Welcome to the CES PHD Support Group blog
Welcome
It brings me great pleasure to announce forming a PHD support group. The group is called CESPHD and as the name suggests it is aimed at all PHD students at the Centre for Education Studies.
Goal of the group
As many of you have indicated on various occasions, there is a need for some sort of a group that allows students to discuss their research and help each others overcome the similar obstacles they are facing. Well, here's your chance, an informal group formed and managed by students. Thanks to everyone of you who expressed interest and helped with your valuable input (especially Asima, Hafiz, Sakinah & Natia)
The main goals of the group are:
- help students meet on a semi-regular basis in a friendly environment where they can talk openly about their research experience
- transfer research experience and share helpful tips
- capitalise on the collective thinking and allow feedback for those who would like to present their work to a fresh set of eyes
Additional benefits include (and are not limited to)
- Sharing tips on valuable papers and books
- Provide solutions to potential problems (brainstorming/focus group)
- Giving conference heads up
- A good place to just hang out and plan fun activities
The formula of the meeting
As mentioned above the meetings are biweekly and take place in the late morning. The meeting is open for everyone to show up and leave whenever they feel like it.
Please keep in mind that this is definitely not a formal thing and most definitely not mandatory.
In order for the meeting to be most fruitful you are encourage to:
- Have a personal 'agenda' for the meeting; this is what you want to get out of the meeting. You personal agenda can be some piece of work you are working on and feel stuck and in need of fresh eyes to have a look at.
- Don't expect everyone to show up so try and make use of as many people who are present on the day.
- If you are not facing any problems with your research (in which case congratulations!! you are the 1 in a million) you are still welcome to take part and help other students. Who knows? you might just pick up the most useful piece of advice for your work (well... it's a possibility!
- Be reasonable in your expectations, this is not a tutoring group or a workshop (although some members might be up for one-to-one tutorials according to their time and availability.
Looking forward to your participation both in the Group and online, please feel free to view, comment and post on this blog.
Mohammad Waseem Sandouk
12 May 2015 18:57
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Tags: Cesphd
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Comments (4)
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Wisdom Kwaku Ameyedowo
This is absolutely amazing! Thanks mate.
18 May 2015, 11:58
Mohammad Waseem Sandouk
Dear Wisdom, Thanks for passing by. you are welcome :)
18 May 2015, 12:17
Michelle Evans
Hi – Can we ask questions here too – just while they are in our mind and maybe people can reply or we can use it in the meetings?
If so, I would like to ask about the detail we give about research sites when writing the methodology chapter (etc) in case study research? In my situation, can I say the specific names of universities where I did my research/ where my ppts came from? This context info is crucial in case study research but what about identifying institutions? Should I just write ’ a national state university for Science’ for example or give the full title as it is known in the country? Even if I do this for some universities i worked in- they will still be clearly identifiable. Any advice would be great. Thanks in advance :-) Michelle
20 May 2015, 12:56
Mohammad Waseem Sandouk
Hi Michelle,
You raise an important issue; on the one hand you want your reader to be more informed and give your text more authority. On the other had, you don’t want to exhaust the reader with too much details and more importantly sometimes you want to keep your resources anonymised. It’s a tricky balance.
Why don’t we bring this up on our next meeting and see what other have to say about it. Ideally, we will have some good advice and source material, which will end up in a dedicated post here.
20 May 2015, 15:07
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