Core Curriculum

As a doctoral student of the GTC’s graduate program you will be offered a wide spectrum of specialized training courses across the years. In addition, you can choose from several courses running in the three masters programs every winter and summer semester. You are required to earn in total 18 ECTS credit points in order to fulfill the doctoral graduation requirements. Courses are to be chosen from different categories according to the ‘Core Curriculum’ (see below), which was developed jointly by doctoral students and lecturers and approved by the Boards of the Graduate Schools.

Core Curriculum of the Doctoral Program

Course CategoryFraction %ECTS *CPs

Examples 

Hard-Skills general

 

40%min. 7 CPs• Lectures, courses, seminars offered by the master and doctoral program of the associated Graduate Schools (e.g., neuroscience-, methods-, statistics-, programming courses).
• Lectures and courses offered by other faculties at the University (advanced programming or mathematics courses).
• … or equivalent.
Hard-Skills specific30%

min. 5 CPs

• National / international summer schools.
• Supplementary lab training (in Tübingen or elsewhere).
• NeNa-participation (max. 3CP in total), DZNE student retreat (or equivalent).
• … or equivalent.

Soft-Skills25%2-4 CPs

• Scientific writing, project/time management, etc.
• Active participation in teaching at the GTC or outside of the GTC (lecture, practical course, tutorial, lab visits, supervision of Masterstudents etc.).
• Active participation in organizing events (1 CP max.).
• German language courses (3 CPs max.).
• … or equivalent.

Seminar Series5%3 CPs

• Biweekly, compulsory for doctoral students, 80% rate of attendance as proven by attendance lists, 0.5 CPs per term

The Neurocolloquium is mandatory for PhD students for 2 semesters!

 * ECTS (European Credit Transfer System): 1 credit point (CP) = 30 hours workload.

Occasionally, courses have not been assigned ECTS credit points. In these cases, we recommend that you contact the GTC staff and ask for assistance in calculating the respective course credits (calculations are based on the total workload required to successfully complete a course). You are required to keep track of your successfully completed courses and, ideally, update your course list continuously to ensure of having the up-to-date status of your doctoral studies at any time.Your course list can be found here.