Aku dan MSc student

Entry ni untuk share my experience membantu seorang masters student...

Aku telah di pertanggungjawabkan untuk mengajar sorang masters student ni utk buat projectnya...di sebabkan projeknye itu banyak kene mengena dgn phd yg tengah di buat sekarang...cumanya...i wont benefit much from his results sbb kebanyakan result tu, saya or previous student dah buat...so cumanya tolong guide dia buat project tu...

You might as why kene guide masters project ni pulak? well, my supervisor thought that I will benefit from the experience of 'supervising' a student as i will go back to IIUM and inshaAllah one day supervise a student..

This masters student, for the purpose of confidentiality, will call him LX. He is a chinese from mainland China... when the first time I saw him in the lab, showing him how to do the electrical measurements....well, I can hardly understand what he said...his english was disastrous..the pronunciation uhuh....i had him repeating some sentences many times just to understand what he was saying.... and many times too, if i asked him to do A, he will do B...so imagine doing a masters project like that....

Time progresses slowly... and with time his english getting better and better (maybe we (my SV and i, forced him to speak in english) and he can do most of the measurements, only once in a while i had to go in there and help...

He passed all his examination, surprisingly...so the only hurdle for him now is his project...unfortunately for him, he got a project which is slighly difficult in the sense that requires a lot of physics background ... and he was same as me, having little or zero background in semiconductor...what make it worse for him is that his english is not helping him as well..

Dipendekkan cerita, his supervisor (SV) which is the same as my SV decided to give him extension to finish up his project...Our SV nearly failed him coz his lack of knowledge and his terrible interim report...but I told my SV to give him another a chance, coz i know he did tried and still was trying...so there he was last week, still struggling to finish up his report..he got all of the results already, but the hardest thing was to analyse and write the thesis...

LX has asked me to proof read his thesis 2 weeks ago, but I refused. This is because I was tutoring him and it will be in appropriate if I checked his english coz I will help him to correct his technical writing as well...I have offered phd students in my group to help him with the english, yes, paid of course...but nobody was interested...

so in the end, with desperation my SV asked me to help him...i was reluctant, firstly because i was and am too busy, even my work i can hardly do them all..secondly , i was down with a fever, so cant really concentrate and thirdly, i am kinda fed up with him! uhuhuh you might asked why...its because, sometimes you have to explain to him a concept in semiconductor for three times , and still he wont understand it...its not because he is stupid, its just the language barrier and the lack of the semiconductor background! Plus i am not a very patient person...

That was last wednesday that my SV asked me to help the boy, LX... He said, charged him highly, coz he deserves to be charge..and you (meaning myself) dont have to actually help him...so might as well earn some money...

So guess what, in the end, I helped him...going through his results, advising him to replot the graphs, guiding him how to analyse his results and lastly reading and correcting his thesis! Poor boy... LX told me he never has worked as hard as for this masters...

Some background of LX... he is a rich boy...well, his parents are rich, having a furniture company and exporting it to UK and europe...so his parents paid the £20,000 fees for the masters... when I asked LX why he wanted to do a master, he said, because he dont want to work in his father's company as yet..he want to be independent ...LX told me he didnt work hard at all for his degree (that was back in China), he just passed his degree... but now he determined to pass his masters as it will be a shame to go back to China failing his masters... he also told me, for the pass 9 months (of the project duration), it has not only gave him bodily tired, but also heart tired ..i laughed...i told him, that is nothing, try to do phd and be tired physically and emosionally for five years!! He quickly replied, he will never do a phd...hehe

Panjang pulak cerita ni.... akhirnya, i managed to somehow correct his thesis in 3 days...today he is on his way back to China due to his visa ended today...Honestly, the first time i read his thesis, i cant understand 80% of the thing he wrote in there...dah la demam, tambah sakit kepala baca tulisan english yg takleh difahami...not only that, banyak pulak tu technical yg salah...ayoooo, and i have to correct for all that, imagine!!

Anyhow, during the tutoring, i asked him , sentence by sentence what he meant, and when i understand it, i translate it to understandable english....unfortunately, in 3 days mana la boleh baiki semua 50 pages...so i just changed parts which are clearly wrong...and corrected some grammatical english so that the reader can read it...i would say in the end, it has improved at least 60% than the original writing he gave me...and plus i was paid, alhamdulillah :)

What is the lesson that I learned?

1) I told my SV this is tough coz his english is very hard to read...and my SV said, u think Malaysian student is very much different? ermm...honestly i dunno coz i had never marked a project in Malaysia before, but maybe there will be some students who's english is not very good...and my SV said, this a good training for me to cope with this situation :P

2) I learn that many rich boys are maybe are like LX....hidup suka2 je...semua dpt senang...for LX he was like that before jumpa my SV...LX thought it was easy to pass a MSc in UK...nope, he has to work for it... mungkin ramai gak kat mesia yg mana mak ayah kaya, anak2 hancur, tak nampak nak struggle and strive...hancur...kadang2 kene push sket org macam ni, baru mrk appreciate life..

3) After helping the boy to correct his thesis, it gives me some insight of how my SV corrected my writing...rupanya bukan mudah...appreciate gakla my SV going thro my so called 'Rubbish' english and perfecting it (oh yes, my SV says my english is rubbish...terima je la)

4) it feels good to help somebody yg dalam desperation... kesian ada gak..demam2 pun baca gak la thesis dia...kalau tak sia2 la £20,000 parents dia bayar for him to study...i will never want my parents to loose that kind of money..

5) Lastly, i cant wait to go back to IIUM and serves there...meet all the students and contribute back to my country, to my people and of course to my religion!

To conclude : I hope Mr. LX will pass his project...although i thought that the english can be improved tremendously more (and my SV agreed to give him more time just to correct on the english, but LX refused, he said, the thesis is already good)... we'll just have to wait and see..

maaf tulisan diatas campur bahasa inggeris dan melayu, tulis dalam keadaan nak cepat...jika menyakitkan mata, sila skip sahaja...