Getting Started with a PhD

Abstract

In this chapter, a number of first skills that can be useful for a beginning PhD student are revised. A first topic is “familiarizing yourself with your new workplace and your new city”. You will receive tips on how to get settled in your new workplace, and which procedures you need to review with Human Resources and immigration offices. We provide advice on getting to know fellow researchers in other research groups, through lunch lectures and intersectional activities. A next topic is “discussing your mutual expectations with your promotor.” While ideally most PhD students have had a chance to discuss the project and what support their host university can offer, the beginning of your PhD would be a good time to discuss your mutual expectations in more detail. A next topic, called “start documenting your journey”, deals with developing a research journal, a lab book, a log of activities and other documentation that can serve you later on. In this chapter, we will focus on learning how to document work. Following this discussion, comes the topic “figure out your data storage protocol”. A schedule for making backups is also discussed. With a last topic “make a rough outline of your days/weeks”, we will give some first tools for finding a work-life balance, as well as the first concepts of planning and working in harmony with our natural circadian rhythms.