As a member of the PhD Council, Michaela Kaneva, PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology, keeps hearing the same bottlenecks: unclear expectations, differences between departments (how many papers are you actually supposed to write?) and a timeline that starts slipping quickly. “Finishing within four years is a big issue. And not everything is in the hands of the PhD candidate themselves.”
That’s why, she says, PhD candidates are also a vulnerable group: lots of uncertainty, high pressure, little mental space. And then there’s supervision: important, of course, but supervisors are busy too. That’s exactly why the PhD Onboarding Day exists: “as first stepping stones and to give you answers to the questions above, so you don’t have to figure everything out the hard way.”
What you get out of the PhD Onboarding Day
1. You get clarity: who do you contact for what?
“The onboarding day gives an overview of whom you can approach for what, and who is available.” It sounds insignificant, but when you’re lost in offices, procedures, and abbreviations, it can be the difference between muddling through and getting help quickly.
2. Your rights become concrete (and that’s often new)
What really stuck with Michaela was the session on PhD rights. “I actually knew very little about that, to be honest.” She’d studied and worked in the Netherlands before starting her PhD, so she already knew that doing a PhD here counts as a job: “The Netherlands is one of the few countries where you do a PhD as a job.” Still, the details of the labour agreements, and the rights tied to them, were new to her. “For internationals who’ve only just arrived in the Netherlands, that knowledge gap can be even bigger, especially if they come from a system where a PhD isn’t considered employment.”
She mentions one example explicitly: “You are entitled to a substantial period of sick leave without having to over-justify yourself or completely overhaul your trajectory.”
3. Normalizing helps: imposter syndrome
Another insight that made her first months easier: imposter syndrome (doubting yourself despite being capable) is very common. “In the first half-year there’s often a lot of preparation and orientation, and you may feel like you’re not doing anything. That everyone around you is so smart and productive, and that you’re lost or not productive enough.” Hearing this is a normal, shared experience, helped. And learning how to get through that phase, too.
She also links it to perfectionism: “Many PhD candidates set the bar high and can suffer mentally under those expectations. Knowing those feelings are common, helps a lot.”
Are you starting out as a PhD candidate too?
For Michaela, the PhD Onboarding Day isn’t just useful, it’s simply time well spent: “I did not plan to stay the whole day, but it turned out to be worth staying the whole day.” And this year there’s an extra reason to go: “We will share three stories from people about what they wish they had known when they started their PhD.”
Register for the PhD Onboarding Day on 29 January 2026.