4 Things getting a Master’s Taught Me

PVL's newest minted Master, Tue Giang Nguyen, reflects on his time at PVL as he stands on the cusp of becoming a PhD Candidate in the group.

by Tue Giang Nguyen

As the summer passes by, I'm wrapping up the things I’ve done for my Master’s degree and hope to get a good start for my PhD. Although it has only been a short two years that I’ve spent in grad school, those years have been quite eventful. Now that I’m near the end of the tunnel, I can look back at some of the things I’ve learned hoping to impart wisdom onto the next generation of Master’s students, one blog post at a time. Below I will bestow to you a list of things I think that would help when looking to start a research-based Master’s degree (in no particular order).

1. Travel lots and be Friendly

Many graduate programs offer chances to attend conferences and to study abroad. I would recommend new graduate students take advantage of that. While at YorkU, I have been lucky enough to have traveled to a lot of places, many of them a first time for me. Ranging from a course in London, Ontario, conferences in Texas and Vancouver, to an internship in the UK, each locale offers an array of interesting sights and activities. Travelling allows you to meet more people, and keeps you current on all the research that others are doing. I’ve actually befriended someone at a conference in Texas only to meet them again in the UK making it easier for me to fit in there. And so, anecdotally, when travelling abroad, avoid being unfriendly because you won’t know who you’ll run into again.

2. Manage your Time

One of the biggest difference I found between doing my undergrad and doing my Master’s is that learning to manage your time is much more important in the graduate level. The deadlines for my Master’s were more sparse than my undergrad but each deadline bears with it a considerable workload; the newly accompanied freedom also invites procrastination. What this means is that if you’re a last-minute person, you’re really going to have a rough time with your Master’s. So, spread out your workload as much as you can or you will be fairly miserable for a good chunk of your studies.

3. Nothing is for Naught

Prior to starting my research on the Martian polar cap, I was actually studying the planetary boundary layer of Mars. I had worked on that project for a couple months, most of it was dissecting a dust model coded in Fortran, a language I was not an expert in. While I had not touched that topic since shifting my focus to the polar caps, I had to learn a lot of things about Fortran which helped me later when I had to do a research project for one of my classes. This also applies to interesting papers I read that didn’t have much to do with my thesis. Although I could’ve saved a bit of time by not looking into these papers as they may not directly contribute to my research topic, just the act of reading a lot really helps with your foundation in writing scientific literature. Ultimately, during your time as a Master’s student, you might find yourself having to pivot into other research areas and do other things. This might make you think that much of the work you’ve done before had been all for naught. But worry not, some of the things you’ve learnt might pop up again, and it’s pretty nice when that happens.

4. It’s Showtime

You might ask me why I only list 4 things, after all, it seems like a fairly arbitrary number; I mean, you’d probably believe me if I told you I have more than 4 things to say. Well, this relates with your thesis such that there’s always some other little things you could add. There’s even a section in my thesis that talked about future work to be done. But then when I ask myself why haven’t I done these things, I couldn’t come up with a good enough reason and so I added more and more contents and my draft gets delayed little by little. This also applies after submitting your thesis, where there’s only so much you can prepare and your defense is approaching. Ultimately, when the audience is being seated, you need to be confident that what you have is good enough. Only from there can you get the show on the road.

I hope that what I’ve said here can help anyone who had just started a Master’s degree but this can apply to things outside of academia. In summary: travel opportunities are encouraged, avoid substantial misery by managing time wisely, not everything you do has to directly relate to your research and classes, and sometimes, you’ve got to work with what you have. Now that I’ll be starting my PhD soon, I’m excited to see what unexpected things I learn. I’ll get back to you in 4 years.