Welcome to
Postgraduate Study at the
Caulfield School of
Information Technology,
Faculty of Information Technology
www.infotech.monash.edu.au
Overview
• Transitional issues and strategies
• Learning skills and the Faculty’s
‘Keys to Success’ program
• Making your life easier by managing
your time effectively
www.infotech.monash.edu.au
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Transition—Transitional Issues
• Language barriers
• Educational background
– Different educational systems
– Non-business/management background
– Non-technical background
• Culture
• Undergraduate
Postgraduate
www.infotech.monash.edu.au
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Transition Strategies
•
•
•
•
Socialise
– preferably with wide variety of people from different backgrounds
Always prepare for the ‘unexpected’
Ask, if you are uncertain
– Fellow students, admin staff, lecturers, course directors
Get help, eg
– Course director, lecturers, admin staff
– Support services and facilities
http://www.monash.edu.au/students/services/
> eg accommodation, child care, counselling, disability services, financial
assistance, health and medical services, sports and recreation, student
associations
– Learning skills and study assistance
> http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/learning-skills/
> Language & Learning Online http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/
– Monash Postgraduate Association (MPA)
www.infotech.monash.edu.au
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Keys to Success Program
• A program specifically devised to assist new PG students
with such transition issues
– For new-to-course, masters by coursework, IT students
– Draws on Library and Learning Services staff
– Introduction in the Orientation Program today
– 8 follow-up sessions to be run throughout the semester
cover:
> Library research skills; academic writing; assignment writing;
report writing; effective group work; making oral presentations;
and two sessions on exam preparation (later in the semester)
> Certificate of Participation for those who attend all sessions
• You are strongly encouraged to attend
– Very helpful orientation to Monash PG course expectations
– Helps develop study skills and improves performance on
assignments
www.infotech.monash.edu.au
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Keys to Success Program
• Need to book in to particular sessions
• MUSO/ ‘Blackboard’ site for this program,
accessible to you from your ‘my.Monash’ portal
– A useful source/ repository for related learning
materials
• More details will be given later this morning.
www.infotech.monash.edu.au
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Effective Time Management—the Key to
Surviving—and Thriving on the Course
• Time as a resource
– We make time for things that are really important to
us.
• Key principles of effective personal time
management
• (1) 'Work smarter, not harder'
– Elapsed time vs productive time
– The 80/20 Law/Law of Diminishing Returns
– Effective personal time management reduces the time
you need to spend on tasks, narrowing the gap
between elapsed time and productive time.
– Effectiveness vs efficiency
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100
80/20 Law as Applied to Time Management on the Course
90
80
70
60
Mark
Gained
50
40
30
20
10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Productive Hours Spent on Task
110
120
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Managing Your Time Effectively
• (2) Recognise your productive hours
– Individual biorhythms
– Tackle tasks requiring concentration or creativity when you
are most alert, and routine tasks when you feel less alert
• (3) Avoid perfectionism
– The lesson of the 80/20 Law
– Trade-off between time put in to a project, and quality/level of
performance/results we achieve
– In employment, tight work schedules do not allow
perfectionism
• (4) Overcome procrastination
– A problem that besets most of us
– Deliberately or unconsciously, leaving a task to the last
possible moment  self-induced urgency and high
associated levels of personal stress
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Managing Your Time Effectively
• (5) Try to avoid unnecessary chopping and
changing
– Can be a great time waster
– When we leave something unfinished and come
back to it days later, it takes considerable time to reorient ourselves with the task.
• (6) Try to avoid unnecessary multiple handling of
documents, and a cluttered desk or Inbox
– Filing when you first read/ deal with a document/email
– An effective filing system
www.infotech.monash.edu.au
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Managing Your Time Effectively
• (7) Set objectives and assign priorities
– Prioritise the important areas of your life
– Aim at a balanced, healthy lifestyle
– Spend most time on what is important to you, rather
than on the trivial/ unimportant.
– It can be a good idea to keep a diary of how you are
currently spending your time, and then analyse the data
you collect. Rank activities according to time spent, and
then compare this data with your personal objectives
and priorities. Identify major timewasters and sources
of interruption
– Insights from this exercise helps in developing a
personal time management plan
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Managing Your Time Effectively
• (8) Develop a personal time management plan
– Identify objectives and tasks for the planning period (eg
coming week), and rank them in order of importance
– Break down large tasks into component parts and list
them separately
– Allocate tasks to particular days and assign notional
times
– Tackle highest priority tasks when you are freshest
– Make effective use of ‘small chunks’ of time to tackle the
more routine tasks
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Managing Your Time Effectively
• (9) Don't be afraid to say 'no'
• (10) Delegate wherever possible
• (11) Use the ‘small chunks’ of time effectively
– eg reading on public transport
• (13) Arrange your work environment to enhance
productivity
– Devise simple, effective filing systems
• (15) Use a daily diary
• (16) Analyse who/what causes interruptions
• (17) Develop effective reading skills
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Planning Your Study Time
• Work out likely time required for each assignment
(according to relative weighting), eg
– Major essay (30%-35%) ~ 4-5 weeks
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Understand / select topic
Analyse requirements
Start focused search for materials
Write (may be in ‘bits’, then join together)
Detailed edit (try reading it out loud!)
Leave for 2-3 days (1 week is better)
Re-read, re-edit
– Minor critique (7.5%) ~ 5-6 hours
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Planning Your Study Time
• Start early
– Work backwards from end of semester
• Stick to your plan
• Socialising becomes reward for meeting
deadlines
• Most importantly, enjoy your course!
www.infotech.monash.edu.au
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