Feedback

Feedback was collected

• During the feedback session on Wednesday
• Through the web form at the web page of the school
• By listing ideas and comments expressed during the school

Feedback session

Some comments and ideas from the feedback session

Presentations

• Less and longer student presentations. On the other hand, you have to learn to present your ideas in 15 minutes.
• The invited lectures were of a good variety, but understandable only to some not necessary to all
• Scheduled breaks should have been included between the talks
• Good idea to practice for a conference talk, because no extra work is needed to make just a presentation for the Hecse school
• To get feedback was good, first you understand that there are no hidden mistakes, on the other hand mostly people list thinkgs that you already know
• There could have been a template of what to write (things to think about) in the feedback, now it was difficult in the beginning to list five things, good or bad

Posters

• The poster spotlight session was a waste of time; too many and too short presentations, no groupwise order, and you only think about what you are going to say and do not listen to the others
• Feedback for posters would have been nice

Group work - how to make a good presentation

• A little unstructured
• Too much group work, too much time
• Not good to have group work first thing in the morning
• Good to first think yourself, then compare with others
• Not clear what to think about; a good presentation on what level? Also content should have been considered
• Next time, the group work could have several topics and preformed in small workshops where student could register for the workshop they are interested in; should be organised by the students

Social programme

• The programme balance was OK
• Too much wine
• More physical activities
• More outdoor activities, e.g., in the morning
• More free time (by accident there was free time and that wes good)

Seikkailulaakso

• Nice scenery, even too good views
• The scenary could have some mountains in the background

Next summer/autumn school

• The autumn is quite a good time for the school
• Early summer might be bad; everyone is only waiting for summer vacations

Feedback form

21 students has answered the feedback form (Monday 27 October, 13:08)

What did you like most in the autumn school?

• The poster session was good. It was nice to talk with the support team. It helped me to organize my thoughts on the future research. On the other hand the poster spotlight session was not so good. Though its pretty hard to do anything for that given the number of posters. After the spotlight session I did not remember anything about any other poster spotlight.
• Social activities. Seeing other PhD students and supervisors.
• The food was great and there was (surprisingly) enough (good) booze (even in the sauna, which was also nice). Some of the presentations (especially the shorter, student presentations) needed more background in e.g. pattern matching than I had to be understandable. Please provide students with instructions on taking the audience's varying backgrounds into account.
• The poster session was useful
• Keeping track of what other students are doing
• Nice feeling from noticing that senior researchers 'bother' to come and give a talk. The brain puzzles (the boat ride not so much)
• The presentations were an interesting combination. The meeting room was a bit long, so it was too difficult to follow the talks from the back of the room. It was nice to also give feedback. The poster session was fun too, but it would have been nice to also get feedback for the posters (similar forms for posters as for presenters).
• Arrangements by the coordinators were done nicely.
• Atmosphere was very good.
• For a hermit such as me, the social aspect of the school was in the end probably the most useful. The rather remote location (no going back home for the night like in Vuosaari) was a plus.
• The group work was first prepared in haste, then presented with much too time. I'd rather have more time in doing the group work, and less time allocated to presenting them. The absence of several support team members was somewhat discouraging, albeit I'm rather happy I didn't have to meet with one of my own. Using the student presentations as preparation for lectio pre-whatevers sounded actually like a good idea.
• Puheohjelman määrä oli sopivasti rajoitettu. Koulussa pystyi verkostoitumaan hyvin.
• Talking to those (few) people from different university that have similar research topics; social program. Balance of the program was quite nice.
• Getting to know fellow students
• The boat ride was such an experience that it's hard to beat with anything else... The poster session was also good: saw what other people are doing. IMO, sessions where people get introduced with ideas from other random fields of science or communities is important. If you just hang around with your friends inside a closed community (lab), you don't get exposed to new ideas or viewpoints :) The invited talks surprised me as I found them interesting even if most were discussing subjects I'm not at all familiar with.
• I liked the off topic stuff the most. And as a colleague of mine told me, the place is so nice and everything runs so smoothly that it feels like a holiday. But also, the invited speaks were very good and taken from a broad field selection, which is always nice. No boring repetition of the same topic than in many conferences covering only a couple of fields. Lastly, the food and sauna and service as a whole including the place were really close to perfect.
• Sauna, boat ride, free-time, food, some invited speakers, the programme was not too full!

How could the school be improved for the next year?

• Talks more targeted on everybody, maybe focus on more on fewer things. Somehow get more interaction in talks. Practice discussion on new things.
• Less wine... at some point the party goes out of control (semi-serious comment)
• Tell the support teams that they NEED to be there for the poster session instead of leaving in the middle of it... Also, the poster spotlight session could be improved, grouping spotlights based on topic, or still having a little pause between them.
• More 'personal space' and less obligatory program
• Group work could have been structured better. Maybe it just requires more time.
• Esitelmät olivat tänä vuonna vähän sillisalaattia. Vähemmän esitelmiä, mutta pidempiä.
• At least group work and poster session could be better organized.
• Maybe more activitied that require communication (boat trip was nice though)
• Younger Ph.D. students are quite busy with their school courses at this time of the year...
• I honestly don't think it is a good idea to have the summer shcool in a closed location such as seikkailulaakso. It just triggers primary school flock dynamics and doesn't really make it easier to befriend any new people.
• The presentations of students were not so great, mainly due to the fact that the time limitation was so strict. maybe 30 minutes would have been better. Maybe even one more day would have been good option, so that there could be a little bit more free time to Mölkky or something.
• Imitate a conference: simultaneous presentations - the audience chooses where to go. Now we can have more presentations, longer presentations and less "I don't know anything about this subject" presentations. Group work didn't work at all. A clear goal and a more structured programme are needed. Maybe: make two poster sessions: one half of the posters on one day and the other posters on the following day. Or two separate sessions during the same day (before noon / after noon).

Comments and ideas collected during the school

• possible group work: how to make a good poster; e.g., many posters had too much text
• give a poster award for the best poster
• one invited speaker would also have liked to get feedback; now feedback was given only to student presenters