Soft Skills Workshop

Thursday 7 Jul 2022, 09:00 → 17:30 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Sapienza)

In the modern world it is becoming ever clearer that technical knowledge and expertise are not enough to survive a career in academia. In order to give young scientists an opportunity to meet each other and develop their soft skills, the PhD Seminar Committee organised this event aiming to give PhD students and postdocs some tools to aid them in giving presentations and in looking after their own mental health.

If you have registered for the event then please fill out the Mental Health Survey at the following link:

Mental Health Survey

Link for remote session

09:00 → 13:00 How to get away with talking: a public speaking laboratory: Presentation Skills

09:00 How to make effective presentations

Science, outreach, real life have in common the art and challenge of communicating with other human beings. We will ask ourselves why and to what extent our talks should be intelligible, and pursue the ambitious (and yet asymptotic) goal of transforming presentations into interactions between a speaker and an audience. After having built up some foundations on do's and don'ts - and most importantly after having reviewed some common practice - we will engage, in the second part of the morning, in a hands-on, interactive development of communication strategies around a common story.

Speaker: Valerio Ippolito (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

10:15 Coffee break

10:45 Workshop on presentation making

The audience will be divided into small groups and will be asked to deliver a 1-3 slide presentation on a given a topic of general knowledge. A moment of constructive criticism on each presentation will follow, highlighting strong and weak points of each presentation under the light of what was explained in the previous seminar;

Speaker: Valerio Ippolito (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

14:30 → 17:30 Mental Health in Accademia

14:30 Mental Health Literacy

This service includes information about the prevalence of mental health illness in general and academic populations, an overview of signs and symptoms high- lighting those seen in academic settings, and the science underlying the causes and treatments of mental illnesses;

Speaker: Dr Olga Vvedenskaya (Dragonfly Mental Health)

15:30 Coffee break

16:00 Imposter Syndrome

In this seminar, we cover the definition of impostor syndrome and its prevalence in the academic population. We provide an overview of symptoms highlighting those seen in academic settings, and we facilitate community discussion on how to overcome impostor syndrome in our individual lives.

Speaker: Dr Olga Vvedenskaya (Dragonfly Mental Health)