If you’re about to start your PhD, this is the blog post for you. It will be an exciting and chaotic time when you start, especially if you’re moving to a new city but I hope this blog post will help make it an organised chaos so you feel ready to experience what is to come! Being a bit of a planner, I did all of these things when I first started and it really helped reassure me that I was on the right track.  

Everyone’s PhD journey will vary depending on the type of research you’re doing and your background prior to the PhD, but this should apply to all PhD candidates, keeping in mind that things will change and you will need to adapt when the time comes. This is why I would recommend you try to hash out the plan for the first year of your PhD in more detail and keep the remaining years relatively open, then have regular checkpoints where you can reassess for the future. 

Requirements 

Starting off, you should have an understanding of requirements you need to meet throughout your PhD. Using my 3-year MB PhD timeline at Manchester as an example (figure below), I submit a literature review 3 months after starting, then at the end of 1st year I submit a 1st-year continuation report and do a viva with 2 examiners. Pending I pass the continuation report and viva portion, I go into 2nd year and submit a 2nd year report at the end of my 2nd year. In my 3rd year, I submit my thesis around mid-August of that year and return to medical school in September. If you’re not on an MB PhD, the specifics towards the end of your PhD will be different since you won’t be returning to medical school like me. When you submit your thesis depends on any extensions you might get for your work and when your PhD funding runs out. You don’t need to know the full details of what you need to do at each checkpoint but having a general idea helps.

Your institution will have some sort of system for PhD students to track completion of various requirements like the ones that I mention above. You might also have mandatory events and induction to attend so it is a good idea to take the time to familiarise yourself with said system and the deadlines for each task.

Your Project and Supervisory Team

I recommend that you arrange to speak to all your supervisors individually when you first start your PhD. This will give you the opportunity to build rapport with them and they will likely give you some initial advice. For example, one of my supervisors recommended that I start creating potential figures and tables for my thesis and keep track of those throughout my PhD so I make my life easier when I come to write my thesis. They can also give you advice on things like your literature review closer to the time. You can also use this time to figure out the frequency of supervisory meetings and one cool tip I have is to create a “user guide” to yourself document to bring to those meetings! A future blog post on this is to follow but during my first supervisory meeting, I had this document ready which explained what I felt I needed in terms of supervision and my main supervisor found this very useful to reference. 

These initial meetings are also an opportunity for you to discuss available funding for your project and the breakdown for that so you can understand your budget for research consumables, if you have any funding set aside for travel to courses and conferences, opportunities to present your work at meetings and so on. 

Logistics

Now here come the nitty gritty bits that will allow you to actually do your research. You will need to understand what type of training and induction sessions you need to access your building and specific facilities/instruments. You will also need to find out what extra approvals/training you need for things like out of hours access to your building (which probably will be needed a bit further on once you become more independent) and access to things like liquid nitrogen storage. Along the same lines, you will also need to build a list of contacts: who to approach for day-to-day support and people you might need to approach for specific techniques/facilities. 

Finances 

It’s obvious for me to say but this is very important so you have money to live on! If you get a stipend/salary for your PhD, you will need to make sure you’re registered with your university and provide your bank account details in time to receive your first salary (believe me, that’s where things usually go wrong). If you end up not getting paid in time, make sure to contact your Doctoral Academy and supervisor so they’re aware of the issue and can help. 

With part-time work, I wouldn’t recommend that you get into a role when you first start just to give yourself some time to settle in and figure out your schedule. When you first start your PhD however, you can look into potential roles e.g. being a graduate teaching assistant where PhD students can teach at lab/practical sessions or being a student ambassador so you know when you can apply and what is needed for the application. Part-time work can be a good way to supplement your income but please remember that your PhD is ultimately the priority! 

Conclusion 

The first year of your PhD is all about finding your feet. It is normal to feel lost, you will feel like you don’t know what you’re doing but eventually that will improve. The things I mention here should give you a foundation to build on but remember, a lot of people around you will have experience with the issues you might experience so the most important thing is to learn to ask for help!  

I will be going into more detail about the things that I mentioned above in future posts e.g. the user guide document and doing a continuation viva so keep an eye out for that! Feel free to subscribe below to get notified when future posts are uploaded. If you’re about to start your PhD, I wish you all the best and hope you will enjoy the journey that is to come 🙂 

Jean 🙂