Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

Taking higher education is a dream for some people in this world. There are several reasons why some people want to continue their education to the level of Masters or even Ph.D. Some people do it because of the demands of a career that require them to continue their higher education, or even just to fill their spare time while waiting for a job call. In addition, some continue their education because they have the desire to study further. Of course, the higher the level of education taken, the higher the obligations and pressures obtained. Therefore, students need to find the right way to survive and be successful in carrying out their study programs.

To help overcome these problems, on Tuesday (28/12), the 5th MD Research Forum (MD REFO) webinar raised the topic about how to survive and succeed in Master’s and Ph.D. programs and some tips for surviving in Master and Ph.D. programs. This webinar presents Vogy Gautama Buanaputra, M.Sc., Ph.D., AFHEA, and Heyvon Herdhayinta, M.Sc., Ph.D, both are lecturer at the Accounting Department FEB UGM,. as speakers to share their experiences while undergoing Master and Ph.D. programs also tips and tricks surviving these programs.

In his session, Vogy explained that the master's program is not too different from the undergraduate program, but this program has a short time, full studying material and has a lot of paper assignments. Based on his experience, to be able to survive in this Master Program, students need to have good time management due to the large number of tasks that require a lot of time to do them. He revealed that the task that is usually given in the Master's Program is the task of critiquing papers so that students need to read a lot of papers to do the assignment. Therefore, students also need to be good at academic writing exercises to facilitate their studies.

Different from the Master Program, Vogy said that the Ph.D or Doctoral Program has a different system from the previous one. This program is more focused on research. In this program, students must be able to synthesize and critique many papers to conduct their research. To be able to survive in the Ph.D program, Vogy explained that students must focus on the topic they want to research. Research takes a long time so students must have their research targets and have commitment, consistency, and discipline also with listening to the suggestions given by their supervisors. He also mentioned that parents' prayers and blessings are important aspects of undergoing the education.

Furthermore, Heyvon also shared tips to maintain academic life balance while continuing higher education. He said that while studying, students may participate in activities outside of academics, such as joining organizations to expand global networking which might be useful in the future. Heyvon also gave some tips for surviving, such as in the concept of attention vs distraction, students while doing their assignments must have full attention to do the task without being distracted by other things. Then, mindfulness, that is, students must be very aware of what they are doing. Furthermore, students must also have resilience because many obligations must be done and do not procrastinate.

The tips given by the speakers in the webinar are subjective because everyone has different challenges and difficulties when continuing their education. Nevertheless, some of the tips provided are expected to help students carry out their studies and provide an overview for students who just want to continue their education in the Masters or Ph.D. Program.

Reportage: Zahra Dian