Preparing Doctoral Candidates for a Successful Career in Academia or Industry: The Bit Bang Courses

Abstract

Doctoral students are traditionally encouraged to focus their studies on a relatively narrow research topic. In this paper we present a novel postgraduate course for doctoral students that prepare them for working life after graduation, be it in academia or industry, by giving them a wider perspective. The full academic year course is built around multidisciplinary and multinational teamwork assignments, top class guest lectures from industry leaders, and an intensive study tour to a globally recognized region of research, innovation and business. The course adapts Nokia’s top management training program to the academic environment. In this paper we describe the course structure and analyze key learnings from nine years of running the course.