Thursday 28th of September Lösnummer had the privilege to join DOKSEK on their introduction for this autumn's doctorates. The introduction agenda was mainly to welcome new doctorates, help them to get started on their PHD´s and socialize with individuals of common interests. The event started off with some ground-rules about the doctorates obligations and descriptions; they were allowed to straighten out some confusion by asking questions during this presentation.
Lösnummer had the opportunity to interview some of the participants in order to gain a greater understanding of the work that DOKSEK does and how they can help and support doctorates throughout the University.
Interview 1
You can start by introducing yourself.
Anna Sjödahl and I´ve been doing a PHD in mathematics didactics for 3.5 years
What do you think of this introduction so far? What are your further expectations?
I have been doing this for quite some time now so I have attended similar events before, I´m mostly here to get repetition because there's a lot to have in mind when you do your doctorate. I think it has been very rewarding so far, they address important matters and answer our questions very politely and well informative.
What do you think of DOKSEK as an organisation? Do you like the activities and the social commodities that they arrange?
I haven't been involved with DOKSEK before now, and that is one of the reasons that I attended this introduction. I want to be more involved henceforth, I think it's important to participate and to make sure that DOKSEK reaches out to our international doctorates as well as our national.
Interview 2
What is your name and what is your role in DokSek?
My name is Evangelia Kerezoudi and I am the current president of Doksek. I am in charge of the board since July 1st. I was the vice president before, so I am in the PHD DokSek union for the last year.
Can you tell us more about DokSek and what it is that you do?
Doksek is a PHD student union of Örebro University, under the umbrella of Örebro studentkår. The main purpose of the union is to work with the PHD students and focus either on employment issues and their current student situation. Organize social events and activities and to support their main case of needs. It is also about working in a sense of network between the different backgrounds of students and focusing on the progress. How they will evolve during the PHD education, but also after graduating. We also focus on social events, seminars like the one we’re having today and administration with the different regulation boards within the university. This is to handle matters that are related to education, but also personal matters.
What is the initiative for this seminar meeting?
The main idea is that every beginning of the academic year, we organize seminars for the newly enrolled PHD students. The seminars are , however, not only referring to newly enrolled students, but also already enrolled students. We focus on covering a lot of subjects of interest. For example, today’s seminar will be about rules and regulations during PHD education. Then we have matters related to how we can write a thesis, work within the university, how to make use of the library. Also how we can deal with the matters related to stakeholders, business or matters after the PHD education. We try to approach different matters of concern that PHD students may have, during this journey.
What other activities can you range from what DokSek do, other than seminars?
We have seminars that are common during or after working hours. We have Fika seminars or lunch seminars. We also have social activities, which are commonly after work activities. For instance, we have been organizing events to help people to network and come together to socialize, share experiences, during their PHD journey. For example, we have ice hockey matches, barbeques, movie nights and a lot of other activities. We try to combine that to the interest inside Sweden and national students as well. This is to bring together all different cultures based on their interests and questionnaires, related to what they would like to do outside of the university.
Writers: Albin Olofsson & Fanny Huss
Photo: Albin Olofsson
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