We’ve been invited to support close to 50 PhD students from a Center for Doctoral Training (CDT) in BioDesign Engineering led by Prof. Geoff Baldwin at Imperial College London, with partners from the University of Manchester and University College London. The PhD students in this cohort are a vital part of the next generation of leaders working at the interface of biology, engineering and data science.
Participants selected for this PhD program gain a 4-year integrative training that covers experimentation, automation, coding, data science and entrepreneurship along with transferable skills to help them become tomorrow’s leaders. Many of their projects are industry-sponsored.
Learning and take-away tools
Our 5-day retreat was designed to widen perspectives on how to navigate their PhD experience in a way that balances results with well-being, strengthens relationships and helps them discover their personal learning edge using a series of experiential exercises grounded in neuroscience and applied psychology.
The initiative had the following learning outcomes:
Key PhD student challenges
During our work together, three key PhD challenges emerged:
Our programme helped by giving participants a varied programme that offered insights and skills in a number of areas as well as highly practical techniques they could apply to their situations, optional problem-solving labs and time to connect with each other. Everyone was also offered a confidential 1:1 coaching session to support learning synthesis or explore a specific challenge.
Feedback from PhD students
“I just came back from my annual Imperial College London CDT retreat in Manchester! It was wonderful! This time the course was less science focused and more about achieving the right work/life balance to succeed in our future careers using well-established methodologies from MIT.
We highlighted the importance of having a process, how to stay self-motivated during difficult times, building/rebuilding connections and how to become meta-level listeners to establish a true meanigful connection with others as opposed to passive listening.
I would like to thank Magdalena Bak-Maier for this wonderful week and for the 1 to 1 sessions that she offered to our CDT cohort. She was very keen to help us, and the students appreciated it. Even though I am reaching the end of my PhD, I know that I learned a lot this week. I will definitely apply these methodologies going forward. Thanks again to Imperial College and my wondeful CDT cohort. It was a memorable experience 😁 ” – Daniel Garido, PhD Candidate at UCL
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