The NeuroGrad Winter School
MANDATORY TO PARTICIPATE IN AT LEAST TWO OF THESE DURING ENROLLMENT.
The yearly three-day NeuroGrad Winter School is designed to stimulate networking between PhD students affiliated with the graduate program in neurosciences (NeuroGrad) at University of Copenhagen. It offers a chance for the PhD students to present and discuss their project with other PhD students. Furthermore, the graduate students will obtain transferable skills relevant to the stage of progress of their PhD study and project.
The NeuroGrad Winter School is listed as a course under the Graduate School at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences every autumn and we encourage all NeuroGrad students to participate in this Neuroscience festival!
Content
Day 1 consists of workshops of different skills relevant to the different stages of the graduate studies.
1st year students will attend the course on ‘writing skills in academia’:
Writing is an integral part of academia, and includes specific genres such as the abstract, manuscript or the thesis.
The workshop contents are:
• Structure your writing
• Abstract style and format
• Legible scientific English
The goal of the workshop is to have a clear idea of the content of your first abstract and possibly even a first draft of an abstract (or part thereof).
Teacher: Nicolai Paulsen, language consultant
2nd year students will attend the course ‘powerpoint training – design your own poster’:
Designing a scientific poster requires a good understanding of the features in PowerPoint and a sense of designing flow, models and graphic overview. This workshop combines the technical part of designing with PowerPoint - and the conceptual part of communicating through your own design.
The workshop contents are:
• Designing in Powerpoint – beyond the default slideshow
• Prioritizing and structuring our scientific poster
• Build graphic models that underlines your messages
• Choose the color scheme that creates focus and a balanced design
• Hints on how to present your poster
• Personal feedback at a 1:1 online meeting on your draft poster
Teacher: Mads Svaneklink, Virtual Lead Trainer & Advisor, Softworld A/S.
3rd year students will attend the course on ‘Oral presentation in an Academic Context’:
Whether networking at a conference, presenting a poster or delivering a talk, being able to communicate clearly and confidently is a necessity for researchers. With a few fundamental strategies, presentation of complex data can be made simple, interesting and relevant.
In this workshop participants will learn how to create an audience-tailored presentation, from presentation structure and storyline, to figure and slide design. Additionally, through the use of voice and body language exercises, students will improve their communication skills, enabling them to present with ease and confidence.
The workshop contents are:
• How to build an interesting story from your data
• Fundamentals of professional slide design
• Strategies for managing stage fright
• Gaining confidence in presenting through body language training
• Communication skills using voice exercises
Teacher: Dr. Melanie Conrad, experienced conductor of Scientific Writing and Presentation workshops and researcher at Charité Medical University in Berlin.
Day 2-3 take place remotely at an overnight venue and contain plenary lectures and presentations from the PhD students in the graduate program in neurosciences: 2nd year PhD students present their research projects on posters and 3rd year PhD students present their projects orally. The presentations will be reviewed and evaluated by the 1st year students under guidance of a group of supervisors in the graduate program.
At the end of the event, prizes will be given to best poster presentations and best oral presentations.
Course director
Professor Nanna MacAulay, Department of Neuroscience
Email address: macaulay@sund.ku.dk
Graduate students will be credited 2.0 ECTS (if you have no ECTS left, please contact Nanna)