Students for students: The Egghead Club at AU Flakkebjerg

It was first initiated in autumn of 2020 by an ambitious team of PhD students, Margaret Mc Collough, Mattia Fois and Shuxuan Ying, who felt the urge to strengthen the communication among the young researchers at AU Flakkebjerg and bring upon different topics that would enrich the researchers’ scientific, professional and personal development. The club was particularly a comfort to many of us during the challenging time with a lockdown imposed by Covid19, when we all needed a mutual support and a mental boost to carry out with our assignments and find joy even in the confinement of our homes. So far, we have organized around 40 different workshops addressing various topics. Some of the workshops are highly relevant for professional and personal development of young researchers. Here, either students or experienced professionals lead us through the discussions on how to improve scientific writing, how to review a paper, what to pay attention at during the job applications, how to improve listening and communication, how to present the research to different types of audience, etc. Some of the workshops have a more scientific purpose where we are able to learn and exchange statistical skills, data visualization, and learn about new software and trends in science. The club also holds mock PhD defenses and mid-term exam preparations where the presenters have the opportunity to practice their presentations and receive the constructive feedbacks from other peers.

From this year, young researchers from AU Foulum have also joined our meetings, which allows us to learn more about the activities of different departments at AU and build a better scientific network. We are also excited to announce that the Egghead Club is officially accepted as a PhD course at AU where students can earn up to 2.5 ECTS during the semester (please find the course description here: https://agro.au.dk/en/education/phd-programme/).

Finally, as the situation with the Covid19 has improved and we are allowed to meet physically at AU Flakkebjerg, we have decided to spice up our meetings with a video link and still have the students from other departments joining us virtually. Thus, if you are a master student, PhD student or a Postdoc at AU and would like to improve your personal and professional skills, learn more about the research work of other peers at AU, or earn ECTS during your PhD, you can sign up to join the Egghead Club by sending an email to otopalovic@agro.au.dk.

This is what our participants say about the Egghead Club:

“The Egghead Club provided a great opportunity to communicate with other PhD fellows! You can geek out enormous amount of topics with your peers – the problem you may have countered in your daily research, the frustration you may have had during your writing or a good method you just found. I had great takeaways from the discussions I had in The Egghead Club!” – Yuting, Soil Physics Section, AU Foulum

“As a Ph.D. student who started her studies in a strang quiet Covid time, `Egghead Club` gave me the chance to meet people online and get answers to some of my questions among its interesting topics.” – Shabnam, Crop Health, AU Flakkebjerg 

“Being part of the Egghead Club is a very valuable experience for me, as I managed to improve many skills, including presentation, organization of workshops and how to be spontaneous in cases when the situations need a quick solution. ? I have also been able to meet other young researchers who are at the similar stage of their career and discuss with them about the life in science in general, but also to hear some great talks from their research.” – Olivera, Plant Pathology and Entomology, AU Flakkebjerg