It’s official now! The ERMeCC PhD Club is reorganised into ESHCC PhD Club to create shared space for mutual support for PhD candidates from Arts and Culture, Media and Communications and History departments. We are excited to announce that our beloved club is now open for all PhD candidates that work at our faculty.
History PhDs have always been welcomed at our club; however, this was happening on an informal basis. The PhD club began its existence as a part of the ERMeCC research centre, the members of which generally worked within the Arts & Culture and Media & Communication departments. Now that the PhD club has transitioned towards faculty-wide club, we can formally and fully include PhD candidates from the History department. Thus, from this year onwards, History PhD’s will automatically be part of our club.
To help with this transition, Jasmin Seijbel, a PhD candidate from the History department, has joined Olga Koretskaya and Tessa Oomen on the organisational board of the ESHCC PhD Club as a vice chair. She will help to make sure that our events also reflect the interests of History PhD candidates.
What is going to change?
In practice, not so much! Our preceding chairs and vice chairs have always extended event invitations to History PhD candidates. However, we hope that this official change will improve interdepartmental connections and support systems, increase our professional and social networks, and facilitate learning from and with each other.
We are improving our visibility and approachability, so we set up a new email address where you can reach us: phdclub@eshcc.eur.nl. Furthermore, we have created a Twitter account from which we will share updates about the club, blogposts from our website. We also hope it will serve as a platform to share your work and thoughts! If you have specific requests for or us to share, please contact us via @eshccphdclub . Naturally, you can also contact Olga, Tessa, and Jasmin individually.
What does the ESHCC PhD Club do?
Quite a bit! We will continue organising bi-monthly sessions for PhDs where we discuss ongoing research, practical matters, research methods, PhD life, teaching, etc. Most importantly, the PhD club will continue to provide a safe environment to talk about all the issues that come up in PhD life.
We also like to have fun together in the Club! Do you have a hobby you would like to share with the PhDs in our department? Whether it is active or relaxing, let us know and we can organise an event! For example, we organised a bouldering event as suggested by Emily (one of the PhDs) and it resulted in a new hobby for Tessa.
For PhD candidates, who are close to their defense, we can organise a mock defense. This can really help with preparations, whether you have a concrete idea about your defense or when you are not entirely sure about how and what to present. Get in touch with us if you would like to organise a mock defense!
What’s more, the ESHCC PhD Club continues the PhD mentoring system, in which newly starting PhDs are matched with more experienced PhDs who can help them with getting acquainted with the job, their department, and the faculty. We will continue to make sure that PhDs are matched with someone from within their department and/or with a similar topic.
The WhatsApp group remains important as a shared communication channel, which all ESHCC PhD candidates can use for questions, announce interesting information, or even micro coordinate a little with regards to some of our events.
The PhD-club blog managed by Hoan remains a platform where you share your opinion pieces, research insights, reports of fieldwork trips or archival visits as well as anything else that takes places in your PhD life. So, what are you waiting for? Submit your blog here.
Official Launch Event
The transition to a faculty-wide PhD Club has to be celebrated! We will organise an in-person launch event in March to celebrate this change and to create the opportunity for networking among PhD candidates. We will be sending invitations with details soon!
We hope to see you all at our launch event to celebrate this exciting development with us!
Best,
Olga Koretskaya, ACS
Tessa Oomen, M&C
Jasmin Seijbel, History