10 tips for new PhD students
All the things I wish I’d done from the start
(Advice sent to me from Tom Arney, October 2024).
4 years is long enough to forget anything… but short enough to think you won’t… so write things down as you go.
5. Back up
6. Maintain a sample/data inventory
8. Take all the opportunities you can
10. Have fun!
1. Keep a journal
· Write down what you did daily/weekly
o Work you started/worked on/finished
o People you met
o Seminars/conferences/workshops you went to
o Things you did in the lab
§ This could be a whole thing in itself — a lab book. If so, you could still summarise what you did in your journal
· Keep meeting notes (important!)
o who was there
o where you were (someone’s office, on Teams, in the lab, etc.)
o what everyone said
o things you (and others!) need to do afterwards
· At the end of the month, summarise all the progress you’ve made
o New skills
o New knowledge
o New experiences
· Then do a yearly review — you’ll be surprised looking back! Great morale boost.
2. Own your project
· This is YOUR PhD.
o Your project, your work, your career, 4 years of your life.
o Also your research, your data, your findings!
· If you don’t like some part of your project, change it.
· It’s probably up to you to make things happen
· It’s definitely up to you to manage your project
· Manage your time well
o That includes taking time off regularly for mental health
· Project management:
o Keep a to-do list (or similar)
o PRIORITISE IT
§ immediacy (Now, Next, Later)
§ importance (High, Medium, Low)
o Enjoy ticking things off it!
3. Use a reference manager
· Zotero (free and open source — so you can take it with you when you leave the university)
· EndNote, Mendeley, etc. (use the university license)
· correct metadata as you go
· Use it when writing!
o Nothing worse than typing everything out by hand and then being told you need to reformat to a different referencing style.
o …which would be one click with a reference manager!
4. Revise as you go
· If you don’t revise, you’ll forget over a few years.
· If you do, you can go into your viva with confidence!
· Use old-fashioned flashcards, or software like Anki (desktop & mobile apps)
5. Back up
· You will generate a LOT of data
· your laptop will (probably) run out of space
· use Uni OneDrive or similar
o Use the “available online/always available on this device” feature
· IT has provisions for people who use or generate a lot of data
· Use git if you know how. Avoid if you don’t.
· buy an external hard drive
· 3–2–1 strategy — at least:
o 3 copies (original + 2 backups)
o 2 devices (laptop + USB/external SSD)
o 1 online/offsite (cloud storage)
· Back up often
· Check your backups work
6. Maintain a sample/data inventory
· If you are doing a lab-based project, you will process a LOT of samples.
· You MUST remember where you put all your samples
o Including samples you’ve sent/given to collaborators
o Site, room, shelf, box/bag/container, etc
· If you generate/process a lot of data, record which folder you keep it in, what steps you’ve applied to it, who it came from, who you’ve sent it to, etc
· Version your data and documents with the date
o (not _v4_final_final_usethisone)
· Keep one read-only version of your data — exactly as it came out of the lab
o You might need to go back and re-process
o Right-click > properties > read-only
· Include the metadata IN the data file if at all possible
o Source, processing details, version date
· Record which version of your data your collaborators have
7. Keep a contributions list
· You will not do this on your own, but it’s easy to forget who helped you 4 years
ago
o Don’t unintentionally make enemies!
· Examples:
o Technical staff
o captain and crew of research ships
o Data/sample repositories & their staff
o someone who proofread your manuscript
o Someone who got funding/data/samples
· Some will be co-authors, some just in acknowledgements
o You are the only author of your thesis. Everyone else on this list will go in your acknowledgements
8. Take all the opportunities you can
· However you’re funded, this is a brilliant time to do cool stuff
o Summer schools
o Conferences
o Field work
o Placements
o Cruises
o Outreach/media
· INSPIRE students have the chance to do TWO placements
o one industrial and one academic
o Do both! But you’ll need to be organised:
§ Only one deadline per year
§ you can only apply for one each time
§ You must have passed your first progression review before you go (you can apply before though)
§ It can take ages to get the host to organise themselves
§ So get thinking!
9. Build your CV
· Don’t do something just because someone says “It’ll look good on your CV!” — often a red flag! But do develop your soft (and hard) skills for when you finish your PhD.
· Show you contribute to the department/university:
o Organise seminars
o Help with open days
o Attend job seminars (and ask questions)
· Show you’re part of the academic community
o Peer review
o Organise conferences/sessions
o Media/outreach
· Get involved in grants
o Help write proposals for big projects
o Get small grants to help with your PhD
· Get all the hard skills you can
o Make sure you can run your analyses yourself (ask tech staff to teach you)
o Use the doctoral training programme/faculty training workshops
o Get certificates wherever you can! Teaching, First Aid, etc
10. Have fun!
· PhDs are infamous for being long-winded, difficult, and lonely
· …but they don’t have to be!
o Postgraduate coffee gatherings
o Postgraduate society
o Lunch (cafeteria/courtyards)
o Postgraduate research seminars
o PG Society events
o University sports clubs and societies
· Try and do things in-person
· Look after your mental health. Take a break!
· The Uni/DTP has support mechanisms which you should use if you need them:
o Paid sick leave (with a doctor’s note)
o Suspension of candidature
(just pauses your stipend and pushes back your deadlines)
o Special considerations to extend deadlines
If you have questions, ask others in your office, lab group or cohort, the older cohorts, your supervisor(s), your panel chair, the doctoral training programme team, the school administration office, or the student help centre. Lots of help available. Don’t suffer in silence!
