Interview with a doctoral student

Hello, can you tell us a little about yourself?

Hi, my name is Tibor Tenji living in Budapest, Hungary. I am a first-year doctoral student in the Innovation and Sustainable Business Management in Digital Society programme. My lifelong learning attitude pursued me to obtain degrees in electrical engineering, informatics, lean six sigma master and recently two masters with distinction from two renowned UK Universities. Such an educational path firmly determined innovation to become my field of interest during my professional career.

What motivated you to pursue a doctoral programme?

My reason for enrolling on the doctoral programme is twofold. On the one hand, it motivates me to pursue a terminal qualification because it will enhance my research skill to the highest level and enable me to tackle complex development challenges I face in my workplace effectively. On the other hand, by obtaining a doctoral degree, I plan to pursue a postdoc placement within one of the online educational institutions as an external lecturer.

How did you find out about the DOBA doctoral programme?

I searched the Internet for a doctoral program in the field of innovation. More precisely, every University and programme I found appropriate was discovered on the Internet.

So, you had more alternatives?

Yes, I had several other options before I found DOBA. If I remember well, there were several programmes from the US, UK, Switzerland, and France that I have evaluated.

What determined the final decision that made you choose the DOBA?

I subjected Universities, Faculties and programmes I collected to a criteria system. I have set up the following five 'must-have' criteria that were important to me. First: the study mode must be online; second: the teaching language must be English; third: the supervision of my research topic in the field of innovation shall be available; fourth: the programme must have affordable tuition; and fifth: University or Faculty and delivered doctoral programme must be nationally accredited. It is worth noting that unlike many other online programs worldwide, the DOBA Faculty and its programmes, including the doctoral one, are nationally accredited. More precisely, these are fully accredited and recognized by the Slovenian Ministry for higher education, science, and technology. Also, DOBA Faculty's degree programs are fully compliant with the Bologna Process and operate within the European Credit Transfer System, which additionally supported my decision. So, in the case of the DOBA Faculty, all five criteria were fully met, which was not the case with other options.

What particularly piqued your interest in this doctoral programme?

In addition to the above five criteria related to the Faculty, when I came across the DOBA doctoral programme, I was really impressed with the interdisciplinary approach, including innovation, and bringing in sustainability which I thought was unique and very up-to-date.

You are approaching the end of the programme's first year. So, what was it like to study in the doctoral programme so far?

Simply said, it was truly great. I noticed several remarkable good things related to the programme. First, the structure of the programme and interaction of courses with the dissertation proposal writing is wisely designed. Namely, the sequence of courses follows the logic of the dissertation proposal's writing, which I found very useful. For instance, the first course, the Philosophy and Theory of Science, helped clarify my research philosophy. Once I defined the research philosophy of my dissertation, I learned further about the research methods during the second course, which helped me in my proposal writing process. The same benefit came with the third and fourth courses as well.

Second, the interactive mode of studying through forum discussions with fellow students is really cool. We can exchange our opinions and learn through discussions. I also enjoyed the webinars as another helpful way of interacting with classmates and teachers.

Last but not least, our professors are fully supportive, responsive and professional in their subjects. Also, when I wrote my first and subsequent updates of the dissertation proposal over the previous four months, I received immense support from my supervisors, Dr Živa Veingerl Čič and Dr Marko Divjak. It made the process of writing the proposal a wonderful but intense experience.

What do you like the most about the programme? 

I really enjoyed the learning topics from which I acquired new knowledge that broadened my horizons in my field of interest. I also like the weekly structure of courses that allowed me to complete the course with a better weekly balanced workload. It maintained my learning pace and kept me focused on the weekly task completion. The e-library is great. It gives me access to several databases that I have already used and found helpful in the literature review of my research topic.

If you were to encourage somebody to apply, which attractive features would you emphasize?

The DOBA doctoral programme is a flexible and supportive online learning programme that could be the best choice for students looking to balance further study with professional or family commitments. There is nothing comparable online doctoral programme to DOBA in the innovation research field. When evaluating the quality of the Faculty and doctoral programme against my criteria, I found DOBA the best choice among other strong candidates. Finally, given the advanced innovative culture of Slovenia's developed industries and renowned companies, I would encourage any candidate who wants to reach Pinnacle in innovation studies to choose the prestigious Slovenian Faculty, DOBA.