Stefano Volpe 17h ago
If any PhD students are following your account, boosting would be appreciated.

Fellow PhD student: hello! ​​ I hope you had a good Monday.

0) In which country are you pursuing your PhD?
1) What is the official duration of your PhD programme? Does it assume you already have a Master's?
2) How many academic credits (e.g., ECTS) are you required to get in order to complete your PhD?
3) If you are paid for TAing, can you estimate the number of teaching contact hours you need in order to supplement other sources of funding?

My union and Ph.D. committee have been asking for feedback, and I have a theory I'd like to test. Feel free to use private mentions if you want.

Edit: I am now using "academic credits" to make myself more understandable to non-EU people.
Show threadMoritz Negwer32m ago

@foxy

0) Netherlands, Neurobiology.
1) nominally 4 years. It took me 8.5 years to actually graduate, which is definitely longer than most (average ca 6 years, after the end of the 4-year contract often unpaid on the side). Master's is typically required. A PhD program is considered a temporary job, not a study.
2) technically none, though the institute had a graduate school that gets you another certificate along with the PhD if you complete half a year's worth of MSc-equivalent courses.

Show threadMoritz Negwer27m ago
@foxy
3) teaching is part of my contract, not a separate job. I taught very few classes. Instead I mentored interns that worked in the lab on my project for 3-12 months full-time. Over the course of my PhD, I've mentored 9 interns in one capacity or another. Most became co-authors on the papers that resulted from the work, and I couldn't have done this workload without them.
Show threadStefano Volpe 
@moritz_negwer ty! Do you have an estimate for the number of hours actually spent with the students?
9:09amWeb