Selma Mezger

For the first time in the UK. I arrive at the airport in London and have to take two different trains and a bus before reaching the Colchester Campus of the University of Essex where I will spend the next 5 days with PhD students from different partner institutions in Europe from the YERUN network. As a German I am very impressed by the punctuality of the trains which allows me to reach the bus just in time – if it weren’t for the fact that I waited on the wrong side of the road, so I only watched my bus come and pass by me on the other side… Well, after 20 minutes of waiting I made it to campus just in time for the welcoming event and first socializing. There, I also met the two other PhD students who participated from the University of Bremen, Tenzin and Raul, and we quickly decided that we want to go into the city centre for a joint dinner bevor going into our accommodations and get some sleep.

The next days were packed with many interesting workshops and lectures focussing on different aspects like effective communication skills, self-management, wellbeing, organizational leadership, project management, and transferable skills needed in the world of work. We were introduced to different ideas, discussions, applications, and problems that we tackled alone or as a group in different exercises. Most fun was for me the task of preparing a “3MT” a 3-minute presentation about your research topic that has to engage the audience and have a lasting impression with only a single PowerPoint Slide. We got introduced to this kind of presentation in one afternoon and then had one evening to prepare our presentations. It was a really fun way to break down your whole PhD project into 3 minutes and present it in a way that people from completely different backgrounds understand it. Also, it was great to get some insights into the work of my fellow summer school participants and learn about their PhD topics in education, business, medicine and many more fields.

Besides the lectures and group work we luckily also had the evenings off to socialize, go out have dinner together (or a drink), talk a lot, and see all the differences and similarities within our PhD topics. It was a very fun way to get to know not only different PhD students, but PhD students from different countries and from completely different fields, thereby pushing myself out of my comfort marine biology bubble for once.

I also used the fact of being at the University of Essex to write the coral research lab over there. One of the researchers answered to my email and agreed to meet. We had a nice chat and she showed me around in their lab facilities talking about all things corals. This gave me the opportunity to broaden my network and get to know some coral experts working in the UK and get a glimpse into a different lab than the one I am working in.

On the last day of the summer school we had a nice closing ceremony and got our certificates of participation. After saying goodbye to everyone small groups of people left campus in the different directions for their way home. It was an overall great experience and a really nice way to get to know new people and learn a lot about different soft skills that I can definitely use for my PhD project and beyond.