Your life as a PhD student: The start and pre-candidacy years
As you get started, your first year is the year when you will have the most time because you won’t be joining a lab until the Spring semester. This is a year in which you can and should be networking, growing your scientific and professional interests, and getting involved in groups or associations that will help balance your PhD life.
Ask yourself what are your interests, and then search for them on campus to see if there is a mailing list that you can sign up for to know about events. For example, are you interested in meeting other graduate students from other disciplines? There likely is a graduate student organization or association on campus that would welcome you if you wanted to volunteer and/or be part of it in some way. In general, these are some of the events that I recommend you check out and think about attending in your first year. Some may already be a first-year requirement.
Classes
Your graduate program requires you to take a certain number of courses to graduate. Those will include lectures, seminars, and research and dissertation hours. You will only take lecture-based courses the first two years, but seminars and research (or “dissertation”) hours throughout your entire PhD life.
When you’re picking your lecture-based courses, make sure that you’ve looked at the entire program, if you have options. If you’re in a smaller program, chances are that your classes are chosen for you. But if you do, make sure that you’re checking out what your options are. You’re going to want to take classes that you enjoy and that are going to be helpful to your research interests, or at least that are going to help you grow scientifically. Think of these classes as a window into many opportunities, for example:
Building relationships with colleagues. After you’re done with classes and you’re devoted solely to research, it will get lonely as you won’t see your peers as much. Your grad school peers can be invaluable contacts and friends for the future.
Building relationships with professors. This is critical. It is super important to build good relationships with your professors for many reasons. One is to form a committee. You’re going to want to know who will be interested in and can support your research. Another is to build potential research ties and collaborations. It’s likely that you will need research expertise, materials or collaborations with one of those professors.
Learning valuable research concepts: Perhaps it’s too early for you to know what your thesis topics will be about at this point, but if you do have an idea of what you generally like, for example, “Genetics” or “Biology”, then trying to gain deeper understanding of such topics can help you advance your research.
Learning from professors and learning how to think critically: Taking classes that professors are teaching is a unique opportunity to learn from them. Notice how they present in public, how they prepare their slides and their talks, how they lead classes. Additionally, these classes will teach you how to think critically by presenting challenges and problems to solve, or perhaps by making you read the literature. Take this opportunity to learn how to think critically and how to present lecture concepts because you’ll need those skills when you’re trying to solve your own research problems and teaching your own students or audiences.
Rotations
Unless you joined your PhD program and department to work with a specific professor, chances are that you don’t know which research group you will be joining to complete your dissertation work. This is why rotations are so valuable.
Rotations consist of spending 6-8 weeks in, typically, 3 different research groups (you are “rotating” groups). The specifics vary depending on the program. This is something that you’re going to want to figure out before you apply and accept: do the students do rotations?
I would recommend that everyone rotate, even if you know what final group you’ll be joining. Rotations are super helpful.
During the weeks of a rotation you will be doing a small research project that you will either pick or that the group will assign you, and you will be under the supervision of a mentor. This mentor may be the professor if the group is small enough, or another member of the group, such as another graduate student, post-doc, or technician if you’re rotating in a large group.
The goal of each rotation is two-fold:
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1. Get a feel for the group: When you’re rotating, you have a very important job: to assess whether you would like to stay in that research group for the next many years of your dissertation. You have to ask yourself questions that will help you determine if you will enjoy doing your dissertation in that group, and if you will be successful. The average length of a PhD is 5 years, which means that you will need to spend a lot of time in that group, with the chosen research project, and with the other members. You better like it. See below “Choosing a lab or research group for your dissertation” for some examples of what those questions look like.
2. The lab or group gets a feel for you: The time that you are rotating is a trial period for you. The professor and their entire research team are evaluating you. More specifically, they want to know:
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Are you a good scientist who can think critically and conduct research during your dissertation?
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Do you know how to solve problems?
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Are you responsible, mature and drama-free?
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Are you a hard-working individual who takes research seriously?
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Do you work well with the rest of the group members and other potential collaborators?
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Can you write and talk about research?
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Are you organized?
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Will you be someone worth investing time and resources in?
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Are you excited and interested about the research that they can offer you?
