Hi everyone,

I need to give a first year PhD presentation of my project but I am only two months into my PhD. The only work I have done so far is lots of reading and notes. Also, the only outline given by the department is that it's supposed to relate to my project proposal (which I have not yet officially completed/submitted as this needs to be done once I am six months in).

Any advice as to what to include in the presentation would be greatly appreciated! Especially as it is too early for me to include any methodology, data etc. Also, advice as to whether I should declare during the presentation that I am only two months in (hence why I don't have a lot of information to hand!) would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance :)

Don't worry about it! No one can expect much at this stage! It seems unnecessary to have to give a talk at this stage... although I suppose it COULD be helpful if the audience are from your lab and will be able to give some useful pointers/advice.

Do you have an original proposal that you wrote to get you on the PhD program? If so, I'd say talk about that and what directions you might go in now (if it has changed). If you don't have one then perhaps just give a brief review of the literature (what you know so far) - say these are some directions your project might go in.

Will they know you're only 2 months in? If you're presenting to an audience that doesn't know this then yes, I would say I started my PhD 2 months ago - this is just going to be a brief talk about the my project so far.