Beyond the PhD: reflections on experience and growth
Join us for an interactive session where past PhD colleagues reconnect, sharing how the challenges and insights of their doctoral journey have shaped their paths, both within and beyond academia. Through creative activities with Dixit cards, we'll reflect on what we've carried forward from the PhD and revisit early challenges from a new perspective. Current PhD students are especially welcome to join, benefiting from direct insights and exchanges with those who've walked the path before them. Together, we’ll craft a visual synthesis of our experiences: come add your voice to this shared reflection!
Objectives: to create an interactive and reflective moment, where participants can share their experiences and reflect on what the doctorate has left (or is leaving for current students) in each of them, in terms of skills and challenges faced. The activity also serves as an ice-breaker between those who don't know each other yet, facilitating conversation in the group at dinner and in the following two days. The final summary could become a visual resource to be used in welcome days or in the promotion of the doctorate, thus inspiring new generations of students.
Structure: the Dixit cards (a game characterized by cards illustrated in an imaginative and dreamlike way, with images open to various interpretations) will be scattered on a table. Those who participate will choose two cards that respectively represent: 1. something they "brought home" from the doctorate, such as a value, a competence or an aspect of their identity; 2. a difficulty experienced during the journey. At this point, the participants will divide into groups of approximately 4 people who do not know each other too much. Within the groups, everyone will share the meaning of the chosen cards. Due to the difficulty, those who have completed their doctorate will also be able to reread it in the light of the past and perhaps give advice to their former selves. At the end, everyone will be invited to insert two comments on a word cloud, born from the comparison.
Who: Alumni + current PhD students.