My first month as a PhD student

Hellooooo world!

This is my first EVER blog post so it might take me a few weeks to find my blogging voice but we’ve all got to start somewhere! The aim of this blog is to document my PhD journey and share any tips that I’ve picked up along the way so I thought the best way to kick things off would be a post summarising my first month as a PhD student.

Firstly, everybody I’ve encountered is SO NICE. I’m literally stunned. Maybe I’m just lucky to be in a good school (shout out to Edinburgh’s School of Health in Social Science) but so far, the postgraduate support and networking has been amazing. You truly feel like everyone is rooting for you. This past month has reeeeally opened my eyes to all the opportunities in higher education. Last week, my supervisor asked a few of her students to meet her colleagues at the Higher Education Leadership Foundation and so I found myself having coffee and cake with several of the ‘top dogs’ in UK higher education and THEY were actually asking ME about MY research :O

(On a side note, doing a PhD = so many opportunities for ALL THE COFFEE AND CAKE :O I’m seriously going to have to reign it in soon…. but not yet.)

Top 3 tips I got out of that meeting:

1. Curate your digital footprint– Engage on Twitter, use hashtags, start a blog, build a digital profile… it all helps in your future career!
2. Have a good filing system– Use EndNote, OneDrive etc., backup all your work, label it correctly.
3. Write little and often– If you write 100 words a day then 100,000 words at the end doesn’t seem so daunting… always keep in the habit of writing!

My top tips:

Try to get a flat organised and yourself settled into the city BEFORE you start your PhD. It was a nightmare trying to get that all sorted in week 2 of mine.

Throw yourself into EVERYTHING! Attend every conference, workshop, meeting. On Friday I got involved in Explorathon, a European-wide public engagement event and it was fantastic!

Yes, my eyes are closed (charming) and yes, I couldn’t help myself… I bought a University of Edinburgh jumper. Moving swiftly along…

My biggest struggle in the first few weeks was grappling with the contradictory problem of “I have so much to do but I don’t know what to do with myself?!”. Don’t worry… that eases once you start to find your feet.

When people say you’ll spend your first few months simply reading…they mean it! You’re not expected to be an expert in the field when you first start your PhD so take the first few months to submerge yourself in the literature! Since I don’t have a social science background, I’m taking a qualitative research methods course to gain an understanding of social science philosophy and research design.

I’ve wanted to study at University of Edinburgh since I was about 16 years old so I’m still having regular ‘pinch me’ moments. I don’t know if this will ever wear off… I’ll keep ye posted. I’ve also learned that Impostor Syndrome is a very real thing experience by almost everyone in academia at some point. Credit to Heidi Garner (check out her blog here) for sharing this meme with me. I feel like this is going to be the story of my life for the next 3 years!

This last point is very obvious but is SO IMPORTANT that it doesn’t do any harm to hear it again. You WILL find a work/life balance. Don’t neglect the importance of time away from your PhD. If you’ve moved to a new city like I have, EXPLORE IT, make friends, exercise, stay healthy! I’m trying my best to work hard during the week so I can enjoy my weekends. I know this isn’t always possible but I’m a huge fan of taking a ‘brain break’ one day a week to reset and recharge. Top tip- there’s no better hangover cure than a hike up Arthur’s Seat!

I could honestly write for hours about how fantastic my first month has been but I think I’ll leave it there for now. Don’t be afraid to comment below! Feedback and questions are always welcome.

Katie Gambier-Ross ( @kgambierross) is a PhD Student at Edinburgh Centre for Research on the Experience of Dementia (ECRED), School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh. This story was published on October 2, 2017, on Katie's blog, Katie's PhD (available here) and has been republished here with her permission.