Basic skills of academia are taught and learnt at school level so further levels of education like college and university polish those all learnt skills. This is known to all of us that we all choose a field of study on the basis of our personal interest or our God gifted skills but these skills also require to be polished so can be used in achieving our goals. The academic level of postgraduate is different in some perspectives as these require more skills that were required in previous education levels. One must know what are those key skills that he/she would require to be a good postgraduate student? So if he/she is lacking then first build or develop those skills and then starting a postgraduate degree.Some skills those are might be your traits and for someone, it is a skill that’s difficult to be developed i.e. consistency. So these are the necessary skills for a postgraduate student that he/she needs to ensure is his personality before getting admission in degree;
- Team Work
Postgraduate studies require to do research work and this is not an individual task and also not always a complete teamwork but an activity that requires you to coordinate with different people. A researcher has always needed to interact with different people like a supervisor, researchers and individuals from the research population. So if you are thinking that it is going to be done in a quiet lab or a library where you would not have to talk or interact with someone else then you should not for it or at least you need to be open towards routine or occasional interactions and coordination with anyone of above-described individuals.
- Consistent
A researcher must be consistent as it is not a task that is completely an independent and lonely work and also not very interactive and fun oriented activity. You need to read for long hours or might have to spend long hours in the lab doing experiments so you must be prepared for this situation with consistency.
- Help-Seeking and Providing
As discussed above that research is not a complete individual or teamwork based job but you need to interact with related individuals these can be other researcher or any person of your research concern. You would need help for many times so if you are hesitant to ask for help when you need to develop this skill and also you must be open to help other researchers of your field as you are going to ask for help.
- Basic Research Skills
This is also among the most important skill but as you were thinking, it is not the only skill you would require for being a successful postgraduate student. If you have only basic research skills but not any of above then only having these would not help you in your postgraduate studies. And also having all above skills and abilities without basic research skills is also useless. To coordinate all these skills set enabling you to be a good and successful researcher.
