PhD to PhD: Kevin Poljsak

Kevin Poljsak is a doctoral student in the differential geometry working group of the wwu and is supervised by Burkhard Wilking.
He does his thesis in the field of geometric evolution equations. There he studies the rigidity of Einstein manifolds with positive scalar curvature with methods from Ricci Flow.
In this interview he would like to share his experiences so far during his doctorate with you.

Why did you choose Münster for your PhD?
Since I already did my Bachelor and Master here, Münster was a canonical choice for me. I already got in touch with the working group beforehand and was very happy when I got the offer to do my PhD here.

How was the beginning of your PhD and what would have been nice to know beforehand?
When I started my PhD in November 2018, I did not really know how to begin. So, I started to learn some new stuff related to my interests. After a while, my advisor introduced me to a possible topic for my PhD project. I also went to some conferences and met new people. When starting a PhD, you should not feel ashamed to ask each question which pops up in your mind. Get connected with other PhD students and talk regularly about your problems.

How did you find your research topic?
My research topic is related to a problem that people of my working group have been trying to solve for some years now. Since I already thought about similar problems in my master thesis it made sense to go deeper into this area.

How was your supervision up to this point and how is the relationship to your supervisor?
I am very happy with my supervision up to this point. Every time when I am talking to my supervisor I notice that he is not only interested in me solving the problem but he is also interested in the problem itself, so that it feels like working on my problem is not only important for my interest but also for the mathematical community.

What would you like to have done differently during your PhD?
At some point you have to realize that if you don’t understand anything that it doesn’t make sense to continue working on that but to move forward and come back to your problem afterwards. At the beginning I thought about some things for a long time. After I had been on holiday, I forgot about them and when I came back to the same question half a year later it was easy to solve.

Do you already have a plan for the time after your doctorate?
I still do not know what that to do afterwards. I will think about my preferences and interests in the next few months and decide whether I want to stay in academia or not during the final phase of my PhD.

Do you have any advises for the other MMGS members?
Do not forget to enjoy the city during your time here. Münster is not just a nice place to work but also to live.