In addition to the Autumn School of the Collaboration Research Center (CRC) in November, the first PhD students retreat will take place in December this year. Normally, I imagine we would meet in a nice place, work in groups on different tables, having lunch together; intensify first interdisciplinary collaborations within the CRC and afterwards having a social event on the Christmas market. Unfortunately, 2020 turned out to be different from normal.
However, one should focus on the positive aspects and all the things we can do instead of the things we cannot do these times. One of the first steps we could do – even in 2020 – was to schedule and organize a PhD student retreat in an online format, which is as nice as possible even though it is different from normal.
Currently, the retreat organization committee of five PhD students (Jennifer Brade, Sabrina Bräuer, Konstantin Felbel, Carsten Rudolph and Ann-Christin Hensch) is meeting every week in online sessions to plan this retreat. By now, we planned a “speed dating”, a poster session and different group works considering interdisciplinary collaborations within the CRC. Moreover, we shared funny moments during our organization meetings. Therefore, I am curious gathering all the other PhD students within the CRC at one online event as we made such positive experiences within our organization team.
So far, we became acquainted with each other during our organization meetings and we already learned a lot from each other, since all of us have different academic backgrounds. Despite our organization meetings take place as an online format, we became part of a team. Due to our sessions, we already got an insight in the advantages of interdisciplinary work – mutually benefit from each other’s skills – which is a good start for a long-term collaboration within the CRC and one of the things we can do even if this year is different from normal.
Photo Credits: https://pin.it/IMaeoCU