General

For PhD Students

Here is some information only valid if you are a PhD Student. A guide for new PhD students can be found on the Doctoral Portal here: https://student.portal.chalmers.se/doctoralportal/handbook/Pages/default.aspx

We got a presentation from Julie Gold, vice head of department, at one of our group meetings, where she updated us on the graduate education system. That presentation can be found here.

Content (clickable):

Handbook for doctoral studies
FFF
Student Union Membership
GTS courses
Graduate courses
Meetings with director of studies and study plan
Teaching
Teaching labs
Research visit
Popular Science Presentation
Licentiate seminar
PhD defence

Handbook for doctoral studies

There is a handbook for doctoral studies on Chalmers Doctoral Portal which contains a lot of useful information and strives towards centralizing all information about PhD studies at Chalmers.
https://student.portal.chalmers.se/doctoralportal/handbook/Pages/default.aspx

FFF

Föreningen för Forskarstuderande i Fysik (FFF) is an organization of graduate students working in the field of physics at University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology. On their webpage on Chalmers Intranet, you can find all sorts of information useful for graduate students in physics:

Student Union Membership

At Chalmers it is mandatory to be a member of the Student Union. You need to pay the membership fee each semester and show your card every time you write an exam. By being a member of the Student Union you will also get a lot of discounts and other benefits!

GTS courses

All PhD Students at Chalmers must take 15 credits out of the General and Transferable Skills (GTS) courses. You can find more information at http://www.chalmersprofessional.se/sv/genericskills

Graduate courses

Other than the GTS courses you have to take a minimum of <number> credits to complete your graduate studies. Discuss with your supervisor and director of studies which courses you should take and if and which courses you have taken before you can count for your PhD. You can take master's courses or graduate courses. Here is a list of the Chalmers departments' graduate courses: Graduate courses.

Master's courses you can find by searching on the Student Portal (here). For instance you can select department, why not Physics, and you will get a (long) list of all courses given by the department. You should also not underestimate the word of mouth (unfortunately).

Meetings with director of studies

Within 1.5-2 months after you started your graduate studies you will have to have a meeting with you study director, examiner and supervisor(s) where you present a study plan (which can be found here). This study plan should be filled in by you (in agreement with your supervisor) with information like courses taken, amount of teaching our other departmental duties done (Jonathan Weidow keeps a good record of your teaching, send him a mail and he will give you what he has registered). At the meeting you will discuss your work and the study plan. After the meeting supervisors, examiner, director of studies, and the PhD student should sign the document (after any agreed upon changes has been made). The signed copy should then be given to Anna Lindqvist at the administration on floor 5 in Origo for archiving.

Teaching

Interest in teaching is reported twice a year in a survey sent out by Jonathan Weidow. By teaching or doing other departmental duties your PhD project gets paid and your time at Chalmers is extended by as much. More information can be found on insidan here:
http://www.chalmers.se/insidan/sites/ap/grundutbildning/arbetstid-och-ersattning/ersattning-och-kontering

The most important parts are also stated below.

Teaching time

A full time employee corresponds to a work year of:

1 756 hours with 28 days of vacation (0-29 years of age)
1 732 hours with 31 days of vacation (30-39 years of age)
1 700 hours with 35 days of vacation (40- years of age)

The most common teaching types are counted as departmental duty hours according to:

Type	Factor
Lecture	4*
Tutorial (Räkneövning)	4*
Räknestuga	2*
Laboration	2*
Supervision (Enkel handledning)	2*
Adm. of course	4+ n/4**

* regular hours
** n is the number of bachelor students

Note the difference between Räkneövning, where you solve problems on the board, and Räknestuga, where the students are solving problems themselves and you are available for questions.

You should know how much time you are assigned for teaching before preparing, so that you don't spend too much time on it. If it is unclear, ask the examiner and/or the teaching coordinator.

Other types of departmental duties are agreed on in discussion with "studierektor" (director of studies).

Search students

If you need to contact a student for some reason, you can search for contact information on the Chalmers Student Union portal: https://medlem.chs.chalmers.se/?setlanguage=en (being a PhD student, you have to be a member of the student union).

Teaching labs

It has been decided within GPC (Gothenburg Physics Centre) that all teachers must pass a web based safety course and participate in a safety seminar in order to be allowed to teach in the Physics Learning Lab (FÖL). For the web course, you should do everything except the practical test about X-ray (unless you are about to teach those labs, then it is mandatory as well).

In order to do the web course, and you’ll need a x-account on GUL (Göteborgs Universitets Lärplattform). Contact Bea Tensfeldt by sending an email to bea.tensfeldt (at) physics.gu.se including this information:

Name
Social security number
Academic title
Email address
Room number
Phone number
Contact person (supervisor, leader of division or head of department)

Once you have access, please follow the instructions at the following link: http://gul.gu.se/public/courseId/48817/lang-sv/publicPage.do

For those of you that haven’t attended the safety seminar, there will be a new chance next year but until then you have to check the web page: http://www.chalmers.se/en/centres/gpc/education/Pages/Lab-safety.aspx

Any further questions should be addressed to http://www.physics.gu.se/om-institutionen/personal?userId=xrostm Mats Rostedt (lab safety course) or Lars Hellberg (safety seminar).

Research visit

You might go on a research visit during the PhD, for several weeks or a couple of months. If, for some reason, the normal allowance (traktamente) is not paid to you for this trip (none or partial), you can make a deduction for it in the coming tax declaration. This can be a significant amount of money. See Skatteverket's rules, page 7-8.

Licentiate seminar

The half-way defence, the licentiate seminar are connected with certain rules/guidelines. Also the rules at the Physics department differ from Chalmers' central rules. Read more on Insidan here (in swedish). Anna Lindqvist at the administration will contact you once the application has been sent to the department and guide you through any other formalities. The central guide for the licentiate seminar can be found on the doctoral portal here (although you should use the physics one primarily).

The information exists on the new intranet also. Try this link:
https://intranet.chalmers.se/verktyg-stod/forskarutbildning/licentiat-mittseminarium/forberedelser-infor-licentiatseminarium/#licentiatseminarium-vid-institutionen-for-fysik

When it comes to applying for a licentiate degree there is a guide here. Your examiner should have filled in the approval form (can be found on the same doctoral portal page) and then the administration should have registered that form and an "all courses completed archive list" in LADOK before you can apply for a degree. Expect an email from Anna Lindqvist at the administration.

PhD defence

As with the licentiate, the PhD defence is also associated with certain administrative must-do's. Find a guide from the department on Insidan here (in swedish). On the new intranet: https://intranet.chalmers.se/verktyg-stod/forskarutbildning/

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