JDPLS Mentoring
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Every doctoral student is assigned a mentor, a professor from the JDPLS program, in the first three months of their PhD. You are free to change the mentor in consultation with the program director.
The mentor’s role is to support the doctoral candidate throughout their work and educational progress and help them overcome any professional or personal challenges they may face during their studies.
The mentor provides guidance during the PhD, discuss career strategy with the student, or any other topic related to the PhD that the student feels like discussing. The mentor can provide unbiased advice, related to academic world and career paths, from an experienced scientist and advise you for any issues with your PhD work. Importantly, the mentor does not supervise or co-supervise the student’s thesis but is the primary contact for any issues with the thesis director or within the laboratory.
The mentor remains anonymous with respect to the thesis director(s) to ensure confidentiality. It is the doctoral student’s decision to keep this anonymity or not.
In the first months of their PhD, we suggest the doctoral student meets with the mentor to discuss the mentor’s role, and both parties expectations regarding the mentoring relationship. Additionally, as part of the annual reports, the mentor meets with the doctoral student to discuss the progress of their work and their well-being in the laboratory. The PhD student is responsible to organize this meeting.
Your mentor is a valuable resource and is available to discuss your academic progress and provide guidance. Please feel free to contact your mentor whenever you deem necessary.
You, as a mentor, should ensure a contact with your mentee once per year, and be aware of available services at EPFL to be able to guide the mentee if needed.
You find available ressources at the Trust point
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