What I Wished I Knew Before.....Part 2

So here there we were Dec 13, 2008 - only two months into the programme but by now very accustomed to the many many hours spent working with others, discussing issues in our own country and drawing straws to see who was gonna be the presenter next day.

Just from this photo I see such a wonderful cross-section of students we had a Phillipino, two Indonesians, a Ghanian, Serbian, Romanian and of course a Jamaican:0), with such representation you can just imagine how informative and interesting these debates were.

Now as the Blog Title suggests I am gonna share another "What I wished I knew before...." story. The question is how could I have been better prepared for the rigour of group work, discussion and presentation...all of which forms the bulk of what you'll be doing for at least 8-9 months of this adventure.

Nothing beats doing a bit of reading before getting here. Now to get an idea of what type of information will be in the offing and the material that will be thrust at you for digestion a really good place to go is (drumrolllllllllll)...if you guessed it then you are well ahead - the Institute's website, and address by this I am sure you are all familiar. BUT!! you might have bypassed a juicy page under the heading "Urban Professionals".  http://www.ihs.nl/urban_professionals/ihs_publications/

Here you will find great stuff to occupy some of those pre-arrival weekends.

• Working papers
• Project papers
• Past Thesis papers (summaries)
• Etc

These are papers written by IHS lecturers and associates as well as past students. So browse through and just click on a few that might speak to your own area of interest/expertise, perhaps subject matters that you are considering for your thesis research. One of my favourites was The Integrated Urban Infrastructure Development, Programme and Urban Management Innovations in Indonesia in the "Working Papers" section. It introduces you to a number of the primary issues but via the Indonesian experience which might share commonalities with your cities. Issues like urban financing, city land management, infrastructure, institutional development, public private partnerships etc etc.

PRESENTATION SKILLS
This one is a certifiably necessary skill. Not just because part of your grade depends on your ability to clearly present your ideas and thoughts and justify the positions you take but you need it in your professional life as you interact with stakeholders in developing and managing your cities. My recommendation is to start playing with Microsoft Powerpoint as a few students in my year really struggled (time wise) to meet deadlines because of an unfamiliarity with the software. If you need help you can google anything but my favourite place to go to get real help with learning software is http://www.lynda.com/. For a small investment of $25 bucks you can spend a month getting video tutorials for any software including Microsoft Powerpoint. In far less than the month you will have mastered all you need.

And last head over to this website www.iasted.org/conferences/formatting/presentations-tips.ppt   These tips are spot on with highlighting where lecturers had the greatest difficulties so don't fail to check it out. By the time you get to end of programme you will have mastered the art and be ready to rock the house with your thesis defence. Well that's a wrap for now, hope it was useful.

Yup that's me, in mid-flight of thesis defence!!