HDR Retreat at Kiola

Published in the Research School of Physics Event Horizon
Vol43 Issue44 20–24 November 2017

The event was designed by a student committee that had at least one
representative from each department at varying stages of their research
degree. Having no precedence, for this event at first it was difficult
to envision it. However, after the first meeting few things were clear:
we didn't know our peers, we wanted to meet our peers and know what
they're doing, and we didn't have time to organise dozens of activies
for 50+ students. Our first meeting might make us sound like a lazy
committee, but from it we realised we could create an event that would
not only suit us as HDR organisers, but that we believed was suitable
for HDR sudents.

Of the structured events at the retreat there were student-run workshops
including: a mental well being session (run with assistance of the ANU
Counselling Centre), tips and tricks on for writing and organising code
specifically for collaboration, hints for success with social media as a
scientist, an open discussion about the highs and lows of life as a HDR
student, and some tools and techniques for night-sky image
processing. On going and pre-planned activities included a treasure hunt
filled with riddles and physics problems, and a mouse trap race car
engineering challenge.

The rest of the retreat was a bit more experimental, as far as retreats
go. Upon registering for the retreat students were asked what they could
offer to add to the retreat. More explicitly, along the lines of: "with
minimal cost to yourself, what's something you bring and share with your
peers?". There was no restriction to this being a physical item and the
results were quite exciting.

Creative knowledge was a common share; offering to teach origami,
knitting, swing dancing, and photography for example. Items were also
prominent: musical instruments, playing cards, tea, coffee, cookies, and
chocolate. Services (so to speak) also, we had many student
photographers documenting the event at their leisure. Shares also ranged
to the social abstract e.g. "I will provide much needed sarcasm", or
"I'll introduce you to people". These answers were collated into a
handbook, so that attendees saw what their peers had to offer.

Giving students plenty of unstructured time, and essentially
distributing the organising of activities meant the retreat became an
inter-team/department collaboration. Exactly what we were trying to
achieve, albeit in a relaxed and safe social sense.

By day two, there were no barriers to join whomever was enjoying a
relaxed walk or morning run down the beach. On the flip side, somewhat
spontaneously a non-stop overnight session of students learning machine
learning emerged and drew quite a crowd of curious physicists eager to
learn too. Generally, students were engaged, and willing to take on
responsibility and help. The post-event survey is out and we're sure
there is room for improvement in future iterations.

While the activities were driven by the students, we can not give enough
thanks to our HDR Student Administrator, Karen Nulty. Karen has worked
tirelessly to organise not only the logistics of getting 55 students
down to the campus and feeding them for two days, but also to encourage
and drive the organising committee into making the retreat's first
iteration the best it could be. Thanks must also be given to Luda
Mangos, Lan Fu, and Tim Senden for their support and encouragement of
this retreat from the beginning.

Aqeel Akber
Ph.D Candidate, Nuclear Physics.
Lead Organiser for the 2017 Physics HDR Retreat.