“Ph.D. students work in dismal solitude.” To overcome this prevailing opinion of doctoral studies our well structured graduate program encourages Ph.D. students to exchange opinions and discover commonalities across their various disciplines and research topics. This not only enables students to increase the potential of extending their research interdisciplinary but also promotes their networking ability and helps in counteracting the feelings of isolation associated with ‘lonely research’.
Our new structure offers graduate students the opportunity to deepen their knowledge in their discipline as well as other related disciplines. Students may thereby improve their dissertation and also develop skills which might, in addition, prove useful after graduation.
For this purpose, the GGG has developed several Ph.D. programmes which are embedded in the member faculties’ main research focus. Since graduates within these programmes study similar topics, they have the valuable opportunity of exchanging opinions and experiences regarding content and methods. The “thesis committees” improve the supervision of students’ research. Furthermore, Ph.D. students are encouraged to develop key skills in classes serving this purpose.