Statements
Greta Erschbamer
Italy
PhD Student
Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolsstadt
As part of my dissertation I had the opportunity to take advantage of various continuing education opportunities at my university. I took the course "individual coaching - career planning" and was able to take a lot from this coaching: due to a professional profiling we were able to adress my visions and possibilities. The coaching showed me different paths and directions in which I always could find myself. Particularly helpful was the assessment of my current achievements in research based on well-founded milestones. I would recommend such a coaching to any PhD student or young researcher who would like to develop career options within or outside the scientific field.
Dr. Dar Meshi
USA
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Research area: Social Cognitive Neuroscience
Freie Universität Berlin
"I attended Dr. Topan's 2-day course on group leadership. Overall, the course was very helpful. We learned about different ways to lead employees, how to navigate the difficult terrain of organizing and leading meetings, and how to deal with situations of conflict in the workplace. In short, her course was terrific and I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in improving the way they manage their employees. In addition, Dr. Topan was a pleasure to interact with. She is passionate about helping others and is very friendly."
Dr. Maolian Gong
China
Principal investigator, subject area: molecular genetics of human diseases
"The course for group leading evaluation was important, I realized both my strong and weak points for leading a group. I am trying to managing many things properly in parallel, this was my weak point during the course evaluation, I can do it now. I am trying to motivate the team and it works well, this was my strong points, and I try to keep on it.
The effect afterwards are, that I consider the working situations not only on my side, but also on the others, especially for the technicians and students, this is really important for them to keep on being motivated."
Dr. Jeske Smink
Netherlands
Senior scientist at the Research & Development department; Subject Area: tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
"It was important for me to find some guidance in how to handle the next step in my career and how to find out what would be my strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, learning how to deal with different work situations would be very helpful.
I learned to see my qualifications in a different way, and to appreciate my strengths more, instead of focusing on my weaknesses. It made me aware that I had so much more to offer than I always thought and made me more self-confident. It also taught me how to approach and to deal with certain working situations.
Dr. Topan helped me seeing my qualities from a different perspective. You helped me to find out what my strong and weak qualities are and how I could either strengthen these qualities or how I could use my qualities for my professional development. Moreover, in the coaching course, I have learned how to identify situations that could occur in a working environment and how to deal with them."
Dr. Alice Szczepanikova
Czech Republic
Post-doctoral Research Fellow in sociology, Frankfurt Goethe University
"I attended the coaching session because I was at the point of deciding about the future direction of my professional career. It helped me to realize the diversity of my skills and with it the diversity of directions in which I could go next. Dr. Topan provided safe space for talking about insecurities and doubts but steered the focus of the session towards capabilities and strengths, which was encouraging and stimulating.
I also attended the conflict management workshop to gain a better idea about different kinds of conflicts likely to occur in the professional sphere and strategies of managing them. It helped me to think about my own conflict management styles (not only in the academic sphere) and opened my mind to a possibility of adjusting them better to the given situation. It was also helpful to learn about some specific strategies, which can be used to tackle conflicts.
Dr. Topan kept a good balance between the informative and the participatory/interactive part of the workshop and created an environment that stimulated open discussion among the participants. She made sure that the content of the workshop matched our needs and expectations."