Support for Doctoral Candidates

“I’m reading all the time, but I can’t put anything to paper.”

“I make schedules, but I can never keep them."

“My Ph.D. supervisor never has time for me.”

Sounds familiar? Maybe you’ve got similar problems or you have already solved them?

Then the collegial consultation for doctoral students is the right place to talk about it. Most doctoral students have already experienced how important and helpful exchange can be with others who are in the same situation. The mutual support becomes even more effective when methods of collegial consultation are applied. The core idea is to harness the knowledge and experience of the whole group for solving individual problems.

Since April 2010 the Faculty offers collegial consultation for doctoral students. The meetings take place every third Wednesday of each month in Room UG 14.

‘Collegial Consultation is a structured counselling interview within a group of people. Following a strict procedure with assigned roles, the others counsel the help-seeking participant and try to find solutions for a specific issue.’ (Kim Oliver Tietze)

Accordingly, these are the characteristics of collegial consultation:

• The collegial consultation takes place in groups
• A professional counsellor is not present
• The process of counselling follows a strict procedure
• The procedure and methods are known to all participants
• Roles and tasks are assigned (e.g. reporter, moderator, recording clerk) and switched
• Everyone participates in the consultation, so everyone also benefits from it
• Solutions to (typical) problems of working on the doctoral theses are found