Professional Development

Doctoral School offer

The Doctoral School’s Study Program is designed to help you develop a variety of academic skills and social competences. It is good to know that many of those skills and competences are highly appreciated by employers outside of Academia as well.

Other than specialized training in your own discipline, the standard courses at the Doctoral School include:

• Academic Writing and Publishing
• Grant Applications
• Teaching at the Higher Education Level
• Presentation and Communication Skills
• Professional Ethics
• Protection of Intellectual Property

and more.

In addition to standard courses, a set of optional courses will allow you to develop more skills, such as Project Managment or the use of Digital Technologies in Teaching.

The Doctoral School also organizes summer schools where you can practice even more skills, for example:

• Academic Resilience and Wellbeing
• Academic Networking
• Building a Professional Profile,
• Social Responsibility of Science
• Creative Thinking
• Leadership

and more.

External opportunities

You are encouraged to take care for your professional development by participating in a variety of activities of your own choice, such as:

• external courses, seminars and workshops
• summer schools
• research stays / internships
• conferences
• research teams

and more.

Such activities may be partly or wholly finaced by the Doctoral School or from a research grant we will help you obtain.

Qualifications for non-academic jobs

Multiple reports show that the professional skills and competences which you will acquire during your doctoral education and which many non-academic employers seek for include:

• analytic skills
• problem-solving
• innovative thinking
• learning skills
• collecting data / information
• adaptability
• ability to work under pressure
• planning and time management
• project management
• networking and teamwork
• intercultural experience
• presentation and communication skills
• mentoring and supervision

and more.