“Eat topics, sleep topics and…live topics”

The seminar was attended by 3 guests: Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh (Vice Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities), Associate Professor Dr. Hoang Anh Tuan (Vice Head of the Faculty of History), Dr. Dao Thanh Truong (Head of the Faculty of Management Sciences) and hundreds of students.

At the beginning of the sharing session, Dr. Dao Thanh Truong revealed 5 tips for choosing a topic for students doing scientific research. “After the research process, I realized that choosing a topic is the talent of choosing a topic. That means you have to choose a topic that you really care about and are concerned about during your studies and work to solve it with research results and scientific arguments.” – Mr. Truong concluded.

The speakers enthusiastically answered students' questions and concerns about scientific research (Photo: Thu Hang)

Answering students' questions about the secret to maintaining a scientific research until the end, Mr. Minh humorously confided: “The most important thing is perseverance. Doing science is just a little effort every day. When I was doing my doctoral thesis in Germany, I set myself a goal of one page a day. Doing scientific research is the same, every day I spend 30 minutes reading a document or some material, for example. Second, I think we must not hide our ignorance. We must not be self-conscious, we must discuss with friends. You must always live by your topic. Eat the topic, sleep the topic, always talk about your topic whenever you meet someone. Even if people are not interested, you still talk. That way you will surely succeed.”

Students actively asked questions about scientific research (Photo: Thu Hang)

At the seminar, the teachers also answered many other concerns of the students about how to design questionnaires, interviews, sample selection, the importance of foreign languages ​​in scientific research and criteria for evaluating scientific research...

With the orientation of becoming a research university, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities is currently making great efforts to raise awareness and the importance of student scientific research. Mr. Pham Quang Minh expressed many concerns when he said that in the past 3 years, the school had about 800-900 scientific research projects out of a total of more than 6,000 students. That means only about 15% of the total number of students participated in scientific research in 3 years. This number is still not much for a research university. To solve this problem, the school is currently aiming for a number of solutions such as establishing clubs related to science and research; establishing a scientific research fund and calling for continuous investment from businesses and philanthropists. Not only that, each year, the school also spends half a billion VND to support students' scientific research activities.

Hopefully with the attention of teachers and schools, in the future there will be more quality research projects conducted by students.