Doctoral Student Seminar Rules

Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics (KMG)

11 July, 2022

The rules apply from the Winter semester 2022/2023

PREAMBLE: Giving annual seminars is a formal requirement for you getting a doctoral degree at the University of South Bohemia. However, as formalities go, we think it is quite useful for the following reasons:

1. So that you have practice presenting your project in English in a format similar to an international conference.
2. So that you can train for your final defense talk
3. So can gain experience and confidence in public speaking
4. So that your peers can see what you are doing
5. So that faculty members can see what you are doing
6. So that you can get useful feedback on your projects
7. To build a sense of community among all the members of our department

In order to do this, we will have reserved sessions for students to present during the department seminars and a yearly retreat. We ask that you cooperate with the organizer(s) of these seminars so that we can achieve these goals together.

If you approach this as only a formality, that is fine with us. But you are still expected to fulfill this requirement.

RULES:

1.  Every doctoral student must give once an academic year (October to June of next calendar year) a presentation in English about their project. This applies for all students, regardless of whether they entered the PhD program in the summer or winter semester. Please see dedicated section for summer students below.
2. You are expected to give the seminar in the same semester that you have signed up to give the seminar in STAG, either the winter or summer semesters.
3. The autumn student retreat (usually in October) or during the department seminars in places reserved for student talks
4. If you intend on giving your required seminar on the autumn retreat (which I highly recommend), please sign up to give your seminar in the winter semester.
5. You will be given an exact date of your seminar, as you will be sorted to groups by your area of study. This is because we would also like the board members of the specific area of study to attend your seminar, so it is easier for them to join (in person or via Zoom).
6. No matter what department you are associated with, always enroll in a course KMB 805 to obtain the credit for presenting. We organize your presentations in one common format, so that members of the Integrative biology program board and other students of Integrative biology can meet you and see your presentations. So if you want to present in the given semester, you all please sign for KMB805 (not with other code).
7.  There are no exceptions to the rules, every student is obliged to present once per academic year.  Please keep in mind that you are responsible to fulfill this obligation every year and that there are no exceptions and no other ways how to fulfill it (e.g. presenting at labmeetings or at you departments) – this obligation is associated with the PhD program and not with a department. 

RECOMMENDATION: If you are not sure when you will give your seminar and in what capacity, I suggest that by default you sign up for the winter semester. In exceptional cases when you do not succeed in to fulfill this requirement, you can cancel this subject for the winter semester (PENALTY MAY APPLY) and sign up for the giving the talk in the summer semester.

For students starting their doctoral studies in the summer: your requirement for giving the PhD talk will start in the next academic year (i.e. you beging your studies in summer 2020, so your requirement will start in the winter semester of 2020). This to synchronize all the student’s requirements so that everyone can better keep track of them .

Talk format:

 1. 12 minutes, strictly enforced, plus 5 minutes science discussion and 3 minutes feedback

             a. Remember this rule of thumb: 1 slide per minute

 2. The student talks are for a general audience:
- Choose a simple story line from your project
- Not everyone in the department knows about the details of your project, so please try to give the RELEVANT background so that people will understand that simple story
- Do not try to put ALL your data into the presentation but only what is relevant to that simple story
- This is a challenging task, but it has been accomplished

 3. You are expected to stay for all the talks in your session and not just your own, so please plan to stay for the whole duration of the session (or retreat).

Disclaimers about the seminars:

1. Provided title talks for posting are final, so please DO NOT request title changes after you have submitted them as we have limited capacity to make these changes.

2. Of course, you can rename the talks as you please, but it will not be updated in the postings

Organizer of PhD student seminar: Lenka Chodáková (email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Michaela Kunzová (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).