By: NurulJannah Bt Suaid "In my mind, I am scared thinking how to write a thesis for the first time at home with not getting a superior support from my friends and too complicated when making reference to the supervisor". This was the feeling faced by Nurul Ain Bt Mohd Noor, a graduate student from Beijing Foreign Studies University in Mandarin as second language course. Ain was a brilliant student and really dedicated doing anything in her life. Due to Covid-19's effects on all people around the world, she needed to online distance learning (ODL) without going back to Beijing, where her last semester began in early March 2020. She started to feel apathy and hopeless in writing a thesis because it is hard for her to get some information about her title research in Beijing. The first research topic needs her to conduct interview session with the lecturer and students who have attended in comprehension class and she also needs to do an observation in the class at Beijing to know the importance of comprehension class. Therefore, it becomes impossible for her to collect all the data during this pandemic. The best way to get the spirits back to keep writing is only by changing the topic of the research paper which can easily get more information in Malaysia. The new title of the study is "Words of Praise as an educational tool" which the respondents are the teachers who taught Mandarin in a primary school in Malaysia. Apart from that, the title chosen was more general and easier to obtain data in Malaysia. She added that the only thing that remains to be improved is to have the determination and perseverance to start writing the thesis. Besides, even she started to write a thesis a bit late from her friend due to the change of title, it was not a huge issue because she was confident to do it and she had promised with her supervisor to complete and submit some parts according to the time that been set. The process of data collection is quite difficult at first because it requires permission from the District Education Office before entered the school, but she managed to do well by only doing an online survey and spread it to her contacts who used to teach Mandarin in primary school. Ain stated that she had been pushing herself to write the thesis depends on the times she had set. Furthermore, writing a thesis in the Mandarin Language is not easy and simple, as it involves a good mastery of the Mandarin language, and it takes time to construct sentences that are very different from the Malay language. Grammar must be accurate and the sentence also needs to be construct following the standard degree of writing. Even after five years of studying Mandarin, she sometimes makes an error in constructing sentences and the supervisor will always monitor the writing weekly. Undoubtedly, each student should have good internet access to online learning. Ain sacrificed money over hundreds of ringgit to subscribe the internet data for finding any reference materials and even had to attend several online classes such as Chinese language classes, Chinese oral and Chinese language teaching and education. She was so grateful that she had been acknowledge about the guidelines of writing an exemplary thesis as well as practicing to write it from the beginning on her previous class. In addition, Ain said that communication between students and supervisors is very crucial as to ensure that the thesis can be submitted on time. Though she cannot meet the supervisor face to face, she will talk about the issues she currently faced and quickly contact her supervisor via WeChat whenever she lost any idea related to the thesis. She will ask for an opinion from her supervisor. She was glad that she had an understandable and responsive supervisor during her rough time. Furthermore, writing a thesis at home adequate her to be an independent person in gaining the information, especially related to the web that can be accessed as most lecturers only share the Beijing web. She learns to explore new things from that and do not depend too much on anyone. Ain acknowledges that self-discipline is the real key in her life, whether in learning or working. She is educating herself by creating a clear mind because she believes that it will lead someone to accomplish the goals. As a consequence, it will remind her to have a sense of responsibility as a student to finish her thesis. In the meantime, she does have a plan with the activities to do on a daily day. For instance, she keeps writing a thesis nearly every day as much as she can, even with writing just one sentence. Thus, it lessens the burden and challenges by doing something with what we have arranged, like maximizing time to write a thesis. A philosopher, Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”.
In conclusion, writing a thesis at home is not as worst as we imagine, though it seems like it might be far away from friends and supervisors. In fact, we can seek help from friends and lecturer, and avoid offering excuses instead of trying harder to put an effort to succeed. As the saying goes, “Where there is a will, there is a way.”
1 Comment
|
AuthorNurul Jannah Suaid ArchivesCategories |