Since they saw us having the lack of motivation to do our thesis, so they all decided to help us get on track by planning this workshop...

well, let me tell briefly about what happened from the beginning of the trip till the end of it :)

23rd January (Friday)
This is the day we all head out to PD for our workshop, well...it was a tough time as there were some of the girls and most of the boys being late. Dr.Kartini told us to be there at "11am" but most of us are major late! Poor Abg Taki since he's the one managing us all, he must be having a headache handling a bunch of naughty batch of political science students... Luckily we managed to settle everyone and after Kak Nisa checked that each and everyone got into the bus (excluding Fikery & Nurlina), only then we start to move out at about 11.40am++ i guess?(couldn't hardly remember the time because i was sort of busy helping carrying stuffs)

Before we reached for PD we managed to stop by to have a rest for a while and let the boys perform their Friday prayer, most girls stayed inside the bus, either having their "nasi lemak" (Thank you Dr. Kartini, the Nasi Lemak was REALLY GOOD !) and some of them (Kak Nisa, Kamariah, Fara, Raja Umi, Ain and myself) watched "Darkness Falls" in the bus. Yikes! It was damn scary but i wasn't scared by the ghost in the story, more of like being scared by them girls shouting...especially by Ain. By 2.45pm i guess, the boys finished their prayers and we head back on track to our destination.

Finally at about 3pm ++ we reached Hotel Seri Malaysia.. Right there, Dr. Nidzam was waiting for us, we waited patiently before we were given our keys, and told to be in Bilik Seri Kemang2 for our briefing session at 5pm. We were also told that we could have our tea there at 4.30pm :)
After checking into our room (me and Raja Umi), we saw swimming pool nearby our room.. JENG JENG JENG! (imagine me stucking my hand onto my head making a naughty devilish look haha...) Well, the swimming pool is on my "to do list" ok?

We went to Seri Kemang 2 for our tea but actually we're supposed to have our tea at cafeteria...no wonder the room was empty. We thought we're the earliest one, haha... Finally, at 5pm was the briefing session, most of us are late again. Nisa was upset and start babbling saying we should be punctual. We should be, we're political students rite? Future leaders, shoudn't be late.Hehe (Correct me if my statement is wrong). During the briefing session, we were informed on the list of guest speakers and Dr. Nidzam poins out about the importance of using the opportunity given to ask for any question regarding our thesis. Its for our own good. True!

After the taklimat, Dr Nidzam said that we are free to do what ever activity we like, either swimming and tanning at the beach or maybe even just walking along the beach, we're allowed to do so as long as we take care of ourself and behave well.. So, some of us head on to the beach to swim and took some nice photos... here are some of the photos on the 1st day...


24th Jan 2008 (Sat)


This is the day which we began our workshop. It started with breakfast at 7.30am, and later on the whole program started at 8.30am. 1stly, Abg Taki started his talk about hedging and qualifications. He stress out that in thesis writing, there should be a limit where us as the writer/author could/should not write a really bold and harsh statements. Hard for me to explain here since my English were merely considered adequate..hehe... He also taught us about using methods for example the comparison method, probability and "penjarakan" method to show some modesty in our writings. Sometimes us as young writers could often got caught in uncontrollably emotional situation and may sort of being too much expressive in it, as an intellectual people.. our lecturers emphasizes on the importance of not taking sides and remain neutral in our opinion/writings/analysis...

2nd session of the workshop were handled by my beloved supervisor, Prof.Saliha... she talks about chapter 1 (The "permasalahan kajian"/ "purpose of the study"). She mentioned about how we need to drawn the attention of our reader to the focus of our research/thesis. Besides that, the problems are to be solved in chapters according to orderly manner. The 5W's IH can be used to show our "permasalahan kajian"... Finally, before she closed her session, she stress out that its important to ensure that our conclusion answers our "permasalahan kajian"...


The 3rd session is about literature review by Dr.Sity and Dr.Rizal.
Both says that we need to plan the following to make a good literature review :

Then, they both mentioned too that we need to:

plus, they gave us good tips to differentiate between the stuffs can be used as material for LR and what's not. p/s: Dr.Sity mentioned about having at least 5 books for our literature review. Are yours meeting these criteria?

Proceed with our 4th session, our beloved Dr. Kartini and Dr.Rashila as the expertise on the Methodology part explains to us the difference between Qualitative and Quantitative method. Both are used in certain situations... not all sorts of research could use the two methods, there are terms and conditions and also we need to take considerations of the suitability of using the method for our research. We're also taught the instrument that can be used according to the particular methods that we chose. Differents methods means different instruments...


Dr. Nidzam handled the 5th session by giving talks on the analysis method, he stated 4 methods of analysis:

he'd also explained on the usage of theory/models and concepts as apparatus in conducting the research. Research can be divided to 2 ways; Abstract and Empiri.
Abstract :

One great tip from him, without theory/concept/models our research are considered as not academic enough in social sciences (more journalistic, unacceptable as 1 good quality research in the discipline of political science)

The 6th Session by Prof Ghazali Mayudin (Prof GM) is about the mistakes that are regularly committed when writing a thesis. THIS IS REALLY CRUCIAL since i known from my seniors that silly mistakes can influence the marks (from A it can change to B.. OMG! 20 marks is BIG ok??? considered them as bonuses!!! should try your best to avoid silly mistakes...)

Then by 3.30pm, we were taken over by an invited guest speaker, a lecturer from Language Linguistic Department of UKM (Dr. Tgku Nor Rizani). She spent about one and a half hour giving us tips on English and Soft Skills. I enjoyed this session utmost since English was my favourite subject. She conducted 3 group activity which exercises and questions that are essential during interview sessions... So many good tips were passed on to us, at least we got a bit of ideas on how to present ourselves much much better for our interview since we're all going to graduate this coming August (AMIN, may our prayers be answered by Allah)


In the evening, we had our games session...
we get into teams of students mixed-up with a few lecturers and had a blasting moments!
Less writing, just more photos to show the joy of moments we shared at PD...

At night, we had our "Jejak Alumni" session where our lecturers called some of our "super-seniors" from our major to share their very own experience/ successful stories as a political science students. Sort of like a motivation sessions...



25th January 2009 (Sunday):


I want to apologize publicly to Prof Saliha for being late to the "Hati ke hati" session...I totally regret of my misbehavior..if she read this she might be laughing at me :) hehe... but i couldn't express how totally proud/happy i am having her as my supervisor.
Well, heading back to my post here, we had use up most of the time provided to us well and managed to give and take up some tips among us. Sharing ideas, since people said that two or more heads are better than one. We all thought about the problems and methods of solution to our problems in our thesis writing process... (in my group particularly, i don't know about other groups).

At the closing of the programme, Prof. Saliha gave an ending remarks and conclusions (Well, she "shoots" me publicly though..hehe...*embarrased*)

Finally, we had back to UKM after we had our lunch at about 2pm i guess...we managed to take a family photo of everyone while waiting for the bus. Here it is =)

After everyone had checked out and as our bus arrived the hotel at that time (the bus was late actually, that is why we waited until 2pm i guess). So, we arrived back in UKM at nearly about 4pm...

I bet everyone was tired that time since everyone was rushing back to their place...
but indeed,
WE HAD REALLY TREMENDOUS AND REALLY GREAT TIME...
TO OUR LECTURERS.. ALL YOUR EFFORTS ARE MEANINGFUL..
THANKS PROFs/ DRs...
WISH US THE BEST OF LUCK IN OUR THESIS WRITING...
*heartiest gratitude*

written and posted by:
Maidizah