Testimonials "what I liked best" from participants about courses of the SSPH+ Inter-university Graduate Campus

Course testimonials 2023

Basics of Scientific Writing in English: A Structured Method for Organizing and Writing Better, Faster Papers, February 2023

  • This was one of the best courses (if not the best course) I have ever taken. - I was able to benefit greatly from the teachers's vast knowledge of the field. - It was enriching to hear about her experiences she gained over the many years she has been in the field. - We got a lot of very practical and helpful tips (e.g. how to deal with reviewers, how to use the outline view) - much of the content was completely new to me and very interesting - The effort the teacher made to give us all written feedback on our assignments in such a short period of time Thank you for this exceptionally helpful course!

  • Brilliant course, very structured, clear slides and language, fast-paced and engaging, packed with extremely helpful tipps and and great exercises. I also appreciated the regular breaks as they helped me stay fresh and concentrated. This is really one of the best and most useful courses I have taken as a PhD, I'm very thankful for it!

  • The teacher did a wonderful job of giving an all-rounder course in scientific writing. She shared her experience, gave very helpful tips, and talked also about the right mindset. I would recommend this class to anyone in the field. Even further, I think all starting PhD students would benefit from this tremendously. When you are at the beginning of a PhD journey, it might be even easier to implement many of the approaches taught.

Understanding Social Inequalities and Social Problems in Health!, April 2023

  • Very relevant (and not often properly covered) topic for public health; 2) Very relevant reading materials; 3) Course very well structured, with clear topics, theoretical presentations, and individual and group activities to discuss and apply these concepts; 4) Very approachable and engaged presenter.

  • The lecturer is fantastic and topic is very related to health research

  • I appreciated the fact that both theoretical concepts and their practical applications were presented. That helped me understand the concepts. I enjoyed preparing and delivering the final group presentation; working together has given us a lot of opportunities to network.

Big Data in Public Health, May 2023

  • This was an extremely enjoyable class. The content and lecturers were excellent, as were the students. I thoroughly loved it.
  • The interesting ideas presented by the professors (own) experiences. I enjoyed getting to know in more detail their projects, ideas and opportunities to use big data in different areas.
  • Excellent lecturers and coordination. Excellent content. I really enjoyed the course 100%.

Course testimonials 2022

Forced Migration: Sexual and Reproductive Health of Migrant Women, March 2022

  • It is hard to point out one thing I found best, because the whole course went beyond my expectations. Not only was I constantly engaged, I was also deeply moved by the research presented by the various talks. This course must be repeated.

  • The broad variety of perspectives, interdisciplinary experts that really made a great holistic understanding of the topic. The lecturers were very understanding and did a great job in making a pleasant atmosphere were I never felt shy to askquestions and they took their time to explain everyone’s questions. I also liked that they gave their personal opinions and evaluations on actual political questions and evolvements. I also loved to meet students from other disciples and associations in the breaks and chat since it has been.

  • Everything was so well organized and the atmosphere was so kind, accepting and still so professional. It was Eye Opening and I will strongly recommend it to everyone, as I believe it affects all health professions. The opportunity hear about different research projects and the relation to the situation in Switzerland just made it a well round course.

Understanding social inequalities and social problems in health!,  April 2022

  • This course exceeded my expectations. I liked the idea to link what we learnt to our PhD projects.

  • I liked looking at inequalities through the different sociological and economic lenses, this was something new for me. The course was structured well- I liked that the lecturers explained the 3 theories in class instead of expecting the students to be fully versed in the subject matter.
  • The group work teachers gave a really good summary of each author and helped to understand the different concepts.

Big Data in Public Health, May 2022

  • The course was structured well such that it allowed for interactions, networking and general discussions. The lecturers are experts in the field and their ability to help you with your side projects was really good.

  • I like the selection of lecturers. It was diverse. Also like the level of interaction in the class and the flexibility of the lecturers.
  • The ethics workshop and the lecture on integrity/reproducibility etc. in particular were very engaging - I'd recommend any researcher in the medical sciences to attend them!

Life Course Epidemiology and Public Health, June 2022

  • The teachers were experts. They were talking about the real experience in the field. Also different background.

  • I liked the presentations by different professors.
  • A nice overview of the life course approach.

Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning & Healthcare,  Aug/ Sep 2022

  • I thought the topic of the course was interesting, and the self-guided exercises helped with understanding. The real-life examples were also good, as well as discussions of ethical implications.

  • The content was really new and feltlike I really came out of this course with a lot of new knowledge. I enjoyed going over the evaluation as it helped reflect on the concepts. Since it was a lot of new information, it was challenging to digest everything within a short timeframe, and the recap and review of the evaluation helped to reinforce material that may not have sunk in yet. The guided exercises and lecture were really helpful.

  • Excellent overview of the different ML, AI and DL approaches in healthcare, that was general enough, but also went into sufficient detail. Enjoyed the practical exercises using python.

Foundations of Public Health Sciences, Sept / Oct 2022

  • Great courses on health promotion and examples.

  • Great expertise and teaching approach.

  • I really liked all examples.

Introduction to the Statistical Software R, September 2022

  • The combination of lectures and exercises, the flexibility and the humor of the teacher, that I got an understanding of a quite complex topic, that we got the scripts for the exercices, the workshop was super helpful.
  • The active participatory aspect was excellent. The lecturer created a very pleasant environment for active participation. The practical and hands on approach was great.

