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Helping students manage the transition throughout a new postgraduate course
This teaching toolkit is the result of a Changemakers project and has been developed in a partnership between staff and students. It aims to guide staff in supporting postgraduate transition.
18 September 2025
Why it matters
In the past, there were fewer postgraduate students than undergraduates at UCL: in 1999-2000 there were approximately half the number of postgraduates (5,811) than undergraduates (10,525). However, every year since the merger with the Institute of Education in 2014 (except for the COVID undergraduate spillover year of 2023-24), UCL has consisted of more postgraduate students than undergraduates. In the 2024-25 academic year, UCL had 25,583 undergraduates and 26,210 postgraduates.
Despite these increased numbers, there is little advice available for staff to help students with the transition to postgraduate studies; much support around academic transitions remains focused on the transition to university for undergraduate students. This lack of advice may stem from a persistent assumption that success at undergraduate level translates into success at postgraduate level (Liu & Pullinger, 2021; White, 2024) or the fact that taught postgraduate students are often an ‘overlooked cohort’ in general (Coneyworth et. al., 2019).
However, the diverse range of backgrounds and experiences of postgraduate students, and the intense nature of a one-year Master’s degree in the UK, make it an arguably more complex transition (McPherson, et.al., 2017). It is therefore important to understand the individual challenges that these students face and modify provision accordingly. These challenges are often heightened for those starting a new subject at postgraduate level.
Challenges
Transitioning to postgraduate study is a very individual experience, and students often feel that not enough is done to understand these experiences. New postgraduate students often worry about the greater complexity and depth of a Master’s programme, and the high-stakes nature of Master’s level study often creates feelings of anxiety, self-doubt and disorientation (McPherson et.al., 2017). Students may perceive themselves as being underprepared for postgraduate work or feel that their knowledge has degraded since their undergraduate studies (White, 2024). Postgraduate students may also feel a lack of connection to professional identity (White, 2024) or may lack technological or digital literacy (Robb and Moffatt, 2020). International students face added challenges, such as an unfamiliar academic environment, culture shock and limited English proficiency (Robb and Moffatt, 2020).
Students transitioning to a new discipline at postgraduate level often have a strong background in a similar subject but not necessarily in the main area of their postgraduate programme (Bownes et.al., 2017). These students might feel uncertainty, inadequacy or anxiety as an ‘academic novice’ i.e., imposter syndrome (Robb and Moffat, 2020). Many students often report that they are ‘confused and struggling’ despite lecturers assuming that they have the requisite knowledge to successfully complete a Master’s level course (Tobbell & O’Donnell, 2013). Perhaps there is a lack of clarity of expectations for these students (Liu & Pullinger, 2021) or insufficient information about the foundational knowledge required to successfully transition into a new discipline. These students note that research methodology training is essential to bridge this gap; however, students are often dissatisfied with the design and teaching of research methods (Daniel, 2021).
As a Master’s level course in the UK is often only one year, students often lack the same social opportunities for learning (Becker, Johnson & Britton, 2019), which may have existed in their undergraduate course. postgraduate students overall feel least satisfied with aspects of ‘community’ (e.g., a sense of belonging or opportunities to interact with peers) out of all the areas of student experience, according to the latest Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (Quinn, 2024). Perhaps surprisingly, this feeling of a lack of community is more keenly felt by home students than international students (Quinn, 2024). Besides, independent learning is often emphasised at postgraduate level. For academics, independent learning is a core feature of mastery; however, for students it can be seen as hostile, and it means isolation, lack of support and contact (Tobbell et.al., 2010; Becker, Johnson & Britton, 2019). Students often feel there is too much reliance on self-study (Bownes et.al.,2017), with a lack of staff contact being perceived as a lack of care which negatively impacts the student learning experience (Becker, Johnson & Britton, 2019).
Advice to support students
Based on the literature around transitioning to postgraduate studies and interviews with students, three areas in particular can be focused on to improve the learning experience of new postgraduate students:
- build relationships,
- clarify expectations,
- and provide targeted programme provision
Focusing on these areas continually throughout the Master’s programme is necessary to overcome the many challenges that students face.
Build relationships
Positive staff-student relationships are crucial to students’ confidence and satisfaction (Bownes et.al, 2017) and generating a community of peer-to-peer learning quickly and intentionally is necessary at Master’s level (Marder et. al.,2024). Here are some ideas to build relationships between groups of students and between staff and students:
Staff can send regular reminder emails to let students know they are available for support and invite students to raise concerns through office hours, email or student representatives. Attending office hours could be set as an expectation rather than an option.
Staff can encourage students to form study groups, or could set up the groups directly. They can explain why study groups are effective (Bownes et al., 2017; Armsby, 2013).
Staff can organise a weekly meeting time and place for students and staff on the programme.
Staff and students can hold informal ‘restorative circles’ (Marder et al., 2024) or ‘dialogue days’ (Ashgar, 2014) throughout the year. These sessions could focus on themes that matter to postgraduates, such as imposter syndrome, clarifying expectations or coping with academic failure.
Staff can provide clear guidance on how to communicate and work with dissertation supervisors. This could be especially helpful for international students who may have different expectations of academic relationships.
Course representatives can organise events that bring staff and students together.
Clarify expectations
Much of the work to clarify expectations can be done before the programme or module begins. To clarify general expectations regarding Master's-level study, staff can:
Put potential new postgraduate students in touch with current students (Becker et.al, 2019) or provide insights from current students through written or video testimonials. These testimonials should take into account the range of experiences of postgraduate students (e.g., international students, older students returning to education etc.) (Bownes et. al,. 2017).
