The student seminar held in November 2023 was the fourth student seminar I participated in, and also the second—and final—seminar for me as a second-year doctoral student. Unlike master’s students and first-year doctoral students, second-year doctoral students are required to give a significantly longer presentation: 20 minutes for the presentation followed by a 10-minute Q&A session. In comparison, students at other levels only present for 10 minutes with a 5-minute Q&A.

This difference in duration made the preparation for this seminar considerably more challenging. As in the previous year, I was not allowed to reuse research results that I had already presented during the student seminar as a first-year doctoral student. Research from the previous year could only be introduced briefly, and even then, it was limited to a single PowerPoint slide.

With the longer presentation time, there were theoretically two possible strategies: extending the background section or presenting more research data. At first glance, expanding the background might seem like the “safer” way to fill the time. However, this approach was immediately rejected by my supervisor. According to him, the background should be kept concise, while the main focus should be placed on research data and results. The reasoning was simple but convincing: the more data presented, the clearer it becomes that substantial research work has been carried out. Moreover, having a large amount of data would be extremely helpful later when writing subsequent journal papers.

In addition to preparing the presentation slides, there was another important aspect to consider: anticipating questions. With a 10-minute Q&A session, the number and variety of questions would naturally increase—ranging from short, straightforward questions to those requiring more detailed explanations. To prepare for this, I tried to predict possible questions from professors and fellow students well in advance. Based on those predictions, I prepared appendix slides containing additional figures or supporting data, which could be quickly used to provide clearer and more efficient explanations during the discussion.

As a second-year doctoral student, aside from the challenge of the longer presentation, there was also one small thing to be grateful for. Second-year doctoral students are usually scheduled to present early in the session. This meant that once my presentation was over, I could relax a little and simply wait for the rest of the students to finish their presentations.