======= Date Modified 02 Sep 2010 11:31:48 =======
....eh what Teek said....that's pretty much exactly what I was thinking of saying, verbatim....

Except to add, please don't use Refworks, it's horrific. When you have a Refworks Support Office in your uni you know there is something not quite right about the package...I use Mendeley, available as a free download. It's relatively new so they are frequently adding updates which are automatically updated on your system, and it's more of an academic community reference base, than just a referencing software. It's the easiest user interface I've ever come across and works great for sciences.

Budget to avoid debt, make use of the free lunches available, usually if there is a postgrad committee they will organise all sorts of cheap activities to do, including food events, and you can meet people this way. Be brave, remember you are not as crap as you will start to feel, and enjoy it!

I hear you cornflower. I'm approaching the end of my 1st year, and can only echo what's been said- Endnote is a must, and makes life so much easier, a must I'd say!

3 years is a long time- especially in you're in you mid 20's 30's when everyone else seems to be going with the flow of life (kids, marriage, 9-5 job etc). However, think of it like this: your under grad was 3-4 years (went by in a flash? mine did), a PhD is less! Also, when you look at any 'big' task in life it always look HUGE, I mean Scary HUGE!!! If you look at it like that, you'll think no way- never, impossible. But if you don't freak out, take a breath and chip small digestible chunks off you'll get there- you have to. I have moments like yours too, all the time, as long as you're determined, confident that you're trying your hardest, and enthusiastic (though this will waver from time to time), and a sprinkle of intelligence, all will be fine...

Besides, mountains are there to be climbed  8-)

Ahh, PHDcomics.com, I have come across it already. I expect it to be a great source of procrastination ideas in the next three years :)

So, somehow, I have just started my third day (how did that happen??), and I know how to get to the library and coffee shop and have started to write lists of all the things I need to do.

Something about this though, having been out of academia for three years and having done some very good (but not terribly scientific) work in that time makes me feel like I'm in a different situation to "normal". I keep reading tons and tons of PhD advice about the "bewildering first few months," and how being a postgrad is so different to being an undergrad, but having already done a MSc and finished some large paid commercial projects I feel that I just want to get stuck in. I'm not daunted by the scale of the task, I'm daunted by the complexity of the work.

I need to learn to think like a scientist again. It seems that I have almost the exact opposite strengths and weaknesses to a new student straight from University. Does that make sense?

Complete turnaround in tone from my first few posts, I guess...

What I mean is that I'm worried the steep learning curve ahead. Now that I'm actually here, with a desk and a pile of papers, I just want to get on with things and get started. My topic is in a rather different discpline to both my degree and MSc and whilst it's closer to the "real world" work I've done, the rationale and methodology couldn't be any more different. I have to learn / re-learn maths and stats, brush up on my programming and get myself together for some demanding fieldwork. I see lots of induction training days on project management and working with supervisors but very little about balancing four or five very steep learning curves at once. I've written 80K documents in much less time than three years, so I don't need training courses on those things... I need to be trained on becoming a scientist again and I don't see any guides about that! Is it that I'm already meant to know? Or am I meant to simply learn the practical side of things through osmosis?

I hadn't felt properly daunted until this morning... In this new sunlight, my mountain looks like an endless, towering exposure of rock, and I suddenly feel ill equipped. Which room / department / handbook / training session / document / administrator do I go to in order to borrow some ropes???

I'm afraid Cornflower that it is the actual PhD process itself that trains you to be a scientist. All the other training skill stuff is just superfluous, stuff that helps get stuff done in the practical sense, and gives you transferable skills for outside academia etc, but that actual 'learning' how to think and be a scientist is all down to you!
If it helps, my PhD is in an area that I had absolutely NO experience in beforehand, so much so I wonder how I even got accepted. I don't even have chemistry A level cos I hated the subject, and here I am writing a thesis on the wonders of mass spectrometry and analytical toxin detection. I do freshwater stuff, when my primary degree is in marine biology - the two are surprisingly more different than it may seem! However, I overcame my fears and managed to get through all my lab and field work, learning loads of new techniques on the way including some stuff I thought I'd never enjoy but I did in the end. I also couldn't wait to get started, and read and read at the start, writing mini reviews on topics and going off on tangents left right and centre. I actually wish I was back at that stage, it was my favourite part!!

