General Information
Teaching activities and concept of training
The Graduate School tutors are, for the most part, also active in the Medical
Neuroscience program. Therefore, it will be necessary to coordinate courses,
seminars, and tests. Linking existing teaching activities in neuroinflammation,
neuroimmunology, and neurology, and enlarging the training program by the
additional courses offered by the Graduate School initiative will fuse the
know-how in this field in Berlin and serve as an excellent center for the
training of young scientists. Through both lectures by faculty members of the
Graduate School and seminars held by visiting scientists, as well as student
rotations in local and international labs, students will receive deep insights
into and knowledge about topics and methods related to the crosstalk of the
immune and the nervous systems. This will be supported by the seminars of the
neuroscience SFB 507 and the immunology SFB 650 (see chapter 7.). In addition
to their specific thesis topic, all students will gain insight into central
mechanisms in the neurosciences. Students from the natural sciences will learn
to ask questions which are essential for disease and therapy, and medical
students will learn details of neuroscience, immunology, cellular, and
molecular biology, far beyond those in their study program.
The concept of the Graduate School is to motivate students by allowing them a
high degree of autonomy and encouraging them to use it, yet providing them with
close supervision. The following are some of the ways in which students will be
given the opportunity to attain a high level of autonomy and flexibility at an
early stage in their career:
- by self-organizing parts of their own training program (i.e. seminars, guest speaker lectures and courses, symposia and lab rotations);
- by working on communication skills and writing grant applications;
- by taking responsibility for publications.
Various sources will provide students with advice and support for oral
presentations, for publications, for the acquisition of funding within the
Graduate School, and for useful rotations, as well as for the integration of
techniques and models. These sources will include for each student a thesis
mentor, a second personal tutor, and a tutor-group. The relative amount of
input students receive from each of these sources will be defined by a
schedule. Last but not least, another source of help and encouragement for
students will of course be the Graduate School itself, an inspiring community
of students and tutors at different stages in their education or scientific
careers (including permanent professor positions, junior professors, and MDC
research groups), which constantly stimulates discussions and interactions.
