Postgraduate Studies in Holland: What (teaching and working process)

A few months ago, I became a graduate student (PhD student) at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and wrote a general algorithm for admission .

Since then, I have had time to transfer some joys and pains of learning / work and realize what is ahead of me. This baggage (or rather a small hand luggage) experience I want to share today.

Again, a disclaimer, I'm an IT person by education, but my research has nothing to do with Computer science. However, the general scheme of organization is one for all, and then the diversity is no longer even from the faculty but from the research group where you find yourself. And just by the way, coder and analytical skills have already helped me, because who else will write me a softin, conducting an experiment?

Graduate school

First, about the general: recently, each graduate student of TUDelft (probably, and other universities according to a similar scheme), regardless of the topic of study, is enrolled in the Graduate school “Graduate School”. Within the framework of this school, progress is monitored as well as the receipt of additional education.
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During the first month, the student must have an interview with this very Graduate school, which is more of a formal nature. It tells the general principles of graduate school and check the originals of documents, such as the transfer of a diploma. If at that moment you are not particularly absorbed, then you can look at the pictures on the “school” page.



Then, in three months, you need to write a research plan and dock your promoter (according to the idea of ​​your main boss), the daily superviser (the person who most often the promoter kicks you) and the mentor (a procedural consultant from), so that they can your plan and approved it.

In the ninth month there is a meeting, comparable, perhaps, only with the protection of the GO-NOGO meeting: it is decided to continue the project or to dismiss the student back home. However, the mentor told me that if there are doubts about the student, he (a) will know about it long before this meeting.

Further from Graduate school there will be only annual checks of progress according to the stated plan, so you will have few cases with them until the very end. Well, except that for the entire period of postgraduate study, it is necessary to recruit 45 credits for courses, 15 for a direction : related to the discipline, teaching to conduct research correctly, and quite general education. 1 loan is about 8 hours of training or preparation, so it’s not so difficult.

I just got a GO solution a month ago, so now my next frontier is related to internal project obligations.

Marie Curie Project

My graduate school is conducted (paid), mostly not from the university, but from a grant issued by the European Union to a group of professors for a specific project. Its objectives and expected results are described in the grant application. It's funny that in accordance with it, we, the graduate students of the project, are at the same time both the output product, as trained graduates-scientists, and actors who have to do research and make several publications about them.

The type of project is good as a car of bonuses, when free trips to universities and partner companies at project meetings are added to standard 2k euros of salary (after taxes), for example, we were already in Bordeaux and on excursions in Phillips, again free trips at the conference, for example, more in Florida, as well as additional money for travel mobility allowance, still count in the amount of salary twice a year.

Of course, this is all for a reason. For the money will have to report. Because of this, we have to work relatively dynamically. So, the girl who started working almost two years before me wrote her first article just now, that is, she has been busy for more than two years. They demand from me for a year, but it would be good by the end of August (my 11th month).
But, really, it's worth it.

A bit informal

The Technical University of Delft is the oldest and largest university in the Netherlands. It has 19.5 thousand students, including 2.3 thousand applicants (PhD). Univer is quite advanced, for example, the recent quantum teleportation was carried out here. And by the way, somewhere on campus there is a training nuclear reactor.

And yet, many times I heard the opinion about graduate school as a purely theoretical work. This is basically not the case. If someone gave money for your research, it means someone needs it. For example, one friend is working on molecular thickness nano-filters, and the other checks how much police attention to transmitted messages depends on the type of activity and noise radio. The third girl examines the transfer of matter on the bends of conductors, the fourth - how to scan a better picture to print it, taking into account the surface irregularities.

So join us, it is very nice to do science here.