My research life will begin in coming August. I would like to seek your advice on how to prepare before the start of my Mphil program?

What I am planning to do is to read more different journal articles and reference books in my field of study and find some information about publishing research work in journals. What else should I do?

Thanks for your help!

Reading is always a good idea at the start of the process. The other thing I would do is consider whether you need to refresh or improve any of your skills - for example, it's been a few years since I needed to use stats, so I'm trying to bring myself back up to speed way before I will need to use them. But enjoy this time too, so you start it feeling refreshed!

Make sure you are well rested and have sorted out as many practical/life issues (that are sortable) as possible in advance. For example, make sure that your living arrangements and finances are in place, and any other practical things that could cause stress if dealing with them alongside your course.

I wouldn't worry too much about doing loads of reading, but a skills self audit might be good, as chickpea suggested. Find out what training and courses might be available to you through the MPhil (i.e. don't spend time and money on honing a skill that is covered in week 2 of the course).

You can try to learn and get accustomed to any statistical software and basic or advanced statistics in case you will be doing a quantitative study. It will save a lot of your time once the course begins.

Thank you for your advice. It is very useful indeed.