I am in the first year of my PhD and have only been in the lab for 2 months. While I have read about the people having a slump in the 2nd year onwards, does anyone else have this happen at the begining. I have several years lab experiance but not in the molecular biology (the area of my PhD).

While I used to be confident in my own work, I hit a wall after a month and am now making silly mistakes, which is compounding the problem further and so knocking my confidence further, in the knowlege that I am not making a good first impression.

Has this happened to anyone else? and how do you get out of this rut?

Use your mistakes to improve and troubleshoot work, and accept you will make mistakes if you are learning something new?

I believe we're in similar situation. I am in engineering but just moved into the labs recently. I was doing some design calculations, i went to my industrial supervisor to get it checked and he kept on sending me back to get it corrected. No matter how hard i tried to get it right, he always found a valid reaon why the solution was wrong. I went back to the drawing board and after hitting so many walls, not to mention the headache involved, i believe i may have got it right this time and using my own method which made me really pleased with myself.

If you take the advice you're given and learn from you mistakes + patience, i think you'll do okay. I am only in my 3rd month by the way

BigBoy--what a relief it was to read your thread! I too am in my 1st year of the PhD and am already experiencing difficulties. Though I've only been doing the PhD for a couple of months, I've done such a small amount of work, spending alot of time consumed in practical aspects of PhD life or just finding ways to avoid doing work! From what I've heard from other PhD students, it's exceptionally common to waste alot of time in your first year. Hope that helps!

that's what usually happens in the earlier stage. It could be not more usual. No worries

It make me feel so much better that other people are in a simiar situation. I am in my 3rd month in industry and living in the middle of knowhere.

I am still struggling but hope I can turn a corner next week (but I have been hoping this the last few weeks). The winter blues dont help either.