As a first year PhD student, who also studied their undergraduate and Master’s degree at Kent, I’ve developed a fair few skills along the way. in this blog post, I’ll be sharing four invaluable skills that I’ve learnt during postgraduate study at Kent.
1. Management skills
Arguably, one of the most difficult aspects of undertaking a postgraduate degree is managing your time. Yes, the research and content of your work is vital, but without taking the time to manage your time, the accuracy of your work may pay the price. Therefore, it is essential that you organise your tasks in order of importance and length of time so that you can achieve the best results possible.
2. Critical thinking skills
One of possibly the strongest skills I gained while undertaking my masters was critical thinking skills. Critical thinking aids people in understanding material better and can also help motivate new conclusions and outcomes for their work. By having the ability to question and reflect on my own knowledge, I was able to present and analyse information differently which benefited my work overall.
3. Problem solving
People with good problem solving skills are desired more so than those who struggle with perfecting this skill. This is because those with good problem skills are more valuable within a team than those who are not as intuitive, as well as being associated with being trustworthy as you are more likely to see a task until the end.
4. Collaboration/teamwork skills
As previously mentioned, one of the bonuses of having critical thinking skills is how it enhances your teamwork skills as well. Although there is not as much teamwork in projects as there are in undergraduate courses, there are still opportunities for collaboration in seminars and presentations. It is important to finetune these skills as quickly as possible as, if you choose to undertake another postgraduate course or go into work, these skills will be desirable in your applications.
Blog post written by PhD student, Caroline Harriman.