Provide ‘top tips for success’, which can be generated by previous graduates and be made available to students before they start their postgraduate course (Bownes et. al,. 2017).
Make explicit the level of support that supervisors will provide during research projects. Information regarding how many supervision meetings and the amount and depth of feedback is useful.
Make explicit what is meant exactly by ‘independent learning’ for the particular Master’s course. This is particularly important for students who come from an educational background which contains a lot of teaching provision.
Provide explanations of assessment criteria (e.g., what is meant by ‘criticality’ in the specific discipline) and examples of high-scoring student work with explanatory feedback. Explanations around the grading system in a UK master’s context is useful, especially for international students.
Be explicit about the level of interaction expected between students (e.g. seminar participation) and signpost to oral communication provision with the Academic Communication Centre if students want to improve this skill.
To clarify the expectations regarding the foundational knowledge required to successfully engage with module or course content, staff can:
Provide pre-course or pre-module reading lists which tell students what to focus on (following UCL’s guidance on best practice on creating useful reading lists). Staff-annotated reading lists that explain and contextualise the reading choices, as well as guided reading questions are particularly useful for students.
Provide pre-course textbooks or primers to get students up to speed with the required foundational knowledge. Students have found carefully created online courses especially useful for bridging this knowledge gap.
Create a pre-module knowledge checklist e.g., ‘Do you know what a critical appraisal is?’ ‘Do you understand the concept of X?’. Provide resources or signpost to resources where these knowledge gaps can be filled.
Provide targeted programme provision
To ensure that new postgraduate students are helped throughout their course, specific additions in provision or signposting to wider UCL support may be necessary:
Provide postgraduate students with courses on research methods. Supplementary training could also be offered in the form of an online course. As postgraduate students’ research may be interdisciplinary in nature, organise for students to attend other research methodology training in different departments.
Conduct a ‘needs analysis’ questionnaire at the beginning of each module. This allows module leaders to better understand the individual context of their learners and tailor their provision to meet their learners’ needs.
Identify where students need additional resources and skills to successfully meet the learning outcomes in the module and then signpost to the specific support available at UCL. For example, an assessment may require detailed data visualisation, but this is not taught directly on the course, so the relevant training session by Digital Skills at UCL is provided. Students who need academic support with their communication skills, such as academic writing, can be directed to the Academic Communication Centre. If a student has other concerns which might affect their studies, they can be guided towards the Support and Wellbeing Services.
Keep in mind that postgraduate students lack as many opportunities for peer-to-peer learning as undergraduates. Consider providing seminars as well as lectures so that students have opportunities to discuss with each other and learn as a group.
Provide short and quick formative assessments. These assessments are greatly appreciated by postgraduate students who may feel ‘imposter syndrome’ (Robb and Moffat, 2020), or by students who feel they lack the skills and knowledge to successfully complete the summative assessments. These formative assessments also help to encourage independent learning.
Student strategies for success: self-regulated learning and UCL community engagement
To help students become successful at postgraduate level study, it is helpful to make sure students understand the importance of self-regulated learning. Students who self-regulate their learning can alter and align their study habits through a process of planning, setting goals, tracking and reflecting on their progress and better time management (Hoeta, 2021). Personal agency and drive, passion towards studying a subject particularly across disciplines and a willingness for problem solving seem to be key aspects of success (Spence et.al, 2024).
Students who engage in successful self-regulated learning:
Develop a study routine to help cope with stress and time management.
Track progress and self-reflect by aligning previous learning to postgraduate studies.
Form study groups with peers to discuss their learning goals and their learning styles. These open dialogues where students discuss how they initiate and direct their efforts to acquire knowledge and skill are valuable.
Use simple hacks, such as Windows' free “Read Aloud” function, to focus when struggling with extensive reading.
Beyond self-regulated learning, engaging in activities with the wider UCL community has also been found to enable successful transition:
Proactively seek out all avenues for support e.g. UCL Library Services, Academic Communication Centre, UCL Careers, Student Support and Wellbeing Services, Information Services Division.
Engage in developmental opportunities with the wider UCL community e.g. student quality reviews or Changemakers Projects.
Find communities within UCL by actively seeking out relevant clubs and societies within Students' Union UCL and other social and cultural resources. These also help increase interaction with peers.
Managing the transition in the students’ own words
Students at UCL have shared their experiences of how they achieved a successful transition to postgraduate studies:
‘I’m the type of person who’s quite good at looking for help when I need it... Reaching out to my lecturers via email and office hours meant that I was able to clarify doubts and questions that I had from lectures, as well as hear about extracurricular opportunities, such as research assistantships.’
‘Speaking to my peers and classmates has allowed me to make the most of all the resources and support available to me, finding out about informal support opportunities, such as supervisors with a dissertation timeline.’
‘Taking part in a Changemakers project itself has been a great opportunity which I might not have heard about had I not been proactive in seeking support from the Academic Communication Centre.’
‘Identifying the core skills you obtained in your undergraduate degree and how they can be transferred over will improve confidence and allow individualism within the course. As a previous modern foreign languages student, I have strong interpersonal skills and ability to present in multiple languages, linguistic analysis etc. This is useful at MSc level as I am a strong presenter.’
‘Having set study places, like the research grid on 4th floor science library, gave me a sense of consistency and structure even when my schedule times changed. I think this is especially important for people studying part time, or alongside work.’
This guide was produced by Peter Puxon, Associate Lecturer (Teaching) in the Academic Communication Centre and Farzana Bashir, Academic Communication Centre EAP Associate Lecturer (Teaching), in collaboration with UCL ChangeMakers students Maya Selvadurai and Egle Lorenzini.
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