Dr Iskandar Abdul Samad

Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

Impressive Experience of UNE Services

Dr Iskandar Abdul Samad MA and his wife, Dr Siti Sarah Fitriani MA both studied at UNE. This is Dr Samad’s impressions of UNE and their time in Armidale.

This writing is based on a very memorable experience while taking a PhD program at the University of New England, Australia.

The Australian Government always controls the quality of the UNE campus strictly so that we do not need to hesitate about the best services we get from this UNE campus.

The UNE campus is very concerned about the success of its students. Therefore, they provide high support services to their students to be successful in their studies. There are many stories that we can tell related to the services provided by the UNE campus to my wife and me during our study here.

On this campus, as international students, we are provided with special support to help us in the academic, legal, and social fields.

When my wife (Dr. Siti Sarah Fitriani, MA) and I took the PhD study program at the UNE campus, we were very happy to experience the facilities provided by this campus to support our academic activities.

The campus provides an Academic Skills Assistance in providing academic and language support through personal consultations. This facility is a face to face session for 15-30 minutes.

Apart from this facility, we can also take part in various academic writing workshops provided by the campus to help students to be competent in writing particularly dissertation writing and assignments.

Furthermore, there are more facilities that we can get as PhD students, for example we are given a special room to do doctoral research. We are treated like lecturers on this campus. All our research needs were fully supported by the campus, for example the provision of new computers, high internet connections, photocopying machines and other research related needs.

The most impressive experience for us is the supervision process. We are enrolled in different faculties. I am enrolled in the Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, while my wife is enrolled in the Faculty of Education. Before we continued our PhD journey, we heard many stories about PhD candidates who failed because of the mismatch between the expectations of their supervisors and students. Supervisors want their students to be experts in their research fields, while international students want supervisors to direct them step by step in completing their research. Thus, the guidance process did not run smoothly due to differences in expectations between supervisors and international students, especially those who came from the Asian continent.

However, the ‘nightmare’ supervision did not happen to us at UNE. We had a lot of fun in this supervisory process. My supervisors, Zifirdaus Adnan, Kiyomi Yamada and Ruth Nicholls, and my wife's supervisors Mary Macken-Horarik and Mutuota Kigotho greatly assisted us in completing our studies, from writing a proposal, collecting data, up to writing a dissertation. The time given for the guidance is very flexible. We never had a hard time finding our supervisors for consultation.

The campus also provides us services in the form of a shadow supervisor, who are professionals for additional assistance to direct our research in the right path. These professionals are paid directly by the campus, so we do not need to spend any funds.

What is even more enjoyable as an international student is the excellent financial support provided by the campus. First, we are given a fund of one thousand dollars per year. These funds may be used to complement various research needs, for example buying handbooks to support our research and for other similar purposes.

Secondly, we are also given a traveling allowance grant. This traveling allowance fund can be used to present research results at international forums such as international conferences, international seminars, and similar academic forums. The funds provided reached four thousand dollars.

The third is the Completion scholarship, this scholarship is a campus support for international students whose scholarship is up, but their postgraduate research has not been completed. This scholarship is limited to four months only, but the amount is enormous, totaling eight thousand dollars. Great fun, right?

There is also a premium service provided to all students studying at UNE. The campus provides a Student Advocacy and Support Team in providing comprehensive support services, including providing information about visas, study costs and personal welfare.

Furthermore, they also organize various social events to build friendships among fellow students on campus and to ensure that the international students can adapt well to their new environment.

The academic, legal and social services provided by the Australian campus to international students are truly outstanding, so we are sure that we will succeed if we study on campus in Australia, especially at UNE.

August 2020