While you are conducting research during the rotation, with those objectives in mind, you should always be your best self, your natural self, and you also should be professional. After all, this is like an extended job interview and you want to make a good impression. If you love the group and would love to join it, then even more important that you make a good impression. I also recommend that you try to meet at least once a week with the professor to talk about what you’re working on, what progress you’ve made, the challenges you’ve encountered, and how it’s going in general. If you really enjoy the research, tell them that too. You can say something like “I am truly enjoying the research and people in this group and would be interested in staying”.
End of rotation presentation
After your rotation is over, it’s very likely that you’ll be asked to give a presentation on your research efforts during your rotation to the rest of the group, perhaps during lab meeting.
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The department may also require all first year students to give a rotation talk. If that’s the case, this is your opportunity to shine.
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Your talk should be structured in this way:
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​1. Introduction: To build the introduction, you will have to read the literature on this project. Depending on who your audience is, you will want to provide more or fewer details. For example, if you are presenting in lab meeting, where everyone already knows the system, the very basic details should be avoided. However, if you are presenting to the rest of the first year students or other researchers who do not work in that group, then you can be more specific on the importance of the system or research project that you worked on.
If your audience if the research group you just rotated in, then, as they are experts, you need to build a semi-expert understanding of the project too. This is again done by reading the literature and talking to your peers in that group. Ask them what is relevant literature to read, if it’s not obvious. You should aim to answer the questions:
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What is the overall topic and why is it important
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What are the knowledge gaps in this topic, that pertain to your research
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What question or hypothesis are you going to follow to try to close the knowledge gaps?
2. Results: Unlike the Introduction, which is about the current knowledge of the field on your specific research topic, the Results section is about what you did.
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Were you developing new methods?
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Were you following an already established method?
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What were the results that you got?
3. Discussion, conclusion and future directions: As you are presenting your results, you will also tell our audience the take-home message of what they mean. In other words, what did you conclude after getting those results?
This discussion or conclusion section puts everything together: once you’ve walked the audience through all of your findings, what is the overall conclusion(s)? What did you learn? How does what you learn tie back with the initial hypothesis or questions?
In addition, if you really want to stay and impress, you can come up with future steps that you would take should you stay in that research group: based on your findings and knowing the main goal of the project, what would you do next? This helps the professor and the audience see that you care and that you thought through the research.
4. Acknowledgements: This is 1 slide where you thank the research group for hosting you, the people that mentored you, any funding agency if you had one, and the Department that accepted you. Again, keep it professional. Even if you are in love with that research group and you really want to stay, don’t sound like a teenager in love. Say that you are very grateful for the professor giving you a chance to rotate, your mentor for doing an excellent job mentoring you during your rotation, and that you really enjoyed the project. Conversely, even if you hated this rotation, you still have to politely thank them for hosting you. Just keep it shorter.
Journal clubs and Seminars
The department will hold its own seminar or journal club series (or both). Their frequency will vary from once or twice per week to once a month.
The goal is to bring the entire department together to be informed of everyone’s research and build community by either listening to a student present the latest on their research, or by listening to a faculty member present their group’s work.
Sometimes these will be faculty invited from other departments, or from other institutions. The latter especially occurs when it’s hiring season and your department is thinking of hiring a candidate who comes to give a talk about their work and the vision for their future work to your entire department.
The expectation of the department is that you attend all departmental seminars. Oftentimes the department will even keep track of student attendance through, for example, sign-in sheets where you write your name. These seminars may be closer or further away from your research interests, but since you have to attend them, making the most out of them can be very beneficial for your development.
Here are some benefits of journal clubs or seminars for your development:
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When someone else is presenting, it gives you an opportunity to get examples on what a good (or bad) talk constitutes, and what a good (or bad) slidedeck looks like: how to convey messages, what font to use, how to transition, how to use animations, etc. All of this information is invaluable for you to learn because you too will be giving seminar and multiple other talks throughout your career.
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As a student, especially once you are fully-immersed into your research in later years, you won’t see much of your peers except for gatherings like these. Attending seminars has thus the advantage of building relationships with your department peers, getting a break from dissertation work, and socializing.
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Listening to other scientific topics keeps you up to date with the latest in science. Since you will be only reading and studying your own research interests during your dissertation, to be broadly informed and an open-minded scholar, you need to know what else is going on in the world of research beyond your own science.
