Portfolio activity: Ultimate Guide to a PhD

By Freekje  de Klein, Sam Boshuizen, Adam Krid, Leo Balvers and Florend Beijnes

As an Honours activity I designed the Ultimate Guide to a PhD website (www.theultimateguidetoaphd.nl) and an accompanying panel about the future of PhDs in the current academic climate. For this project, that I did together with Sam Boshuizen, Adam Krid, Leo Balversand Florent Beijnes, we interviewed several teachers about their experiences of achieving a PhD. We then transcribed, edited and transferred these interviews onto a website as a database for students considering doing a PhD. It was designed to open up the black box that is the process of PhD’s, and with that, make an attempt at demystifying academia as a whole. We launched the website at our panel, where we discussed the academic climate and the PhD experience together with some of the interviewed teachers.
The project taught me loads of organisation skills, taught me the basics of web design and how to convey a lot of important information to a public. But mostly I learned a lot from the teachers and their interviews, and it gave me the courage to aspire a PhD myself, even if the academic climate is not really welcoming right now.