Jason Dykes and Cagatay Turkay coordinated an innovative event on PhD education at EuroVIS – the Eurographics Conference on Visualization.
You, Me & the VIS PhD was Part workshop, part panel, part stand-up, part therapy session it was intended to bring together those in the visualization community who are studying PhDs and who have studied PhDs to make connections, share experiences and establish best practice.
A timeline of PhDs – our 7×7 participants
The workshop involved discussion groups, the panel involved a stellar cast of old hands participating in a “7×7 shoot-out” – answering 7 questions in 7 minutes about their diverse experiences in PhD study, supervision and other forms of education in: Canada, the USA, Germany, Switzerland, Chile, France, India, Bangladesh, Japan, Austria, Iran, Denmark and the UK. This was rich, entertaining and informative.
Design Study legend Michael Sedlmair (University of Stuttgart) reflected on his PhD
We hope that everybody left the event:
- more connected – having a new contact with whom to communicate;
- more informed – with ideas to improve PhD Education, and;
- inspired – to prioritise actions that solve & improve things
Initial informal feedback suggests that we did pretty well – it was certainly a lot of fun.
And you never know, we might make a few positive changes to support and improve PhD education in visualization as a result.