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Retreat 2015 to St. Andreasberg

Science communication and self-management where on the agenda at this year’s ArcTrain retreat, which took place near St. Andreasberg in the picturesque Harz mountains area. MARUM Press Officer Albert Gerdes led the science communication and outreach component, an important skill for researchers with the increasing emphasis on making science accessible to all. We had several guests in attendance this year. Sina Löschke (AWI) discussed how students can work with their respective press offices throughout their PhD. Laura Roberts-Artel (EGU) discussed how to use social media to communicate science and Siebo Heinken (National Geographic Germany) talked with us about science communication via media outlets.

Practical tasks included ‘two-minute madness’ (how to present your science to a broad audience in 2 minutes), news-flash writing and describing our colleagues PhD projects in a concise and, most importantly, understandable way. We all learnt how important it is to know your audience and how important science communication can be for your future career. A PhD can be a busy time for students. Whilst last year’s retreat dealt with time management this year’s complementary topic was self-management. Dr. Ulrike Holzwarth led a fascinating workshop dealing with the many principles surrounding self-management.

This included exercises in self-awareness, realising our priorities, tools to change our inner-attitudes and coping with stress factors to name but a few. As well as practical techniques such as mindful breathing and even a bit of yoga, the workshop taught us all a few things about how to manage our busy lives. No retreat is complete without some free time and this year we took advantage of our surroundings with a trip to a high ropes garden. The physical challenge (and height!) had a few of us outside our comfort-zone and this activity proved to be excellent for team-building. The retreat was a great success, all of the students took something from it and we look forward to planning a similarly successful trip next year.

Rebecca Jackson, PhD student representative of ArcTrain