Planning for success in your postgraduate programme

During Welcome Week, we will (twice) be holding a workshop for PGT students that will help you get off to the right start this year. You’ll learn about the resources that are available during your degree and acquire skills you’ll need to manage your workload.  You can sign up by following these links:

Sept 13 (10:00-14:00)
Sept 16 (12:30-16:30)

We’ll start by introducing people from the School of PPLS and the Institute for Academic Development who are there to help you succeed.  Next comes a look at how to use academic software to organise your notes and papers.  After that, we’ll use modified Gantt charts to budget your allocated learning and teaching hours so that you won’t run into trouble at the end of the semester.  Finally, we will split into smaller groups by subject area for discussions with PhD tutors. 

Speakers include Dr Alistair Isaac (School PG Director), Abby Pooley (Senior Student Leader; Psychology PhD student), Dr Jenna Mann (IAD Academic Developer), Dr Lucia Michielin (EFI Digital Skills Training Manager), Dr James Donaldson (PPLS Skills Centre Manager), and members of the PPLS Postgraduate Office.

Lunch (and a snack) will be provided.

Learn a new skill: Referencing software

Every year the number of publications you have to track will grow. This will become unmanageable around the same time that you will no longer have time to learn new software: when writing your dissertation. That’s why it’s a good idea to start using a reference manager as soon as possible. You’ll find that writing becomes much easier when your brain isn’t occupied with worries about tracking citations and updating your bibliography.

When I last surveyed staff members, Mendeley and EndNote were two of the most popular choices. Mendeley has ample documentation at their site, and there’s a LinkedIn Learning course called EndNote Essential Training.

For more on essential academic skills, visit “Developing your skills” at PPLS Learning Resources.