Obsidian can help you map connections between topics recorded in your notes.
Learn about the Art of Academic Writing. As a student, it is essential to understand the principles of academic writing to help you communicate your research and ideas to an informed academic community. Check out some of the resources available online today that can help you to develop these research skills and understanding the requirements of academic writing.
Think about your future. Depending on the research focus and interest of students, graduates in this programme can tailor their studies in our postgraduate programmes with the advice of our teaching staff to explore building up necessary skills for future careers as artist, performer, musician, dancer, dramatist, director, project manager, art writer/critic/journalist, art teacher, cultural programmer, marketing executive, cultural officer, independent researcher, art historian, curator, copywriter, lecturer, conservator, gallerist, public relations executive, education officer, consultant, policy adviser, and many others.
We recognise that each profession requires very specific skill-sets and that jobs in the cultural sector are often competitive. With this in mind, we often advise our students based on understanding their career and learning goals. A paper qualification may open up new opportunities and career possibilities, but it is not a guarantee of a job. Often, students are advised to acquire additional skills through volunteership/internship, attending workshops/programmes/lectures/seminars outside of their course of study, learning new languages, and strategic networking.
Principally the value of our programmes is that we aim to cultivate transferable skill-sets in critical thinking, persuasive communication, imaginative problem-solving, creative expressions and a life-long thirst in curiosity-driven learning, etc. All of these skills are hallmarks of what counts as good research in the creative arts.
🌌 Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya’s Homepage