Study

New course offering for doctoral students at the TU Ilmenau

Starting September 1, 25 doctoral students will be able to take part in a new continuing education program for doctoral students. The Graduate Center provides them with a variety of interdisciplinary online courses that teach important soft and management skills in science.

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On an e-learning platform, the Graduate Center provides scientists with a variety of courses.

Whether writing the dissertation, presenting research results or project management - for young scientists, soft skills like these are part of their everyday research. At the Graduate Center of the TU Ilmenau, both doctoral students and post-docs can acquire various competencies within the framework of the "Leadership in Science" program that go beyond the technical and prepare them for their professional future. In the Graduate Center's courses, they learn, among other things, how to design and present scientific posters, take on a leadership role in scientific teams, or work in an agile manner.

In the coming winter semester, an online program will be added to the course offerings. This is directly geared to the needs of young scientists and enables them to continue their education independent of time and place. Alexandra Dalek, the Graduate Center's advisor, is taking the tight schedules of doctoral students into account with the new offering:

Often, doctoral students are very tightly scheduled, as they have to do additional research in their fields of study in addition to their dissertations, and they also have teaching duties to attend to. With the online continuing education program, they can take advantage of courses relevant to them wherever they want and whenever they have time.

Courses in German and English

Around 30 courses, divided into six modules, are available to interested doctoral students on the "Twenty One Skills" e-learning platform in German and English. They can choose between time-intensive "deep dive" lessons and entertaining "learning nuggets". While the former allow for an in-depth examination of topics such as university didactics or science communication, the Learning Nuggets are designed as small knowledge units. In less than half an hour, doctoral students can brush up on their presentation techniques or use time management tools to structure their to-do list in a meaningful way.

The continuing education program is initially limited to 25 participants at the Graduate Center on a trial basis. A further 25 licenses have been allocated to the Ilmkubator, the start-up service of the TU Ilmenau. In addition, all doctoral students, post-docs and junior professors at the TU Ilmenau are welcome to take advantage of the offerings at the Graduate Center. Alexandra Dalek encourages all doctoral students at TU Ilmenau to take advantage of these:

We give scientists very useful tools to help them do their work more efficiently. The time you invest in the courses is worth it, because you save it again with the new skills in your everyday work.

Contact

Alexandra Dalek

Graduate Center