College of Science & Engineering

This workshop will be useful to you if you are actively considering your career options including those of you who are thinking of moving out of academia.  It will help you to have greater awareness of your transferable skills, to reflect on what is important to you as you develop your career, to present yourself more positively when applying for jobs and to be aware of the resources available to support you.

Course code: RSDB 6013

Duration: 2.5 hours

Postgraduate study develops a huge range of skills and experience which are valued by employers across every sector. Getting the right message across to a potential employer on paper is key to being shortlisted for interview. This session looks at making sure you market yourself effectively, through CVs, Covering letters and application forms. It will also look at how to find opportunities in the labour market, including vacancies and more direct approaches to employers.

Course code: RSDB 6014

Duration: 2.5 hours

Interviews can be a very daunting experiences and it is natural to feel anxious. Doing as much preparation as possible can help you cope with interview nerves and make you aware of your strengths as well as your weaknesses. This session will help you to identify what recruiters are looking for and prepare you to tackle those awkward questions.

Course code: RSDB 6016

Duration: 2.5 hours

Ever wondered where all the time goes? Or why there just aren’t enough hours in the day? This course will help you make the most of your time, find the perfect work/life balance and make sure you get things done. We will explore prioritisation techniques, how to avoid procrastination and how to plan the perfect day. So if you have the pressure of a looming deadline, or you are juggling too many balls, come along and learn how to put things in order,  how to produce without the panic and what to do with all the time you will save!

Course code: RSDB 6056

Duration: 3 hours

This training is designed for students who intend to submit within the next six months and will include discussion on the structure of the viva and the type of questions which are likely to be asked. The role of the convener and the internal and external examiners will also be explained

Course code: RSDC 6010

Duration: 2 hours

In this introduction to public engagement, you will learn about the difference between communicating to professional audiences and the non-specialist public. We will give you examples from our own high profile public engagement activities. Then you will have the opportunity to try your hand at distilling a piece of scientific research into something that is appealing to a non-specialist audience. Working in small teams, you will choose a topic you could potentially present together, identify a target audience, and then develop a tagline and a logo. By the end of the session you will have understood the need to adjust your communication style to suit your target audience and gained some practical experience of the process of converting specialist material into an engaging form.

The sessions in Semester one will be led online, however the ones in Semester 2 will be on campus.

Course code: RSDD 6080P

Duration: 2 x 3 hour session

This training consists of 5 modules. They are designed to introduce the following statistical concepts:

Module 1: Introduction to Data Visualisation

Module 2: Introduction to Statistical Programming in R

Module 3: Introduction to Statistical Inference

Module 4: Introduction to Statistical Modelling

Module 5: Introduction to Design and Analysis of Experiments

Guidelines will be provided of prerequisite knowledge and/or recommended reading prior to each module. Students are welcome to attend as many modules as they like.

Course code: RSDA 6105

Duration: 2.5 hours for 5 consecutive days

The "Introduction to Statistics" PhD training course delivered in April covers a broad range of topics, and is intended for those whose exposure to statistical methods and modelling is modest.  Some students need to address more specialist and more advanced topics. This half-day workshop, which will be held in-person, will invite participants to specify topics of interest in advance, to set the agenda.  Participants will also be encouraged to contribute specific problems, and where possible datasets, from their own research.  The workshop will contain some expositional material but will also have a strong component of practical work so that participants can engage directly with the topics involved. Should you wish to submit your own dataset for discussion, please email this to adrian.bowman@glasgow.ac.uk in late April.

Course code: RSDA 6215

Duration: 3 hours

The course will offer an introduction to the basics of the C/C++ programming language and will encompass the following topics: (i) program structure; (ii) basic syntax; (iii) functions; (iv) memory management; and (v) objects. The course is intended for students with little or no programming experience. Along with the taught element there will be programming tasks to be completed at each session. By the end of the course, the student should have the ability to develop practical engineering code.

The course is primarily intended for those with no working knowledge of C or C++, however those with some programming experience are more than welcome. Numerical methodologies will not be covered directly in this course and will only be presented on a needs basis to illustrate programming constructs.

Course code: RSDA 6069P

Duration: 3 days x 4 hours(split into 2h sessions)

Python is an intuitive yet powerful programming language. It is both a “procedural” and “object-oriented” – concepts you will be introduced to. The course isdesigned for beginners with no Python experience, however, as you work at your own pace it is possible for others to attend. We cover data types, variables,expressions and statements, control flow, functions, looping, iteration, strings,lists, tuples, dictionaries, files and, classes and objects. You will be able to createbasic console programs structured in a logical fashion. The course will be based on Python 3 and the Anaconda distribution (we can support Python 2.7). Pleasenote that if you already have Python installed, you can use your own computer.

