Pre-Colloquium PhD Workshop Experience

In a chronological order, you can expect to see 1) the most awkward summary, 2) the coldest tips for your parallel sessions (discussion of your dissertation proposals in the workshop and presentation at your sub-theme), and 3) what to expect and what you get from the sessions.

Pre-colloquium PhD workshop

Summary: Do you have a couple of seemingly well-cooked papers ready to submit to particular journals? Do you struggle with reviewers' and editors' spicy comments on your bland manuscripts? Or are you in the middle of reviewing someone's half-baked paper? The 1st day of the workshop will solve 80% of your hands-on problems. If you do not have or care any of these problems but are really stressed by how to complete your own thesis project, the 2nd day of the workshop will definitely give you a tsunami of clues, ideas, thoughts, tips, and some distractions. Often, you feel nature's call coming on.

A tip for your parallel session

Be there with open arms: Your session mates and chair have already read your 3-page-long proposal and try to help you how to focus on your research question or how to measure your concept or even how to solve the puzzle! Although they seem to have a Plutonian theory and talk to you in Jovian language, do not consider their feedback as useless, negligent, or irrelevant. This session is not a proposal defense. When you come back to your hotel room, google what they told you. You will be surprised by what you find out. I, who never leave my planet, was so fortunate to meet the most thoughtful intergalactic chair and 5 proactive interstellar peers at the proposal discussion session. The results were 4 crucial references to sharpen the frame of each thesis chapter, 1 suggestion for combining a three-paper thesis, and 2 detailed comments on key definitions. All things happened in just 10 mins!!

What to expect and what you get from the session

Comments on your peers' proposals: What to expect in this session is not just getting help from my peers but also reading alternative perspectives, approaches, theoretical backgrounds to solve particular research questions. By reading my 5 session mates' work, I felt that I should've upgraded my brain RAM and CPU. As a number cruncher with an absolutely fading memory of ANT and organizational memory, I had to revisit my undergrad coursework of each subject. While I read the others' proposals that have seemingly nothing to do with my own, I found tons of brilliant thoughts to refresh my stale draft.The bottom line is that when you are expected to read and understand your peers' proposals, you suddenly see that this is the recipe for your own. For those who read this post, please bear in mind that this colloquium is for me "the first truly big international management conference" that I'm privileged to join.

I really hope that this post is useful for PhD students who are interested in the EGOS colloquium / pre-colloquium workshop next year.