Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) — Attraction in Delft

Okay, so TU Delft’s approach to Hanxin's PhD (and probably a lot of others too) is just... wow. It’s honestly so confusing and kinda shady. The whole thing feels super non-transparent, and no one’s really addressing the issues, which is weird, right?

This PhD was conducted in English yet both the supervisor & co-supervisor have a really bad grasp of the English language...despite teaching & supervising in English. You'd expect highly educated professors & academics to be at least a little fluent in English yet their emails & communication are full of spelling, grammatical & phonetic mistakes here & there.

If you really struggle with the English language yourself you shouldn't be teaching or supervising courses & programs in English. Can you imagine someone with wretched Dutch teaching & supervising Dutch medium courses & programs? That would never happen. But things like the ones mentioned are totally the case here. Future PhD students in English medium doctoral programs- please make sure your supervisors can actually communicate!

The sheer lack of fluency is so evident in the feedback. Everything is apparently "bad" & "very bad" . You'd expect this from an elementary school teacher but not a professor. Your supervisor should be able to give you precise discrete feedback e.g. about your datasets, papers you've read for your literature review (are they old & obsolete? What do the newer ones say? Etc). Once again, if you as a supervisor are unable to use English language dictionaries & thesauruses to express your thoughts coherently, it's best to supervise in your native Dutch & Polish so you don't have to keep searching for words.

The co-supervisor (who didn't publish a single article before graduating from her own PhD) tried to push for both a shorter residency stay & a rushed timeline (

Work here (temporarily) if you don’t want job security and want to become a politician because there’s so much internal politics. People with PhDs still virtually impossible to get a permanent position at this institution (e.g. tenure track). They will try everything not to extend your contract because by the third time they’d have to give you a permanent contract, even if you have secured funding. I do find it rewarding mentoring and teaching the students though, and I liked my colleagues and my job. But unfortunately this place doesn’t treat its employees with dignity. They like spending money on 180 random decoration signs (and other frivolous projects) with lots of text and people’s faces on Mekelweg though, however, because that shows how committed they are to energy...

So proud to be a student in this charming university. TU Delft is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university located in lovely Delft. It was founded on Jan 8th 1842 and original name of Royal Academy for the education of civilian engineers, but then became a polytechnic school. TU Delft has developed over the years into a renowned institution for academic research and education in engineering, technology and applied sciences. The university has a rich history of groundbreaking innovations and contributions to many different fields. TU Delft has made a substantial contribution to the technical landscape both in the NL...