Course code: RSDC 6028

Duration: 6 x 3 hour sessions

An introduction to the LaTeX typesetting system, covering: setting up LaTeX, the document structure, typesetting text and mathematical formulae, making tables, inserting images, and managing a bibliography with BibTeX

Course code: RSDB 6054P

Duration: 2 hours

Intellectual Property – why should I care?

An interactive 2.5 hour workshop to introduce the world of Intellectual Property (IP) and explain why you really should care.  Topics include the basics of patents, designs, trade marks and copyright but more importantly how and why you should make the most of your intangible assets. 

The session will use real-life examples and give you time to ask about your own ideas.  The workshop is suitable for research students in any year of postgraduate study – it is never too soon but it can be too late!

It will also cover IP at the University and how this is captured, funded, acknowledged, and  recompensed and how important IP is to the University.

Course code: RSDC 6036

Duration: 2.5 hours

This workshop is all about creative innovation; how to recognise possibilities  and think with a strategic and creative mind-set. Learn how to think big, spot new research possibilities, solve tricky problems and generate ideas. We introduce innovation habits into the way you work by looking at some core creativity techniques and then moving to apply them to provide practical solutions.  Find out about the basic principles, methods and mindsets and how to apply them to the way you approach your scientific research. The group will explore an ‘Idea Toolkit’ looking at innovation processes, sharing how these can be understood, developed and used to solve problems and express ideas.

What the course will cover/learning outcomes:

• Inspiration and creativity

• The creative process

• Creativity: generating ideas

• Creative thinking tools and techniques: Idea Toolkit

• Innovation: translating ideas, developing concepts

• Applying the learning to your situation

This is a fast paced, intellectually stimulating and highly interactive workshop to bring creativity to the forefront for research scientists. Participants will gain key insights on innovation and creative thinking, increase their creative confidence, and take away a toolkit of approaches applicable to a variety of problems and projects. 

Course code: RSDB 6081

Duration: 2 x 90 minute sessions

This English course is designed for non-native English speakers who can already communicate successfully in English but want to:

• move beyond just being “understandable”

• develop their cultural understanding of the English language

• practise using and understanding the Scottish accent and common words and phrases used by people of Glasgow.

The course focuses on developing everyday, non-academic, oral communicative skills to support your acculturation and integration in Scotland. It will help you to develop knowledge of vocabulary needed for communication in a defined range of social and public situations relevant to non-academic life in Glasgow as well as interactional and interpersonal skills to cope and successfully and negotiate the meaning of unfamiliar words/phrases. 

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• communicate more fluently and with greater accuracy in a specified range of social situations

• use a range of context-specific lexis to complete social interactions with more confidence

• employ a range of interactional and interpersonal strategies to achieve communicative aims.

Course code: RSDD 6044P

Duration: 2 hours sessions for 6 weeks

Credits: 2 credits

In this introduction to public engagement, you will learn about the difference between communicating to professional audiences and the non-specialist public. We will give you examples from our own high profile public engagement activities. Then you will have the opportunity to try your hand at distilling a piece of scientific research into something that is appealing to a non-specialist audience. Working in small teams, you will choose a topic you could potentially present together, identify a target audience, and then develop a tagline and a logo. By the end of the session you will have understood the need to adjust your communication style to suit your target audience and gained some practical experience of the process of converting specialist material into an engaging form.

Course code: RSDD 6012

Duration: 2 hours

Effective communication of highly specialised research to the general public can be challenging and the internship will help you develop your own activity. Selected students will undertake a short internship with Glasgow Science Festival staff. The culmination will be presentation of your own research during the Glasgow Science Festival.

The internship will entail six short sessions with festival staff and additional group work with other students. The course will run from February to June and will involve:

• Effective group working

• Techniques to support the translation of scientific terminology to age and audience

• Exploration of the different forms of public engagement activities

• Development and delivery of your own activity for the festival

• Project and budget planning

There are only 16 places available and you must be able to make a commitment to the entire course and to participating in the Glasgow Science Festival in 2024. It will be of advantage to applicants to have undertaken the introductory session on public engagement beforehand. Formal application to the programme will be required and will open in early 2024.