  • The course is well structured and everything was explained in a clear and understandable way. Very helpful for first year PhD students.

Missing data in observational epidemiologic studies including non-detects, September 2022

  • I liked the exercises that followed the explanation/ lecture that help us to understand the lecture better. Also, it was also nice to know R code before hand which made understanding coding with R easier.

  • The first part of the course was very well done. Practicals were helpful. The slides and the materials provided were very detailed.
  • I was interested to learn a method in handling the missing data. It was nice that the lecturer helped us with the R codes and conducted R sessions simultaneously with the lecturer, which made it much better to understand the example and exercises.

Introduction to Health Economics, October / November 2022

  • The lessons were really well done and very interesting. . The welcome, the place, the atmosphere. A very good week! A big thank you for the meals all together :)

  • The course is very well organized. I appreciate the fact that all lecturers are from different universities and are expert in their fields of research. This course did not bring so much mathematic formulas so it is easy to follow for newcomers to the world of health economic.

  • I also like that the course organizer take us for lunch everyday and the group dinner was very fun and interesting, it gave us opportunity to socialize with other students.
  • The lecturers, on the whole, were excellent. They explained key concepts of health economics very well without overcomplicating the subjects. The examples given were relevant to the students in the class and it was also great to get a chance to ask them questions about their recent papers. The frontier topics taught were really great too (especially disability economics and ageing) as we got to explore some concepts that are under-discussed.

Qualitative Health Research: BASIC module: Defining and developing qualitative research in public health,  November 2022

  • As an epidemiologist with a quantitative background i really enjoyed learning about a new topic (qualitative analysis). The lecturers were good, the material was displayed well and the content was relatable. I enjoyed it a lot and signed up for the advanced module. thank you!

  • The lecturers were really good,approachable, flexible.
  • The group works were really interesting and helpful.

Qualitative Health Research : ADVANCED module: Appraising qualitative health research, November 2022

  • I liked the selection of the topics and the groupworks.

  • I liked the guidance and also help during the breaks and after the course. I could address all my questions and therefore improve a lot in my knowledge also about evaluation a qualitative research paper.

  • The practical aspect of thecourse enriched my knowledge of qualitative methods.

Public Health Nutrition, November 2022

  • I really liked that the course was very interactive and practical

  • I liked the practical approach (having exercises instead of a lot of theory) and working on a case study to apply what we learnt.

  • Lecturers were extremely helpful and approachable. I enjoyed the interactive and practical aspects of the course.

GIS for Public Health, November 2022

  • I liked the practical approach (having exercises instead of a lot of theory) and working on acase study to apply what we learnt.

  • Lecturers were extremely helpful and approachable. I enjoyed the interactive and practicalaspects of the course.

  • The possiblity to work with own PhD data during the case study.

Public health surveillance and population health monitoring, December 2022

  • The lectures by those working in health authorities in Switzerland were especially great to give students a taste of the reality of designing public health policy interventions given limited data. The exercise of coming up with a surveillance system for a specific health issue was also helpful to let students think through the challenges of designing a surveillance system. The course organizers also placed helpful emphasis on thinking of different audiences for specific surveillance data presentations. Overall, the course was really insightful in shedding light on the realities of surveillance data collection and use in Switzerland.

  • The topic was very interesting and the presenters were very well prepared. The courseoffered several occasions for networking.

  • Enjoyed the breadth of lecturers. As I am not as familiar with the Swiss public healthsystem, including examples and an explanation of the system was welcomed. I alsoenjoyed a majority of the group exercises.

Course testimonials 2021

Introduction into multilevel modellingof clustered data, June/  July 2021

  • The is very skilled in explaining, putting things in simpler terms. It was very helpful how he explained which analysis makes sense in what situations (or did not make any sense).

  • I liked the examples and the fact that during the practicals we worked with real data sets. Its very good that for every slide the teacher went to stata and could create and output for explanation. I came with some previous knowledge in this kind of models, but the teacher
    was able to fill my knowledge gaps and give very interesting suggestions based on his experience!
  • Repetition of concepts with examples and practicals. Thinking about and presentation of own research.

Migration Health, December 2021

  • The course brought together an incredible panel of professionals offering their great expertise and experience in a highly engaging way. The course was well-structured, engaging and highly informative. The discussed matter spanned a very broad set of topics related to migration and health, offering compact insights into every single aspect without becoming overwhelming. Overall, it was an extremely valuable and enjoyable experience and I learnt a lot.

  • Different perspectives and multifaceted approach on migrants health and tackling upcoming challenges. Countering narratives on migration and how people with migrant background are perceived.

  • The diverse group of lecturers/presenters who come from different backgrounds and working environments.

2hour online courses from postdocs for IGC students

  • I like the format, very informative.

  • I appreciate the short courses. Enjoyed it!

  • Format is good and useful for gaining initial knowledge. Having several of these units would allow us engage more on the topic

  • I think the time is adequate if we consider the course as an introduction to a topic. The activities within the class help make it more engaging.

  • I very much appreciated the practical aspects of the training, important concepts were reminded as we learned.

  • I think these short courses online are very helpful. The topic was very well presented and it made it possible to get to know the topic and in case we want to dive deeper we can invest time on our owns to be more familiarised with help of the resources that are going to be provided by the lecturers.