Just try to relax and enjoy the whole thing. You will learn to think like a scientist before you even realise, and you'll be annoying everyone you know telling them about the latest amazing experiment that you read about and can't wait to try. Then you'll spend months trying to get something to work and cursing everything about science and the day you ever wanted to be one. But then it will work and you'll love it. All par for the course. Just keep a note of absolutely every single thing you do, and all your little brainstorming ideas etc, they'll be invaluable when you are looking for inspiration a few years down the line.

I haven't read everyone else's replies but I would say:

Keep going - take one day at a time - break project into tasks - do one at a time and focus only on it at the time - enjoy student life! (apart from the financial part of it, its really great) - and you will find that actually 3 years is a VERY short time..

Ahh... did that take a while, or did you pick it up quite quickly? I'm moving from relatively soft science (my work background is broadly environmental policy, though I have an ecology degree) into a very quantitative subject. I've been honest at every stage about my motivation and experience but I'm already stuck with a bunch of questions about practicalities. Right now I'm stressing over whether I should start with LaTeX / BibTeX or Endnote and Word. I suspect LaTeX is more intuitive for me and better for my purpose (I'll have equations and models to add) but it's another learning curve and it's probably more "normal" and compatible to just have a Word document, but the thought of trying to write out aerodynamic formulae in Word two years down the line doesn't appeal much.

But. I have THREE YEARS. Must keep reminding myself. I've already achieved a lot in three days. I take a lot of notes from the papers that I'm reading and as I typed them up this afternoon I felt pleased that I already understand a lot of the background "depth" to this topic, even if the science skills seem a million miles away...

And I'm definitely going to implement all the project management stuff that I can, because I'm a list-writer by nature and I know it will just help. My main supervisor is lovely. I just don't think I've got my head around the fact that I've actually just started a PhD, something I'll be working on for the next three years of my life. But then, I haven't really slept this week, so I'm sure it will hit be over the weekend.....

Wow Cornflower, you really are pushing on! Good for you! I don't officially start until October but have been trying to get some papers together, reveiw them and plan a lit review. I was doing very well before then I've just had a very unproductive week :$. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Well, it took a while, but a lot of that is down to personal learning and what way you think - I seem to think about things in a rather different way to most people, and I don't feel like a 'real scientist' in that I'm not naturally that technically minded for maths and equations, I'm much more flighty in that sense. So I have trouble with things like chemistry but am much better at taxonomy where you have to kind of work with a 'feel' for a species or sample. If that even makes sense, I'm 2 weeks from submission and starting to get a bit silly...

Anywhoo, yes I picked it up, it took a while as I was learning things from basics (didn't even know what a standard was when I started..), but I got there in a few months. I was learning loads of other techniques too, in chemistry and ecology and genetics so there was a whole pile of stuff to learn at the same time but I enjoyed it. And while three years seems like a long time, it will absolutely fly in and you'll be wishing you had more time. I can't actually remember most of my second year, it was first year, then sampling then suddenly time to start writing the thesis!

Regarding LaTex of Word, I'd go with whatever will work easiest for you when you are writing and formatting. If you understand how to use LaTeX then I'd go with it, Word is a holy nightmare when it comes to placement of figures and things sometimes. Although, I'd really really suggest checking Mendeley out :)

Doctor Soul --
I doubt it. One thing I am programming into myself already is that I'm not going to be consistently productive for the next three years. Even over the summer, preparing for this PhD, I went weeks without picking up a paper. In fact, I spent at least a whole week playing video games. Do I regret that? Of course not -- I can already look back at the prep work I did do and feel as though I understand the background work. I was having a real confidence crisis yesterday morning but I went and sat in the library. I keep having to remind myself that I'm new, this is normal, and I need to get into a pattern of work that I'm comfortable with. It's not easy for me to go easy on myself, if that makes sense ;). Sounds like it's the same for you.

Algaequeen --
That really helps. I suppose the steep learning curve in new fields and methods is part of the process of any PhD, unless you're doing the exact same thing as your dissertation (and even then there will be loads more things to learn).

I can't quite believe I've finished my first week (okay, it was only three days). I don't know how that happened! I seem to be alternating between calmness and complete panic at regular intervals.