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Retreat 2020 to St. Andreasberg

Destination and Dates
The first retreat of the third ArcTrain cohort took place in St. Andreasberg in the Harz Mountains. It started at 2020/03/02 around noon and was finished at 2020/03/04 at 3 pm.

ArcTrain Funding
The entire retreat, including travelling costs, accommodation, meals and seminars, was funded by ArcTrain.

Summary
Five months after most of us started their PhDs, this was the first retreat of the third ArcTrain cohort. All 12 ArcTrain students of the third cohort attend the retreat as well as one associated student, the three previous PhD representatives of the second cohort, and two PhD students from ArcTrain Canada. The retreat seminars included the topics Good Scientific Practice as well as Time, Life, and Career Management, and some general information about working as a scientist. Throughout the retreat we had the chance to get to know each other better personally and also in terms of our different PhD projects.

Activities
We arrived in St. Andreasberg around noon with our 3 mini buses from the University of Bremen. After we all moved into our rooms we had lunch together before we started with the first seminars. The seminars of the first day were Good Scientific Practice and Becoming a Scientist. During these seminars we had the chance to discuss with Prof. Reinhard Fischer and the ArcTrain PIs about scientific misconduct and other challenges that scientists might be confronted with during their careers. After dinner we enjoyed the talk of Charles Brunette about ArcTrain Canada. Specifically, he and the PhD students of the second cohort shared some experiences about their research stays abroad.  
Time, Life and Career Management were on the agenda of the second seminar day. The seminar concentrated on the one hand on career possibilities inside and outside academia and on the other hand on good time management practices during the PhD. In addition to the theoretical part we had a lot of time to discuss with each other how to reach our long-term goals of our career as well as how to balance work and private life properly. After dinner, all PhD students met to elect the new PhD representatives as well as to find responsible persons for some other open positions.
During the evenings, everyone had the chance to meet in the small house bar to play parlor games and to chat with the fellow students and PIs.  
As a nice team building opportunity we hiked up to the summit of the Brocken on the last day of the retreat. During the two hours of ascending the mountain, we enjoyed the time together as well as the snowy scenery around us. Even though the fog and the snow hid the view on the summit, everyone was happy about the “Arctic”-like weather conditions there at the end of this unusual warm winter without any snow in northern Germany.