Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Postgrad Step-by-Step: Applying

Salam and good day readers!

Sorry that it's been a while. I've been under the weather lately.

So, this post is about the process of furthering your study. I'm just going to share what I've been through. Basically, there are 4 steps that you need to go through:

1) Finding the right course at the right University
2) Finding Scholarship
3) IELTS (universities in UK, Canada, Aussie may need this)
4) Student VISA

This post, I'll be talking about STEP 1: FINDING THE RIGHT COURSE AT THE RIGHT UNIVERSITY

It's not really that hard. You know the course that you took before (undergrad), so it's just finding the right one that are either related or specialising on the same course.

For the university, most scholarships nowadays prefer to sponsor students who received an offer from top ranked universities in the world. For example:




This is an example from MARA. You need an offer letter from top world rank uni. How to find them? Use the links that stated. One of them as shown:


Now, these ranks are not based on courses. This is a general rank which includes administration other than academic level. Sometimes, the uni may be ranked lower in this list, but in certain course such as science, they could be better. But, sponsors don't think about those things. So, just to be safe, apply to the top uni. It won't do you any harm for sure.

How to apply? It's simple. find the uni's website.



You can just Google them. Once you've found the web, of course, choose the icon to study. Unless you want to do something else, which will not be related to this post.


 After that, search for list of courses as shown in the picture.


Then, just select which course that you're interested in. Now, most people don't know this, but MRes means masters by research based, MSc is course based, MPhil is masters in philosophy (don't get confused with PhD).


Follow the arrow, click to apply online. After that, just follow the required fields that they need you to fill in. There'll be documents that you need to provide such as your academic transcript, passport, referral letter (best from a lecturer or any academician) and personal statement. 

A personal statement is just a little bit of your background (not personal) and your motivation to study that course. 


Usually the university will determine how many words that they require you to write. Mostly, 500 words. Once you've completed all the required documents, you're all set to go.

The next step would be to wait a reply from the university. Most universities, they will email you if you've received an offer or if you have any outstanding documents. But for my uni (Imperial College), everything is in the application system. So you need to check them constantly to know what is the progress of your application.

My experience in applying to 7 different universities in the UK, Alhamdulillah I received an offer to all. So, don't limit yourself to only certain university. Apply to a hundred if you must. But then, it will be difficult to decline the rest after you've chosen which uni to go to.

Good luck to all those applicants out there. You can find out how to apply for sponsor here.

Until next time...http://eemoticons.net

2 comments:

Ummu Nuha said...

Salam. I have few things in my mind.
1) What's the diference between MSc and MPhil?

2) What is IELTS? I heard that it is a type of examination just like what we had in Malaysia like MUET and some of my friends said that MUET result is not validated and applicable to use whenever we want to apply for universities in Europe. Is that true?

Looking forward for your response. Thank you so much.

ctaminah88 said...

Wassalam.

1) MSc is a masters degree that requires you to take a coursework. Sometimes, there will be a mini project with dissertation as well like mine.

MPhil is also masters degree but is only awarded to postgraduates. So it's like a 2nd master. It's an extensive research degree before PhD. Some people who took MPhil, in the middle they'll convert to PhD. MPhil stands in between of MSc and PhD.

2) You can refer here http://ctaminah88.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/ielts.html. The answer to your question is yes, it is true. But some universities in UK accepts our gceo result (SPM English 1119) like Sheffield University if your undergrad is fully thought in English.