Winter retreat 2017

From the 22nd to the 24th of November, 2017, the PhD students of π³ went on their second winter retreat. It took place at Tagungshotel Jesteburg near Buchholz.

Our main goals for this retreat were getting together as a group and exchange our experiences concerning important non-mathematical topics of our work lifes.

We arrived in Jesteburg after a short Bus ride. After the lunch break we started with our first exchange session about how to give a good scientific presentation (or rather how to not give a bad presentation!). This session was successfully led by Wiebke Heins. Malin Lachmann and Miriam Steinherr continued with a discussion of the supervision concept, the study groups and the mandatory curriculum of our RTG.

The next day was dedicated to a workshop on "Scientific Writing" and was conducted by Dr. Rebecca Rendle-Bühring (University of Bremen). We learned how to identify the target audience for our articles and how to successfully 'sell' our research. On top of that, we discussed how to structure a paper and write a good abstract.

On the last day Christian Etmann moderated a fruitful discussion about the selection, organization and preparation of conference visits. Furthermore, those of our group who already organized a summer school were able to share their experiences. After a coffee break, Jonathan von Schröder presented some ideas concerning self-organization as well as tools to manage literature databases. Small groups were formed to debate things like graphical representation of results and collaboration tools.

Before heading home, our group evaluated the winter retreat. Everyone was pleased with the organization, the venue and the programme.