Hard experience supervising PSM students

Posted by sazali

Salam.

I have been here for about 10 years already. Wushhh . how.times flies?. I feel like yesterday. Really?

During my course of work, I am asked to supervise a small group of students ( 3 ~ 5 per semester). So far I found out that

* generally my students are 60% ~ 80% competent in designing and building the ICT project especially I.S majoring;

** but many of them are weak at arguing things on academic grounds and worse still their
thesis writings. period.

Reasons (may be);

* our country has so many public holidays. Quite hard to enforce strict appointment with the students especially around big festivals like Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Haji, CNY, Deepavali etc etc. If they missed any appointment with the lecturer or project supervisor, they will quickly blame the transport system or the weather. Bravo! point number 1. You got it mate!

** appointment in Malaysia is not strictly followed by many people including the ministers themselves ( Mahathirs ' The doctor in the house; 2011). If they said the event is at 1000 in the morning, the event is actually at 1100. Why? Only God knows best. That's the best answer. Point number 2.

*** they don't read deep enough. Less references on the latest journal. etc etc. According to Philips Sallas (UOA, New Zealand) ..part of it is they are a bit weak on maths and stats

Urghh,... now the time of prayer has come. I have to go now .. answering the asar prayer. God willing I will write few more interesting excuses including .. many kind of emergencies encountered by these so called endangered species - my so called students.
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after the asar prayer I am back at my table ..continuing the writings

**** they don't really compare ICT systems seriously hard enough , the methodology they are using is shallowly put 'cos .. they don't put enough effort on reading texts and journals, they don't refer much. It is all internet reviewing. If you ask them to write on paper with the use of a pen ..then u can see how much they know of each system they had actually compared. Imagine they only elaborate on the system's differences in a mere 1 page paper!

I didn't really agree 100% .. with the way things go where .. many of them scrap through .. by comparing 3 different systems and they just write down in point forms about the strength and weakness of each particular system. They never elaborate on any specific issue such as speed, accessibility or programming language used like php. Say speed. How slow/ fast? what is the unit used? If I asked any body why are you comparing a UKM library system ( with so many options - developed by a qualified team of system analyst with his individual IS system .. then s/he will answer that's the nearest system there is in this country.. ) and surprisingly .. they passed PSM I and proceed to PSM 2. Mind bongling, really?

What I am driving at is .. we must learn to compare a system with a similar attributes and nothing else. For example UKM library system and UTHM library system
and not AIR ASIA with Trans Nasional ? because AIR ASia is diffferent from TRANS NASIONAL. It is not logical to compare that. Imagine if we compare Malaysia First 11 football team with Brazil First 11. Surely there is a huge gap. Similarly with the way the students are comparing things .. I think this must be made known to my junior staff . What say u? A small stadium here with Wembley Stadium, London?

* abstract thesis in English was poorly contructed. Many were directly translated from the original Malay text. Say butang biru = button blue/ it should have been blue button. Something to that effect.

Lastly , they really like to say SORRY with so many things. No matter it was small or big. Its good to say SORRY you are not fit in this PSM 2 presentation. he..he..


Wallahu aklam. ( God knows best ).

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