First Week Help -- What did you do? on PostgraduateForum.com

First Week Help -- What did you do?

semaphore 7 posts
8 years ago

I'm starting a PhD soon that's based at a distance from my supervisor (not that it matters, hopefully). I really don't know what to do for the first week, and subsequent weeks. I'm waiting on a reply asking this very question but I'm wondering what route most people took was. How did you spend your first weeks? When did you actually feel like you were doing good work (because I'm very conscious that whilst reading a lot I'll feel like I'm not progressing)? And lastly, and possibly most importantly, does anyone have any early-starter tips? Thank you!

Hugh 1264 posts
8 years ago

Quote From semaphore:
I'm starting a PhD soon that's based at a distance from my supervisor (not that it matters, hopefully). I really don't know what to do for the first week, and subsequent weeks. I'm waiting on a reply asking this very question but I'm wondering what route most people took was. How did you spend your first weeks? When did you actually feel like you were doing good work (because I'm very conscious that whilst reading a lot I'll feel like I'm not progressing)? And lastly, and possibly most importantly, does anyone have any early-starter tips? Thank you!

It depends what your PhD is on, but a good starting point may be to either start reading up on literature in the area, or start reading up on prospective research methods you are likely to use. If you are familiar with the literature and the research methods, then I would define the research objectives and start planning the actual studies.

Do you know which research methods you may be using? Was the PhD well defined from the very start?

This may help too:

http://patthomson.net/2015/10/15/starting-the-phd-anticipate-tasks-and-timings/

First Week Help -- What did you do?

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