At the end of the third quarter Taylor organized a lunch lecture, but instead of a company presenting their work and career opportunities.
The presentation was about doing a PhD in the HTE department. The presentation was given by 3 very enthusiastic presenters.
Just Herder who supervises PhD students and two PhD students Thijs and Ata, who are currently working on their PhD.
After a general introduction given by Just. Thijs started off with his motivation to start a PhD.
His aim was not to inform us into much detail about his PhD topic, but instead he gave his own reasons to start a PhD. The thing I remembered the most is that you should see the PhD trajectory as an adventure instead of 4 years of work on a small scientific topic. Next to that he pointed out the freedom, but also the responsibility that comes with this freedom in doing your PhD.
The second part was given by Ata. He started by telling how he came in touch with the HTE Department during a conference in Germany. And how it is to come to Delft as an international student from another university. After that he tried to give an insight into a normal week as a PhD student. But this was not possible as each week is very different. So instead, he told us what he did last week. Which consisted of a lot of lab work, simulations, and meetings. Ata stressed the fact that social skills are a very important part of succeeding in your PhD. This interesting lunch lecture ended with the opportunity to ask questions to the three presenters. Overall, it was an
interesting lecture, which made doing a PhD from being something very exclusive for the best students to something which also you can do with the right mindset.
– R. van Tatenhove (HTE student ‘19/’20)