Welcome to Gopher clubs — groups of PhD students united by a common hobby. Members of each club meet regularly to have a good time together.
You can join one of the existing Gopher clubs, or even start your own one. If you are interested in starting a new club, let us know! The Gopher board is happy to help out with the planning and organization of Gopher clubs.
Tabletop club
Are you into card/board/dice-games? Great! We play them all at the Gopher Tabletop Club. We usually meet once per month to have some boardgame fun. Depending on the number of attendees we play one game with the whole group or split up into multiple groups. Currently, we are usually around 5-10 players, so we would be happy to welcome new boardgame-fans.
We have some club board games, but please feel free to expand our repertoire by bringing your own games when you join us!
SciComm Writing Club
Do you procrastinate writing your papers/thesis as well? Do you want to improve your scientific writing? MindMint offers the scientific writing club! We are a community of young researchers that are generally curious and interested in improving our writing skills. Through monthly meetings and workshops, we will help you develop your ideas and guide you in your thought process to get those papers published!"
If interested, join our whatsapp community and get all the updates about our future meetings and workshops!
Sports Club
We are currently looking for enthusiastic administrators for this club! If you are interested please email gopher@rug.nl
Squash, padel, running, workshops, tips & tricks and a blossoming community!
Gopher Book Club
We read and discuss a nice book every month.
Arts & Crafts Club
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Join our vibrant arts & crafts club! Spark creativity, make friends, and explore different artistic techniques in a supportive, fun environment.
Dinner Club
The Dinner Club is all about bringing people together over delicious dinners. You’ll have the chance to share meals and conversation with fellow PhD students, and it’s all designed to fit around your busy schedule.
• Sign Up: Indicate which dates work for you and how often you’d like to meet (weekly, bi-weekly, etc.).
• Get Matched: We’ll create groups of 4-6 people, taking into account any dietary needs and preferences.
• Decide Together: Decide as a group how you’ll organize your dinners—whether cooking together, rotating cooking duties, or choosing another fun approach. You also pick the location!
And meet here the enthusiastic admins of the Gopher clubs!
From left to right, top row: Dora,, Euan, Marieke
Bottom row: Hamid & Özde
Euan - Sports Club: Hello folks! I'm Euan, the admin of the GOPHER running club. I am a 2nd year PhD student in Evolutionary biology. I am relatively new to running, only having picked it up over the last 2 years over lockdown (there was nothing else to do, was there?), but I love it! We hope to use this club to bring together other running enthusiasts and cater it for people of all levels of experience.
Marieke – Book Club: Hello, hello, fellow book worms! My name is Marieke and I’m a 2nd year PhD student in Pharmacometabolomics. Besides my lab activities, I enjoy playing squash, exploring long-distance hiking trails, and relaxing with a (hopefully good) book and a mug of hot tea. In the book club, we vote for the next read and meet up (offline or online) to discuss the book 6 weeks later. Keen to join? Use the QR code to join our WhatsApp group and become a member of the book club!
Hamid - Table Top Club: Hi board game lovers, I am Hamid, the admin of the Gopher Table Top Club. I do my PhD in Computer Science and am currently in my 3rd year. I like to play board games with friends and want to play with you as well! I have some board games but feel free to bring your own favourite games when you join us. We usually play together once per month. Time and place of our meetings will be communicated via our WhatsApp group. See you there!
Özde - Arts & Crafts Club: Hey there, lovely people! I'm Özde, currently in my first year in the pursuit of a PhD at the Faculty of Medical Sciences. Thanks to my mum, I picked up a bunch of nifty crafty hobbies like knitting, jewelry making, painting, and more growing up. During the lockdown, I decided to spice things up even more by exploring punch needling, crafting with clay, playing the ukulele, and, of course, diving into the cozy world of crocheting. It turns out, crocheting is just right for me and it quickly became one of my absolute favorite pastimes. I'm always up for learning new crafts – I've even recently started exploring the art of cross-stitching. Come join me at the Arts & Crafts Club, where we'll not only expand our crafty knowledge but also have a blast doing it! It's a fantastic opportunity to celebrate our shared love for artistic expression and connect with fellow PhDs who share our passion! Can't wait to meet you all! 🎨✨
Dora - SciComm Writing Club: Hi all! I’m Dora, the admin of the Scientific Writing Club and the chief editor at MindMint. I'm currently in the final stretch of my PhD at the Faculty of Medical Sciences. At MindMint, we are restarting the Scientific Writing Club to discuss and help with writing struggles, from conceptualizing ideas to offering feedback on written pieces. We are also here to discuss our research interests and how to write about them to a broader audience. Whether you would like to have more support in writing your papers or you already have a great idea on a blogpost for the MindMint website, we welcome everyone!