PhD - Post Doc Mentoring Scheme
The Postdocs on campus started an initiative across the Vienna BioCenter to encourage the Postdoc mentoring of PhD students. The system works as follows: Postdocs submit a short bio to create a list of volunteer Postdoc mentors. PhD students get access to this list and then can contact any postdoc that they feel might be an appropriate mentor for them.
The idea is to encourage PhD students to seek out their own mentoring relationships with someone outside their lab group. Whether you only meet with a student for a one-off coffee, or it turns into a regular thing, it’s entirely up to you and your mentee. Mentoring can be both scientific and non-scientific. A postdoc mentor can advise on career prospects, support the mentee with day-to-day struggles that accompany a PhD, or simply give suggestions for the best pizza in Vienna :)
Check out the list here.
Mentors and Mentee Guidelines
- Fill out the mentor profile form here
- If contacted, be willing to meet the student at least once informally
- The mentor can decline future meetings at their own discretion
- The mentor can decline further mentees if they already have too many
- The mentor will keep anything discussed in the meeting completely confidential, unless it is deemed necessary to break confidentiality in the interests of the student’s health & safety. In this case, the point of contact is Scientific Training Unit
- Find the profiles of the Post Docs that have volunteered to mentor/give advice to their PhD colleagues here
- The student is responsible for arranging the meetings
- Your mentor is not a supervisor, in the sense of project planning and experimental design. It is the student’s responsibility to use the mentoring relationship appropriately
- Reach out to the postdoc that from their profile looks like a good fit for you and set up a first meeting!
If you have further questions please contact:
Yan Sun - yan.sun(at)imp.ac.at