Graduate students generally have to go through several key links, such as attending classes, receiving papers, opening topics, publishing small papers, defending graduation thesis, looking for a job or taking a doctoral exam.
In the five semesters of the school, we should not only complete all the above work, but also learn the correct values and outlook on life and learn to think scientifically. This, I think, is what we should learn most in the master's stage.
As for the scientific arrangement of time, there are the following experiences for reference. We can divide the whole two and a half years of studying for a master's degree into several stages according to our own needs, which can be divided into years or semesters.
At each stage, we can set certain goals and tasks and concentrate all our time and energy to achieve this goal, and these goals are also interlocking, and ultimately serve the overall goal of choosing a job or an exam. Only in this way can we spend our limited time and energy on the most important and urgent things.
For example, you can make the following arrangements, which are divided into five stages according to the semester:
(1) First semester-study semester
The main goal is to learn all the basic courses well. Because in the future, whether you choose a job or take an exam, you need the support of academic performance and theoretical knowledge. And this semester is also the semester with the strongest learning motivation among the five semesters.
(2) The second semester-knowledge supplementary semester
After learning the basic courses in the first semester and understanding the surrounding environment, students should know what they lack and what to make up this semester. For example, foreign languages are a headache for engineering students. But if you are fluent in spoken foreign languages, your salary will double or you will get more opportunities when choosing a job. During this period, the school will also organize some activities, such as "May 4th Cup", robot design contest and business plan contest. Participating in these activities can not only fully understand yourself, increase your knowledge, but also learn team spirit.
(3) The third semester-the semester of collecting papers and writing topics.
During this period, students began to enter the thesis writing stage. This requires data collection and some experiments. During this period, we must seize the time to learn and collect more information, understand this knowledge and set the framework of the paper. According to past experience, you should start writing and publishing small-scale published papers at this stage, so as to ensure that you can see the officially published papers when you graduate. There is a little experience in writing a thesis: you don't have to rush to write the whole thesis at first, you can write the published small papers on the innovation points of the thesis first, and finally string them together logically, so that a large part of your graduation thesis is completed.
(4) the fourth semester-the semester of writing papers and thinking about choosing a career.
This semester, students' energy is mainly concentrated on thesis writing, and the written thesis can exercise your organizational ability and time arrangement ability. Another point is to start thinking about choosing a job. In the above stages, we have been preparing for choosing a job. At this time, we should have a full understanding of our own personality and knowledge. And through the understanding of various employment standards, you can initially estimate what cities and industries you want to enter in the future. If you want to take an exam, you need to start to understand all kinds of information at this time to prepare for the exam next semester.
(5) the fifth semester-thesis defense and career sprint semester
This semester is very busy. First of all, the key issue is to finish the paper, and a smooth defense is very necessary.
Secondly, the most important question is whether to choose a job or get a doctorate. I believe that after achieving the goals of the above stages one by one, you must have a well-thought-out plan at this time.
The above time planning and goals are only a summary of experience, and each student can make reasonable adjustments according to his personal situation.
But there are two problems that must be paid attention to:
First, we must focus on the goals of each stage and not be too influenced by the external environment. Don't catch butterflies and birds for a while. If you don't follow the designed plan, you will accomplish nothing in the end. The goals of each semester are complementary. If one of the links goes wrong, the whole plan will stagnate.
Second, always reflect. Students often say that they have lost their goals at a certain stage and their daily life is extremely irregular. I think this requires him to ask himself the following three questions, that is, whether he knows his position, what actions should be taken for the corresponding goals in this position, and what impact these actions have on his long-term planning. I think through a deep understanding of the above three issues, I will continue to spur and motivate my classmates to make continuous progress.