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Since the entire department gathers in these meetings, you can use this time to shine in front of faculty and peers by asking good questions. Once the speaker is finished talking, there is time for questions. Forcing yourself to ask questions, while it is very hard for the majority of people due to the fear of public speaking, it enables you to be brave, gain the spotlight and be known by others, and get used to public speaking (the more you do it the easier it gets). Asking a very good question always impresses the faculty, which can also help you gain friendly committee members.y faculty for your committee.
Choosing a Committee
Every department and institution has different rules and expectations, but the general idea is that at some point during the end of your first year or during your second year, you will have to have a committee that will evaluate your progress and test you during your PhD candidacy and final defense.
Here is what you need to know about establishing a committee and what to expect and get out of your committee:
How many people: Your committee is usually comprised of your advisor plus three or four other faculty members. Those mostly have to be from your department, but if you think that a faculty member from another department has expertise that can help you, then don’t hesitate to inquire about bringing them on board.
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If you can decide on the size of your committee, do you choose more or less people?
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If your qualifying exams have a written portion where you answer questions from your committee members, find out if you get to choose which questions or if you would have to answer all questions. If you get to choose, then having more members allows you to have an ample repertoire of questions to choose from.
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The fewer people your committee has, the fewer people that will evaluate you; the fewer people that will have to grant you the “pass”.
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Also, fewer committee members means less scheduling nightmares because you’ll have less people to coordinate with.
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More committee members provide you with more technical and intellectual expertise.
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More committee members also mean more people that can recommend you when you’re applying for a fellowship or grant, or when you’re applying for a job after graduation.
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More people can be good for balancing each other out and bringing new ideas, or it can mean lots of different personalities against each other. You will want to mix people that get along well with each other and balance each other out.
Choose people with similar research interests: Choose faculty members who share your research interests. They have to be interested in what you are doing to be engaged and care about your progress. Their own research may be very similar to yours, or very very different. But there is always some common ground: maybe it’s the techniques or methods that they use, maybe it’s what they studied in a past life, maybe they use similar organisms for different questions, or similar research areas with different organisms, etc.
Choose diversity: Choose faculty members that can bring diversity of gender, age group, and expertise. For example, if your top choices are all males, bring in a female. If your research is going to need a lot of stats, make sure to choose someone in your department with stats knowledge. If all your top choices are much older faculty, try to bring on someone who was recently hired and is younger. The idea is that you want a diverse enough committee that will balance each other out during your committee meetings, candidacy exams, and defense.
You need to like each other: Choose faculty members who you like and who like you. You may get this information through taking classes, interacting with them during seminars, etc. If you don’t like each other from the start, passing candidacy or your defense can be difficult.
Your committee is there to help. While you most likely will only see them once a year, remember that you can still go to them with questions or in need of advice. For example, if you need to do an experiment with equipment that only your committee member has, ask them if you could borrow it. Or, if you have run into a stats question, as your committee member who is a stats expert to guide you.
Your committee can provide letters of recommendation. When you are done with your PhD, you will most likely need people to recommend you for your next job or post-doctoral position. You can ask your committee members to do that.
Discuss it with your advisor: When choosing your committee, first talk to your advisor. Approach them with some names and get their approval. Both of you have to like the committee.
After you’ve talked to your advisor about your choices, approach each committee member. Send them an email first conveying that you are looking for a committee member and that you would like for them to be involved given X, Y and Z (the reasons you give them for liking them as potential committee members should be focused around their expertise and how they can complement and guide your research). In that email, offer to meet in person with them to explain your research a little more. This is helpful if a faculty member has doubts and wants to learn more about what you are planning to do for your dissertation. If you do meet, make sure that you prepare a power point with your research questions or interests, and make ties to that faculty member’s expertise.
Timeline: Your department will guide you on timelines, but you’ll meet your entire committee about once a year. Since faculty are busy and each have different lives, make sure that you schedule your committee meetings in advance. This can be done via email or online polls that survey each person’s availability. Remember to also reserve a room in your department where you will all be meeting.​
Retreats
Retreats are when a group of people go away for a few days to immerse in science. Retreats also help build fellowship and community. That's why your lab or your department may choose to do them annually.
These gatherings can take place during the working day, or last for a couple of days, requiring that you stay overnight.
