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Postgraduate Students

As a new postgraduate student, you will need to become familiar with new ways of learning and teaching at university (for example lectures, tutorials, use of e-learning systems). This part of the site will help you to explore some of the issues that relate to these new ways of learning and teaching and to find out how you can use them to your best advantage in your course.

Academic Skills - an integrated platform of skills that will provide you with the insights you will need to learn successfully and perform well as a university student.

• Independent learning skills - developing an approach to your studies where you take the responsibility for organising what, where and how you learn in accordance with your preferred learning style
• Critical thinking skills - developing a questioning approach to information and evidence that you encounter, and learning to evaluate viewpoints objectively
• Interpersonal skills - if you are a postgraduate student on a taught course then you may find that your course involves a lot of working within a team to achive a common goal, to learn collaboratively and to interact well in different learning and teaching situations; if you are a research student, then you will need to learn to work at a higher level and perhaps within a multidisciplinary team
• Listening skills - developing strategies for contributing to discussion by listening to and respecting the views of others; extracting relevant information from oral presentations (for example, in lectures or seminar discussions and, of course, in discussion with your supervisor and/your research group)
• Oral skills - developing abilities to communicate well with others by conveying your ideas, arguing rigorously, expressing opinions in research group discussions, formulating oral questions in formal settings and making oral presentations to larger groups
• Postgraduate reading skills - developing a sound awareness and appraisal of the structure of text in order to achieve an accurate understanding and evaluation of content as a function of conducting literature reviews
• Postgraduate writing skills - developing a command of written language and application of academic conventions including appropriate use of source material required for the production of journal papers, dissertations and theses
• Grammar skills - developing a sound understanding and an ability to apply the rules of standard English grammar incorporating appropriate punctuation, spelling and register
• Numerical and maths skills - understanding fundamental numerical and mathematical applications required for your coursework
• Exam skills - adopting efficient revision strategies and tactics for exam-taking in the different assessment contexts used at University
• Principles of Postgraduateness - an introductory series of workshops offered in Freshers' Week to help new postgraduates students on taught courses and PhD programmes to develop the skills they will need as postgraduates to meet the challenges of learning required for higher degrees.

Advance@Dundee Postgraduate Portal - an online intranet source designed by University of Dundee staff to support your learning. The site covers 8 key skill areas and is available as a 'virtual tutor' at all times throughout the year.

If there is something we've missed, then please let us know by sending an email to aatu@dundee.ac.uk. We will try to help you directly and will seek to modify the site as appropriate.