Division of Business
Honours
Honours
My overall experience of the Honours program was a positive one. My ultimate goal from studying Honours was to gain entry in to a PhD so by completing my Honours to a First Class standard I fulfilled my goal of admission into a PhD with the bonus of a full scholarship.
The Honours program was very beneficial to me as it gave me the underlying skills I needed to pursue my PhD. As it turns out, my PhD is in a very different area to the area I researched during Honours. It was those basic research skills and strategies that I learnt in Honours that enabled me to confidently branch out in to a different area in my PhD.
By undertaking the Honours program I learnt to appreciate an academic style of writing. I gained the knowledge of how to develop a convincing argument and to engage in a deeper level of critical thinking. I was also able to further develop my problem-solving skills, learnt from the workplace, and adapt them to Honours whilst working independently on my own project.
I also found the coursework components of the Honours program to be beneficial also as it allowed me to explore other areas of research that I may not have otherwise. During my special topics course I worked with my supervisor to research indigenous enterprise. This was something I may have never had the opportunity to do in another program and so it allows you to have a broader learning experience.
The transition to Honours was an even bigger step for me as I had made the decision to move from the workplace back to University a few years earlier when I began my Masters by coursework. Coming from many years in the workplace I had developed habits of writing business reports in a much more consultancy style. Changing that habit to writing more academically was the hardest transition for me. Although my Masters had a research component in it, it was not until I began my Honours degree that I really had the opportunity to learn what research was about and put my research skills into real-life practice.
One thing I found difficult to adjust to in Honours is that there is no 'template'. There is an appropriate style and format, but it is still so flexible depending on what you want to do with it so it is a matter of taking your own interest and developing it in to the Honours style. I did take a little while to get going but once I did it really wasn't a chore. I simply liked the topic and so my Honours year was really interesting and enjoyable for me.
Achieving a First Class Honours definitely opened up many more options for me in my career. I have now moved in to a different research area with my PhD and Honours has allowed me to pursue new interests and different directions in academia. I made a conscious decision to move back to University from the workplace and right now I am definitely enjoying my work as an academic and plan to stay down this path as long as the research still interests me and engages my passion for learning. Honours has been invaluable in my path towards achieving a PhD and a career as an academic.
I am currently undertaking my PhD in Business and Management within the International Graduate School of Business. I was fortunate enough to gain an Industry-funded Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship, sponsored by Divisions of General Practice in South Australia. As part of this scholarship I am also working, with my supervisor, as part of an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant.
My current research project is prompted by the desire of the federal government to introduce an information system that will routinely collect data on a patient condition, and treatments from several individual practices, and amalgamate this data for statistical purposes. This research is focused on understanding and on overcoming the causes of negative attitudes of physicians in General Practice medicine towards the introduction and use of such health information systems. It is expected this research will contribute to a better understanding of the drivers of success in physician adoption and regular use of such systems. It is also expected the outcome of this project will be improved understanding of what steps are necessary to reduce resistance and increase adoption of amalgamated health information systems.