The expectation is that all faculty and students attend, and your expenses are paid for.
The schedule typically involves listening to talks from students and professors throughout the day, attending a poster session organized by the first or second year students, and sharing meals with your colleagues.
This is a time to be engaged, involved, and professional. It’s not party time, even though you will be in retreat with your peers. Professors and department heads are there with you, watching, so you better be your best self.
It’s also a time to meet new people in the department, make connections and network. If you’re up for it, stepping out of your comfort zone and sitting down to eat with people you know least is advisable. Or, when you’re listening to a talk, ask questions at the end. Or, at the poster session, approach the presenters and ask them about their research.
The possibilities are endless for learning new science, getting your name out there, and building up your network. Friendships and opportunities emerge from networking and socializing events like these, so make sure you take advantage and make the most of it.
Choosing a lab for your dissertation research
Choosing what group you’ll be doing your PhD work in for the next 3-5 years is a very important decision. You need to like the professor leading the group, and your research. You may not like all people in the group, and you may not like all research themes in the group, but you better like your project and what the greater purpose of it is, and your mentor. Why? Because there will be moments where it gets very tough (emotionally, physically, intellectually), and if you have no motivation, it will be hard to continue. So, before you jump into a decision, consider these tips and ask yourself these questions:
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Is this a good home for me?
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Does my personality fit in well with the rest of the lab members?
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Do I get along with almost everyone? It’s ok to not like or get along with everyone, but you have to like the majority of the people, because that’s the type that works in that group.
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Do I like the principal investigator (PI) or professor and do they like me?
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Do I get along with the PI or professor?
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Do I like the research that is conducted in the group? More specifically, do I like the possible research that I would be doing in that group?
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What is the mentoring style of the professor? Does he/she micro-manage, or do you rarely see them? Are you ok with that?
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Is the professor pre- or post-tenure?
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How happy is the professor in the department? Is there a chance that the group will move to a different institution?
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How successful is the PI or professor in getting grants?
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How successful is the group at publishing?
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Are the students ever first authors or do they share co-authorship? Or are the postdocs and staff first authors?
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Is there any hierarchy in the group, or are people treated and heard equally?
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What do other students think of the professor?
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Does the professor have a family or a life outside of science? What do they think about work-life balance?
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What resources and expertise can I gain from joining this research group?
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How are undergraduate students and technicians treated?
Tips to succeed during the early years of your PhD journey
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Most important rules:
1) Learn how to say "no".
2) Make a daily list of the 3 most important tasks you want to accomplish, and focus on only those 3.
3) Sleep a full night, every night (7-9 h is recommended).
4) Excercise 30 min a day at least every other day.
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Do 'quick' tasks now: If something is going to take 5 minutes or less to complete, do it now; don’t put it off for later.
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Have balance: find a hobby, join a church group, start a sport, etc. It will help with efficiency and giving you a break.
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Know the literature: Read every paper in your topic, even those from decades ago. The goal is to become an expert in your field, and it starts with knowing what your predecessors discovered before you.
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Mentor-up: work with a post-doc or senior graduate student to expedite your learning and publications.
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Be collaborative: Work with others who have the expertise you don't; it will help get your name on publications.
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Be a mentor: once you have a handle on your own research, once you’re an expert and can teach others, mentor an undergraduate student or a younger grad student.
Tips on mentoring others.
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Build your network: Create a LinkedIn account, a Researchgate account, a Twitter account. Post your research projects and papers in these sites.
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Build your CV: Every time you achieve something (like a publication, a grant, a conference) put it on your CV immediately so you don’t forget it happened or when it happened. This is the type of content that goes in a scientific CV:
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Research positions: have you been a lab tech? are you currently a research associate? are you currently doing a postdoc? All those positions go in your CV.
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Courses and certificates.
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Teaching, even if you've been a teaching assistant (TA).
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Grants, awards, fellowships.
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Publications. Even if you're not the first author.
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Scientific meetings you've been at, and if you've presented a poster or given a talk.
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Service: reviewer for paper (which comes from publishing), judge at science fairs, reviewer for fellowships, competitions or other
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Memberships to societies.
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Teaching: During your PhD you will have a chance to be a teaching assistant. This is a good opportunity to evaluate if you would like to teach full time in the future.