i am currently looking for a phd but am a bit worried about how much information i need to know! i have been looking through the lists of possible research topics and have no idea how i would even begin to plan a project around any of them! i feel that during university we were 'spoon fed' and didnt really have much input into how the research would be carried out. i am looking for a life sciences phd but have used very few research techniques so i dont understand how i will be able to plan a project possibly using equiptment i have never seen before? so i basically want to know how much assistance to receive at the beginning and how much knowledge you need!? thanks

A 3 year PhD goes as follows:

Yr1: review all the literature in your field. identify something that is novel, learn the equipment, carry out some initial experiments, write a conference paper, write your transfer report.

Yr2: if you pass transfer, carry out all your experiments, start data analysis, and write 2 conference papers.

Yr3: thorough data analysis and write a journal paper, and write thesis. Then pass viva at the end of year 3.

Simple!! (Warning: it doesnt always go that straightforwardly)

You can spend Yr 1 learning the equipment, and catching up with things you're rusty on.

Hi Laura,

like UFO is saying you should first orientate yourself by reading a lot about the subject. As such you will not be able to plan what exactly you are going to do as you will first need to know the subject. Setting a explicit project without having gone through this phase is virtually impossible.
The difficulty mayb e that you have to choose a project early on without knowing enough about it. It would be important to have an interest in the area and to make it "broad" so that after the literature review you can make it more explicit.