Divisional Commencement Program (DCP)
The CCP focuses on the university-wide requirements and supports for research candidacy. The Divisional programs provide candidates with an orientation to their own context, opportunities to learn from senior researchers and other research students, opportunities to explore research methodologies, opportunities to present their own work and listen to others, and the opportunity to participate in a variety of research seminars. The DCP is part of the first year of candidacy and must be completed.
Candidate
The DCP is pivotal to your integration into the culture of research in your own Division and Department. It provides opportunities for you to develop your research experience, investigate different ways of solving research problems, and introduces you to the research colleagues that you will be working with during your candidacy. It is important to take every opportunity to discuss your ideas within formal and informal situations as this leads towards the refinement of your research questions and plan. Part of the DCP may be to attend various supportive workshops (such as Endnote training in the library, or a postgraduate research seminar for instance). You should attend as many as you can in the first year in order to start building strong research related skills and establish links with other scholars. There will be some aspects of the DCP that will be compulsory and others that will be voluntary. The program is directed by your Division’s Postgraduate Coordinator.
Principal supervisor
The concept behind the DCP is that students are strongly supported in the early stages of their candidacy. The research culture of your Division/Department becomes known to the student through attendance in the program. Becoming a regular attendee and contributor to the program enables students to see a strong integration between their own research programs and the broader discipline. When you are planning the candidate’s first milestones it is essential that the DCP is factored into the workload and that attendance is encouraged. Supervisors need to know that their student has attended so that they can sign off on that stage of candidacy.