2. During the Doctoral Period
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - 2. During the doctorate
Yes, the signed minutes of at least three supervision meetings with all three supervisors must be submitted for admission to the doctoral examination. Close supervision is a cornerstone of the structured Doctoral Qualification Programme at our Graduate School. The aim is to ensure that your dissertation has already passed all "quality controls" before the assessment.
Question: It is extremely complicated to get hold of my second supervisors in particular. As one of my second supervisors is out of town and I only have sporadic e-mail contact, it is likely that only my first supervisor will be available for a meeting to be arranged in the medium term. Is that a no-go? Do at least two carers have to be present or are there exceptions?
The idea of the support team is to ensure that you always receive close support. In principle and ideally, all three supervisors should sit at the same table. As an exception, we have already provided for a third supervisor to be involved at a later stage by sending them the draft minutes for their information and comments.
However, at least two supervisors should sit at the table with you or - alternatively - hold a Zoom meeting so that a consensus on all aspects of your doctorate can be reached among all supervisors. Please remember that, in case of doubt, disagreements among your supervisors will always work to your disadvantage!
Possible solutions:
- You can always reorganise your supervisory committee to make this possible. Especially if you only have sporadic contact with an external carer, you may be able to provide more effective support by having a more accessible local carer.
- You could possibly also hold the conversation via a Zoom or Teams video conference, which would allow your external carer to be involved without having to travel.
- In total, you only have to have three joint meetings during the course of your entire doctorate, i.e. you can arrange the next appointment for a longer period of time, preferably during the current supervision meeting, as everyone involved will be sitting together. Irrespective of this, you can and should keep in constant contact with all supervisors.
When you set up your Doctoral Committee for the first time, at least two of its members should be current members of the GSH. If one of your supervisors is no longer a member of the GSH due to a retuirement or appointment to another university etc., you have two options:
- The Doctoral Regulations already take the case of an appointment into account: § 4 (2) of the Doctoral Regulations explicitly allows supervisors who leave the GSH to remain a member of your Supervisory Committee until the doctoral procedure has been completed. However, you should be aware that this may mean that your supervision is no longer optimally guaranteed; two external supervisors will also have to travel to your oral exam..
- In consultation with the remaining members of your Supervisory Committee, you can choose a new supervisor from among the members of the GSH; it is recommended that you then hold a supervisory meeting as soon as possible and/or send the minutes of the last meeting to the new supervisor so that they are up to date with developments.
Important: In your own interest, please inform us immediately of any changes to your Supervisory Committee.
If you do not wish to use your ...@stud-mail address for your external presentation and applications or similar. If you no longer wish to use your ...@stud-mail address, which is usually used by doctoral students, please submit a corresponding user application to the Computer Centre, which you should present to Dr. Schmid for confirmation.
This will give you a more neutral address instead of the stud-mail address according to the scheme vorname.name@uni-wuerzburg.de.
Please inform us of any changes to your e-mail address as soon as possible.
For your first admission, you must enrol in our interdisciplinary Doctoral Study Programme "Humanities"; admission is initially for six semesters.
You also need to be enrolled in order to attend courses in your curriculum that require enrolment, such as advanced/major seminars or workshops at the GSH. Like undergraduate students, you may be able to take a semester off if the conditions for this are met; further information on this.
Once you have completed your curriculum, enrolment is no longer mandatory, only admission is required. For information: If you still need a course, you can enrol as a guest student; with this status you can attend one course per semester, which usually requires enrolment.
You can have all achievements that you have agreed with your Supervisory Committee in your three supervisory meetings and that are within the scope of theGSH curriculum recognised as your semester achievement.
This also means that you can without any problems, for example, have a certificate that you have acquired in an advanced/major seminar that is not listed in the GSH course catalogue credited. The courses there are only courses that are EXPLICITLY open to all doctoral candidates at the GSH. The most important crediting criterion for your Supervisory Committee is that attending the seminar is related to your dissertation and promotes your doctorate.
If you have attended a doctoral colloquium, for which there is usually no certificate, agree with the lecturer - who is usually also your primary supervisor - that he/she will issue you with a certificate; alternatively, you can also pre-formulate the confirmation informally so that he/she only has to sign it. It should come with information on the respective semester and when and for how long the seminar took place (to calculate the SWS), if necessary with the SWS.
Please keep your certificates in a safe place; you will need them again at the end of your doctorte for your application for admission to the DoctoralExamination.
In principle, yes. The most important prerequisite is that these achievements are within the meaning of the Study Regulations and thus promote your doctorate and/or qualify you for a career. Your Supervisory Committee is responsible for determining this. It determines the general creditability and the quantity of crediting. Be sure to record these decisions in the minutes of your three Supervisory Meetings.
For your support, we have prepared a non-binding handout with recommendations for calculating such compulsory elective credits in SWS. If you have any formal questions, you or your Supervisory Committee can contact Dr. Schmid at any time.
