After deciding to do your master’s program and choose your field of study, it is important to know that doing a master’s program is going to be a little more complicated than what you have been used to.
Therefore, you will require a plan to keep you on track and focused.
As a graduate student, you will most definitely have to read more, pay better attention in class, and do more assignments.
To do well and get the most out of your master’s degree, you would most likely need to start building your plans from the beginning.
Here are some tips to help you succeed .
Know How You Work
Graduate school is a lot of work, and to be able to keep up with its enormous demand , you need to truly know how you function.
You have to understand when you are most productive and when you are not.
Most of the students think that it would be better to wake up in the early morning (4 AM – 5 AM) and getting straight to study is the essential move. This might be true for some but not for all .
More than 60 percent of successful leaders are said to get up early and start working on things .
So yes , this would be effective for most people . But what if you are not most people?! Perfect example for such a public figure is Elon Musk who runs Tesla and spaceX projects .
As the book , “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” described , Elon Musk always worked at night . And did not care much about morning schedules .
So we should keep in mind that everything is not applied for everyone.
Try working on different periods of day. Take intervals in between to further enhance your productivity . Eventually you will figure out what time works best for you .
This is critical when pursuing a master’s degree because , otherwise you will have a hard time getting all the things done within a predefined deadline.
Support System
You will find that you are in the midst of intelligent and motivated people during your master’s program.
You need to consider these people as part of your network, let them guide you and be a part of your education.
It is okay to seek help from others . Otherwise , you would have a hard time surviving in graduate school. We have to be humble to understand that , we don’t know everything and
If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
the fact that it is totally fine . Sometimes , you will be working on your theses and having a hard time to figure out how to include the references as requested by your supervisor .
Eventually , you will find a way to do it .But the question is , was the time you spent on it really worth it?! .
Instead you can ask a friend who did that last week .It will save you couple of hours which you can use to look at the things that really matter.
Such as the content of your theses. Or a quick glance into another relevant paper.
Learn to read smart
In grad students, you will realize that you have a whole lot more to read. This is why you have to read with a purpose.
How do you read with a purpose? Look at the organization of a piece, the headers, chapter headings and bullet points before deciding to read.
You will come across thousands of papers that you might think are relevant to your area of study.If you start to read all of them , you will definitely lose your focus.
And at the end of the day , will end up with absolutely nothing. This is experienced by most of the graduate students at the beginning of their research studies.
Mind mapping is a good productivity tool to sort your relevant academic papers out and possibly to collaborate with others. Minjet and Connected papers are some examples out of tons of resources out there.
You can easily prioritize the papers by mind mapping and also you will not miss valuable papers in the long run.
Also, you need to know why you are reading a particular article. Constantly check if it fits into your course or research, as well as what you will be getting out of it.
If you find yourself reading a paper that doesn’t fit your purpose, it would be a wise idea to attach a quick note to that paper and include it in your mind map then move onto better options.
Take Advantage of Free Help
Graduate schools offer free tutoring services. You are probably used to muddling through on your own as an undergraduate, but as a grad student, don’t hesitate to tap into the free tutoring services. You can go as far as going on free writing services.
Always seek to enhance your research skills . Take chances . They will come in handy when you are at the last phase of your research.
Focus More on Learning
In graduate schools, it is more about truly retaining the information than it is about acing the test. You must remember that the master’s degree is to help you to become a professional, to understand people and to work with others.
Need to collaborate with industry professionals is essential to realize how you can impact the community by the things you learn in graduate school.
After all , we are trying to serve people .And make lives better . How can we do that without interacting with ongoing problems?! That is quite impossible.
Academic conferences are such places to gain knowledge about the area that you are working on . You will learn about the current trends and also about the challenges facing.
This will give you a better insight and direction to do your research in order to solve real problems.
You should not just focus on the academics. You also need to develop relationships with individuals who will become lifetime colleagues and even friends.
Get Involved
During your master’s degree, you will have a lot of opportunities to get involved, as in research opportunities, extracurricular or teaching assistantships.
You might want to grab these opportunities as much as you can. Teaching assistantships and scientific talks are recognized as top value additions in graduate studies .
These gathered experiences and skills will come in handy when you are applying to a job or academic scholarship after you finish your master’s degree.
These opportunities will help you find a way to apply your studies to real-world experience.
Getting involved in grad school will help you learn a lot. Also, employers find great values in the things you do outside of class.
Schedule Milestones Rather Than Due Dates
On your calendar, instead of putting the due date of your project, you need to break down your project into micro-steps to achieve. It is these micro-steps that you should schedule in your calendar.
This way , you will work continuously and when the deadline arrives , you do not have to work day and to get things done at the last movement.Plus , you will learn to work efficiently.
Masters’ degree is not something one can achieve overnight . There will be much work to be done day by day .
If you are working each day , every day , it will benefit you in the long run for sure.
Completing these micro-steps will feel less daunting, and they will all lead up to fulfilling the assignment by its due date.
Have A System to Organize Notes and Insights
Graduate work, unlike undergraduate work, requires an application. As a master’s student, you would be expected to know the information already and will have to apply the knowledge by sharing your thoughts and practical use of it.
This requires a lot more time and organization; Hence , it would be better to use a note taking and project management app from the beginning.
This is where most graduate students get stuck at the beginning of their master’s degree.
If you did not choose the right software (That works for you) at the beginning , it would be much of a pain to organize things when you are halfway through your master’s degree.
The most common mistake most students do when choosing a productivity tool to organize things , they reach out help from various platforms.
Note taking apps , calendar apps , task management apps etc. At the end of the day , you will not get much of things done because you just shifted between so many apps and you will eventually ended up trying to define a workflow.
This is where the requirement of all in one versatile productivity apps come in. Notion and Evernote are the most popular examples for all in one productivity platform.You can find my all in one Notion productivity template here.
Conclusions
It is important to pick a good mentor during your master’s program because pursuing a master’s degree can be a little overwhelming and tedious.
It is okay to seek help and collaborate with others .
Sometimes , things will not work out for you even though they will work out for most people.You just have to find what’s best for you.
If you seek help and collaborate with others , you will be able to address the hurdles that come with pursuing a master’s degree.
And will help you on the right path to successfully completing and getting the most out of your master’s degree.
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