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Courses 2009: Courses held in English

The Graduate Academy offers a seminar program specially designed for doctoral students. This program aims at supporting young researchers in acquiring career-oriented qualifications and transferable skills. It caters for doctoral students from different research areas and backgrounds.

An introduction to various techniques of project management is given in the basic course “Strategies for a Successful Doctorate” for doctoral students from all research areas.
Further courses focus on a wide range of aspects related to working on a doctoral thesis and other research projects.

Neu Courses free as of April 2009!

Heidelberg University doctoral students are entitled to have their course fees refunded.
Please submit the following documents to the Graduate Academy:
  • Confirmation of your admission as a doctoral student to one of the faculties at Heidelberg University
  • A letter from your doctoral supervisor supporting your participation in the course
  • Your certificate of participation from the course (copy)
This funding program is made possible through the support of the Rectorate.
We look for-ward to your participation!


Our courses:


» Further Course Program 2009: Courses held in German

English for International Doctoral Students in the (Life) Sciences

For International Doctoral Students

This course has been designed to cater specifically to the needs and wishes of international doctoralstudents in the (life) sciences whose native language is not English. We will be analyzing a number of primary journal articles as well as sources from other media with a view to dealing with essential grammatical structures and general text organisation. We will also work on writing scientific texts in English (esp. abstracts and journal articles) and presenting and discussing papers in English in an international setting. Participants’ suggestions are, of course, welcome.

Location
Zentrales Sprachlabor,
Plöck 79–81, Room 207

Dates
Tuesdays and Thursdays,
each day 7.45 pm – 9.15 pm,
starting on 05.05.2009

Tutor
Andrew Terris, B.Sc., MBA,
Zentrales Sprachlabor

Target group
International doctoral students in the (life) sciences, in all stages of their dissertation project

Number of participants
max. 15

Fee
95 € Pfeil Fee refunds available through funding from the Rectorate


Strategies for a Successful Doctorate

Project Management – Social Skills – Time Management

For International Doctoral Students

The doctoral thesis is often the first big piece of academic work a doctoral student has to complete. To master it successfully requires high levels of motivation and willingness to work hard. As well as the demands set for the doctoral student by the academic discipline, interdisciplinary skills – key competencies – play a significant role.

In this two and a half days course the dissertation is viewed as a personal project that can be planned and executed efficiently by employing the correct strategies. The course focuses on the following aspects:



  • Identifying the individual phases of a project and their core tasks: situation analysis, goal definition, project structure plan and project action plan
  • Applying these phases to the personal doctoral project
  • Work-Life-Balance: which goals do I want to spend my time on?
  • Weekly planning and prioritising: how do I distribute my tasks over the week and avoid time pressure?
  • Analyzing personal strengths and weaknesses regarding soft skills: what do I need to improve and how can I plan my development?
  • Communicating effectively with my supervisor: how do I plan and carry out goal oriented dialogs?

Please note: This is not a language course.

Location
Seminar room of the Department Schlüsselkompetenzen,
Bergheimer Str. 20

Dates
Tuesday, 28.04.2009, 1.30 pm – 5 pm
Wednesday, 29.04.2009, 9 am – 5 pm
Tuesday, 05.05.2009, 9 am – 5 pm

Tutor
Sita Schanne,
ZSW, Department Schlüsselkompetenzen

Target group
International doctoral students from all research areas

Number of participants
max. 12

Fee
95 € Pfeil Fee refunds available through funding from the Rectorate


Presenting Research Results

An important part of research is presenting your results. This two day course helps doctoral students to prepare for the presentation of their research in seminars, at conferences or for their disputation. Participants bring their own presentations in order to work on the following topics:

  • How do I structure my talk to make it more effective?
  • How do I use media productively?
  • What do I have to bear in mind in order to address my audience most effectively?
  • How can I improve my presentation skills through feedback?
The course is a workshop, which means that participants are actively involved. Therefore doctoral students are expected to prepare a presentation on their research topic for the first day. A flipchart or a pinboard will be available to visualize contents. Systematic feedback will help the presenters to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, to try out new presentation strategies and thus to improve their presentation skills. On the second day six participants will have the opportunity to give a 10 minute presentation on their research topic and will receive feedback from the video, the expert and the group.

Please note: This is not a language course.

Location
Seminar room of the Department Schlüsselkompetenzen,
Bergheimer Str. 20

Dates
Monday, 11.05.2009, 9 am – 5 pm
Tuesday, 12.05.2009, 9 am – 5 pm

Tutor
Sita Schanne,
ZSW, Department Schlüsselkompetenzen

Target group
Doctoral students from all research areas

Number of participants
max. 12

Fee
95 € Pfeil Fee refunds available through funding from the Rectorate


Scientific Communication in English

This course will focus on practical usage of English in Science. We will first cover basic, useful principles for scientific writing. These principles will then be extended to scientific presentations. Every student will be encouraged to participate at each meeting, presenting themselves and their work to the group. Feedback will include best practice videos. This students will be able to immediately put into practice the principles they learn.
Further special topics will include:

  • How to write a review paper
  • Use and misuse of English
  • How to write a CV
  • Telephone and E-mail

The course will be run by a native English speaker with over 20 years experience in scientific communication.

