Dr. Simone Veld is PhD mentor at the Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities. PhD candidates can ask her for coaching and advice.

Are you a PhD candidate at the Faculty for Humanities and

- are you having a hard time planning your work and meeting your deadlines?
- do you suffer from fear of failure, perfectionism or insecurity?
- do you often feel stressed or overwhelmed at work?
- do you and your supervisor not get along very well?

In any of these cases, Simone can help you. She is a qualified coach and can provide you with the coaching that you need to be able to reach your goals with less effort while experiencing more joy.

A PhD candidate shares her experiences with you:

"I was advised to contacting Simone Veld by our Research Coordinator. I did wonder how it could help (it helped magnificently). A change that happened quickly after the first meetings is that I could see things clearer, could put a finger on what was troubling me. That helped in changing these issues. It  took a bit longer for me to be able to generate this “clearness” myself. At first I always needed Simone to point me towards a problem and potential solutions, but after a while I learned to do that myself. Another thing that changed only later was my calmness. Through experiencing that things can work out, and learning how to deal with them, I got more relaxed in my everyday work.

It’s always good to meet Simone Veld. Even if you don’t have a concrete problem, it’s good to get an outsider’s perspective on things, to just talk to someone. Simone has an open ear for anything you want to tell her, and an uncanny ability to ask the right questions. She also has nice tea :-). Next to the open ear and the sharp questions, it sometimes really helped to visualise things, to make an overview, connect possibilities and consequences. I often took a photo of the whiteboard to not lose that overview. Generally, the use of tools helped, for example her idea to get a grip on time planning with a smart excel table. I’m still using that.

I profited a lot from the talks with Simone. Sometimes on the more abstract level in that I got more relaxed or gained an insight or understanding about myself or my situation and how to deal with it. Sometimes on a more concrete level in that I got concrete help in making a time plan or decision.

Sometimes people seem to think they need some major “issues” in order to justify a meeting with Simone. But that’s not true. You can meet her for anything. For anxieties, sure, but also just for wanting to find out how best to approach the writing phase of your dissertation. Or how to make a plan for a stressful period, how to generate more output (or learn why you can’t at this moment, and to accept this and be calm about it). Even things like planning a lecture that you have been asked to give, or troubles you may be having with students (or a specific student). Or about life issues in general, such as the future, or problems you are having with friends or partners. I would advise anyone to set up a meeting with Simone Veld."