PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: How to develop soft skills during your PhD studies
This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer , your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands. These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands. If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic! Let me start today with some sobering news. PhD completion rates are low . Too low. There are numerous reasons why candidates leave their PhD programs. Personal problems, financial issues,... the (bad ) stuff of life. Lack of supervision and guidance can be a problem. If we leave out all the external causes for leaving a PhD program, we are left with internal causes. In some cases, a candidate has the analytical skills to do the research, but lacks the soft skills to deliver a dissertati...