Research talk on PhD journey

The Centre for Accounting, Banking and Finance (CABF) under the Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) organised a research talk titled “PhD Challenges - When Things Go Wrong” at UTAR Kampar Campus on 23 March 2018.

The talk was delivered by UTAR FBF lecturer Dr Nur Hafizah binti Mohammad Ismail. Present at the talk were FBF Deputy Dean for Student Development and Industrial Training Yew King Tak, Chairperson of CABF Dr Krishna Moorthy Manicka Nadar and FBF academics.

Dr Hafizah delivering her talk

Dr Hafizah discussed the various challenges a PhD candidate faces when embarking on his or her thesis project. Two of these challenges include choosing the topic and the supervisors. She then elaborated on the elements to be considered in choosing a suitable topic and the ways to work effectively with the supervisors, both of which could greatly contribute to the success of the thesis.

Dr Hafizah also mentioned that the sources of ideas for research topics are mainly from other thesis or dissertations, conferences and journals. From her personal experience, she found that conferences can be useful because the feedback and comments given at the conference can give birth to new ideas. Additionally, she gave a list of possible questions that can be expected from the examiners during a proposal defence and viva, and advised that these questions should be considered when writing the thesis.

Finally, she emphasised that the biggest obstacle to the progress of the thesis project stems from one’s lack of consistency and that this should be remedied by developing a daily habit of reading at least one journal and then briefly writing what was read.

The talk was very useful to those academics who are at present pursuing their PhD and who are yet to register for one. The informative talk was followed by a lively Q&A session and ended with a group photograph.

FBF lecturers with Dr Hafizah (in middle)