Time flies and we are now finishing one more course of our Master Program at NUGSE. During these three months I was challenged a lot by the kind of assignments which always provoke questions. Whenever I start doing an assignment from the course there are loads of questions in my head! One more usual thing though is that I am able to finally find answers to most of them during the process of writing.
It is great that this course is based on from-knowing-to-doing principle: we could apply the knowledge and practice our writing a lot. It is especially important for the distance students who generally lack practice.
After this course, I would definitely recommend online learners to try writing blogs! This less formal style of writing is great to improve your skills and reflect on what you are actually accomplishing as a researcher. Getting online comments from peers and instructors is an effective way of feedback as you feel that you are not doing it for the sake of it, but your work is read and discussed by a larger group of people.
Also, the resources from the course are wonderful. I used quite a few videos and handouts at my lessons of Global Perspectives and Project Work and my students found them useful too.
The course overall is helpful, I would argue though that it is more logical to have it during our first year of study so that when starting our thesis we already knew how to do it. This would save our time during the busy second year and prevent from many mistakes.
Anyway, the journey of getting a Master degree is a long two-year adventure and the “English for Thesis Writing” course became one of the ‘petrol stations’ to tank up the mind with new information and better skills.
NUWG 
Dear Gulnara!
I am pleased to read your one more nice post. Moreover I am glad to know that I was not an only students who struggled with difficulties at the beginning of the course.)) I agree with you that it generated lots of questions initially. However time by time we could cope with them because we became more skillful in online learning and organized in learning at all.
Hope that all our difficulties left behind by this time and we will write our thesis as well as expected. Good luck!
best wishes,
Zhuldyzay
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Dear Gulnara,
As always, I was waiting for your post 🙂
You know that I just love your writing style and the ideas you share.
I was also thinking that it would have been much better and more logical to include English for Thesis Writing into the program of the second semester of master studies rather than overloading the students during the second year when they have to work on the main thesis.
Anyway, I hope that even with such intensive and sometimes stressful studying we will succeed in the end 🙂 And actually it will happen very soon…
Good uck to all of us 🙂
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Daer Gulnara,
“Master degree is a long two-year adventure and the “English for Thesis Writing” course became one of the ‘petrol stations’ to tank up the mind with new information and better skills”… I think I will quote your words 🙂 This course has been a real struggle and benefit at the same time.
Overall, I agree with you about the sequence of the course. It may be more of help to have it during our first year while we were gaining theoretical skills because this year we are involved into the practical part of our thesis, and conducting two practical projects at the same time is more than a challenge.
I hope that we will overcome it as successful as we can, and neither of the projects will suffer from lack of time and our attention 🙂
Wish you good luck in upcoming year)
Regards, Aliya
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Thank you, Gulnara. Your posts have been a nice way to get to know you as a student and peer. I have learned to appreciate your thoughtful analysis of every task, and your willingness to try new things. I’m particularly interested in your use of our course materials for your students. What exactly did you use, and how did it go for them? I want to make more videos, and I’m curious to know 1) if they are useful and 2) how they can be improved…
Great writing here!
5/5
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