Support for Everyday University Life: Coaching for Students and Early-Career Researchers

Whether it’s organizing your daily academic routine, speaking in front of an audience, or resolving conflicts with advisors, you can receive free coaching at RPTU to help students and doctoral candidates overcome obstacles and find personalized solutions.

On the table are a dinosaur, a Superman figurine, and a small treasure chest. What looks like toys at first glance are part of Dr. Dorit Günther’s daily toolkit. The coach, who uses a systemic counseling approach, works at the Center for Innovation and Digitalization in Studies and Teaching (ZIDiS) at RPTU: She coaches early-career researchers and students who need help with issues related to university life and academia.

Dorit Günther does not dictate which of her objects represents what. The coachees choose the figures themselves and assign them symbolic meaning. The dinosaur, for example, can represent the inner critic who judges one’s own achievements harshly. Opposite it, the Superman figure might serve as a supportive voice. “Sometimes the images help you tap into feelings that are hard to put into words,” says Günther, explaining the approach.

The coaching program has been available since 2015. Dorit Günther has been a coach since 2016, and she has also been mentoring early-career researchers since 2019. Having earned her own Ph.D., she understands the unique demands of doctoral studies from personal experience.

When Freedom Becomes Overwhelming

The concerns of the students and early-career researchers who take advantage of her services—the so-called coachees—vary. Some want to be able to present with more confidence; others are preparing for an international conference or their dissertation defense. Common issues revolve around time management and self-management, self-doubt, or conflicts with advisors.

“A doctoral program, in particular, places high demands on self-organization.”

“A doctoral program, in particular, places high demands on self-organization,” explains Dorit Günther. “Doctoral candidates must largely structure a very large, independent project on their own over the course of several years, and in some cases they also have a job, a family, and children to juggle alongside it.”

To help young scholars overcome their fear of this major challenge, Dorit Günther employs various approaches. For example, she breaks down the seemingly insurmountable mountain into manageable steps and phases with intermediate goals, and helps her coachees set priorities or define milestones. “Sometimes it also helps to set firm deadlines for specific deliverables during coaching sessions. Then I take on the role of a monitor, like a sports coach, thereby relieving the coachee of the burden of self-discipline,” she says.

However, the goal of coaching isn’t necessarily to become more efficient. Dorit Günther reports that she sometimes has to rein in people who already set high standards for themselves: “I then act as an advocate for their well-being and ask, ‘Why are you so hard on yourself?’” This helps those affected uncover what lies behind their pressure to succeed and learn to manage the expectations they place on themselves.

Confronting the Inner Critic

Sometimes, however, practical exercises are also carried out in the safe environment of the coaching room. A doctoral candidate who was preparing for an academic presentation gave a trial run of her 20-minute talk there, while Dorit Günther took on the role of the audience member: “We then worked very specifically on how body language, voice, and speaking pace come across,” she explains.

In such situations, the so-called imposter syndrome often comes to the surface: the feeling of not being able to trust one’s own abilities and achievements despite obvious successes. “Those affected doubt their success,” Dorit Günther explains. “They ask themselves: Is my work good enough? Can I even do all of this?”

If a coachee has become stuck in a certain way of thinking, Dorit Günther likes to use the method known as “circular questioning,” in which the person being coached is asked to describe or assess the situation from a third person’s perspective. For example, by asking, “What would your best friend advise you to do?” the person seeking help is placed in the role of the advisor. “This shift in perspective can help counter one’s own critical thoughts with a more benevolent viewpoint,” she says.

“This shift in perspective can help counter one’s own critical thoughts with a more benevolent viewpoint.”

Collaboration with advisors can also be a topic in coaching. Günther, for example, has worked with doctoral candidates who were caught between the differing expectations of their primary and secondary reviewers or who had difficulty advocating for their own academic interests with an advisor.

Dealing with Conflicts

When conflicts arise, she relies, among other things, on “fact-checking”: What actually happened or was said, and what am I merely assuming about what the other person expects of me? Where can and do I want to make changes, and what might I need to accept? Once the situation is clearer, it becomes easier to decide where it’s worth standing up for one’s own interests.

Coaching Is Open-Ended

No matter what issue those seeking help are dealing with, every coaching session begins with an initial consultation. During this consultation, the coach and coachee jointly agree on the goal they want to work toward and clarify what the coaching can—and cannot—achieve.

Technical questions about the dissertation, for example, are the responsibility of the department’s faculty advisors. In cases of mental illness or psychological disorders, Dorit Günther refers clients to the psychosocial counseling center at RPTU and other professional psychotherapeutic services.

The outcome of the consultation is deliberately left open. Günther recalls a person who came to her to overcome their own procrastination and continue their doctoral studies. “The dissertation had long since become a burden that was being carried on primarily due to external expectations,” Günther explains.

In the end, therefore, the outcome was not the continuation of the dissertation, but the decision to abandon it. For Dorit Günther, this, too, was a successful coaching process: “The person realized for themselves what they wanted and experienced the decision as a great relief.” The key, she says, is for coachees to gain clarity and develop a solution that works for them.

A Free Service

In addition to individual coaching, ZIDiS also offers peer case consultation for doctoral candidates: One person presents a specific challenge from their professional life, and the other participants examine the issue from different perspectives and develop possible solutions. A coach facilitates the process. This service can be requested by small groups of three or more people.

Coaching is open to all RPTU students and early-career researchers

The free coaching service is open to all students and early-career researchers at RPTU. On average, a coaching program consists of four sessions. Some issues are resolved after just two sessions, while other processes may take up to eight sessions. The sessions take place either online via the data-protection-compliant video conferencing system or in person in the ZIDiS coaching room on the Kaiserslautern campus.

Anyone seeking support simply needs to be willing to reflect on their own situation and work on making changes themselves. Or, as Dr. Dorit Günther puts it: “Come see us if you’re facing challenges related to university life, want to gain more clarity about your situation, and want to make positive changes.”