Admission requirements
This course is obligatory for all MSc students Chemistry and all MSc students Life Science & Technology. The course Academic and Professional Skills 1 is taught twice a year.
Description
The Academic and Professional Skills 1 is composed of two modules: 1) Academic Skills and 2) Career Orientation (WORK).
Academic Skills
A scientist needs to master an extensive set of academic skills at an advanced level. In this course, students learn the essential transferable skills for use in their future careers. These include e.g. good scientific conduct, literature searches and interpretation of publications, academic writing skills including ethical use of large language models, design of clear and attractive graphs and figures, and peer review.
Students are expected to prepare various skills modules and put these into practice with exercises during classes and in homework assignments. A writing assignment will be handed out and students improve their texts based on feedback from peer-review sessions.
WORK
WORK comprises several activities and workshops to create awareness of the job market and give students insight into their skills, abilities and weaknesses.
Course objectives
At the end of this course the student is able to:
explain the principles of scientific integrity and apply appropriate guidelines to ensure transparency, reproducibility, and responsible conduct in their own scientific work.
recognise diverse dilemmas that put pressure on their scientific integrity and discuss guidelines that provide direction for action.
conduct library and online research to gather relevant academic sources.
identify, compile and organise scientific literature relevant to their field of study using reliable data bases and a reference manager.
read, analyse and appraise scientific papers using principles of structure and function of scientific literature.
write concise and coherent texts in academic English.
improve texts using a given set of criteria.
evaluate texts written by peers using a set of criteria informed by the standards of the field of study and provide constructive feedback.
employ AI tools responsibly to support literature searches, writing processes and software development.
employ digital tools to create figures and graphs that meet the standards of the field of study.
have an improved view of their knowledge, skills, experience, goals and study choices at the start of their programme.
reflect on their skills, their strong points and points for improvement, based on the experiences of their major research project.
Timetable
Schedule information can be found on the website of the programmes.
In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
Mode of instruction
Self-study from online videos and the skills platform.
Exercise classes.
Assessment method
Attendance at classes, completion of homework and participation is mandatory.
Grade is a pass/fail.
Reading list
All reading material will be made available on Brightspace.
Registration
As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.
There are two enrolment periods per year:
Enrolment for the fall opens in July
Enrolment for the spring opens in December
See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.
Note:
It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.
Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.
Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.
Important: There are only 30 places available per block
Contact
Remarks
Assignment deadlines are communicated via Brightspace.
According to OER article 4.8, students are entitled to view their marked examination for a period of 30 days following the publication of the results of a written examination. Students should contact the lecturer to make an appointment for such an inspection session.
Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.