Location
Kirchhoff-Institut für Physik,
INF 227, 2nd floor

Dates
Tuesday, 02.06.2009, 4 pm – 8 pm, room 2.401
Wednesday, 03.06.2009, 4 pm – 8 pm, room 2.403
Tuesday, 09.06.2009, 4 pm – 8 pm, room 2.401
Wednesday, 10.06.2009, 4 pm – 8 pm, room 2.403

Tutor
Dr. Seán O’Donoghue,
EMBL Heidelberg

Target group
Doctoral students from the natural and life sciences

Number of participants
max. 15

Fee
95 € Pfeil Fee refunds available through funding from the Rectorate


Cross Cultural Competence

Living and Working in an International Environment (Focus: Germany)

Living and working in an international environment often causes irritation as the other’s behavior appears strange in many ways. Different values, expectations and a diverse structure of communication lead to misunderstandings.
This workshop aims at creating awareness and an ability to reflect the participants’ own cultural background. You will learn how to deal with different cultural standards and expectations and you will experience why other cultures often appear to be peculiar. We will discuss that the perception of what we define as normal is a matter of culturally influenced thinking. In the course of the workshop we will take a close look at the experience you had with living and working in Germany and in how far this is different from what you know from your countries of origin.



Location
Anglistisches Seminar,
Kettengasse 12, Room 108

Date
Saturday, 16.05.2009, 10 am – 4.30 pm

Tutor
Fadja Ehlail, M.A.,
Intercultural Trainer

Target group
Doctoral students from all research areas and all stages in their dissertation project

Number of participants
max. 12

Fee
65 € Pfeil Fee refunds available through funding from the Rectorate


Scientific Writing

For Doctoral Students in the Natural and Life Sciences

Academic writing is a key competence for all academic careers: the results of work and research, research proposals, reports and publications are all composed in writing. In contrast to literary writing, these texts should be informative, precisely formulated and well structured.

In the two day course "Scientific Writing", we will focus on the following topics:

  • Recognising personal strengths and defining areas in need of improvement
  • Developing an awareness for the writing process, improving writing fluency, suggestions for improving structure
  • Developing reading strategies in order to comprehend research articels effectively
  • Peer-review editing and revising of individual texts
  • Identifying the characteristics of scientific writing

In this workshop concepts of successful scientific writing are presented. The participants will reflect their own writing experiences and are invited to try out new ways of writing trough practical exercises along the demands of scientific writing. The participants are asked to be actively involved and work on examples of their current writing projects. Therefore each participant should bring a typed rough draft text of approx. 1-2 pages with them to the course. This course addresses the specific demands of scientific writing in the natural and life sciences.

Please note: This is not a language course.

Location
Seminar room of the Department Schlüsselkompetenzen,
Bergheimer Str. 20

Dates
Monday, 15.06.2009, 9 am – 5 pm
Tuesday, 16.06.2009, 9 am – 5 pm

Tutor
Sita Schanne,
ZSW, Department Schlüsselkompetenzen

Target group
Doctoral students in the natural and life sciences

Number of participants
max. 12

Fee
95 € Pfeil Fee refunds available through funding from the Rectorate


Communication and Negotiation Skills

Doctoral students often face challenges in their social and communicative environment at work: They have
to interact successfully with colleagues, researchers and with their supervisor. Ideally, in the long run they
also have to build up a network of connections within their research community.
The workshop will employ short inputs, practical exercises, group work and role play and cover the following aspects
of successful communication and negotiation:

  • Which communication techniques help me to interact constructively and to achieve mutual understanding
    among all communication partners?
  • How do I cope with situations of conflict and tension?
  • How do I best take the interests of all negotiation partners into account?
  • How do I build up a network in the research community and how do I maintain my connections?


Please note: This is not a language course.

Location
Seminar room of the Department Schlüsselkompetenzen,
Bergheimer Str. 20

Dates
Wednesday, 08.07.2009, 9 am – 5 pm
Thursday, 09.07.2009, 9 am – 5 pm

Tutor
Dr. Ute Leidig, ZSW, Department
Schlüsselkompetenzen

Target group
Doctoral students from all research areas

Number of participants
max. 12

Fee
95 € Pfeil Fee refunds available through funding from the Rectorate

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Last updated: 2018-05-23
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