Hi guys I dont if you can help but I'm really confused right now. When I went for the interview for my PhD my supervisors were really vague about the experimental plan for the project however I just assumed that when I arrived that I would be told what the plan was. When I arrived to start my PhD 3 months ago I was told that they didnt really have a plan and that I should make my own plan. Although I wasnt exactly over the moon about this I went away and got on with it and made my own plan telling myself that this is what was expected of me at PhD level. I am now 3 months into my PhD and so far I have made a plan for the 3 year project which has been approved by my supervisors and have done a lot of litterature searching and have been learning some lab techniques and only started on the actual experimental work a couple of weeks ago. My problem is that when I speak to others they are suprised that I have done such little lab work as they started almost from the first day.

Also I just had a meeting with my postgraduate advisor who told me that he was concerned also and felt that I shouldn’t have had to make my own experimental plan and this should have already been done before I even started the PhD so that I could just get straight on with it.

Now I am really confused as to what should be happening? on one hand I though a PhD was suppose to be independent research so I would expect that I would have to devise my own experimental strategy, however on the other hand I find that most science PhD's already have a plan set out before the student starts and this seems to be the case based on what most other people doing PhD's tell me. Does anyone know what is suppose to happen? Is my case normal or is it all going wrong for me?

What your describing sounds just like most people's experiences of their first few months/first year of the PhD. I would actually say this is absolutely normal, based on my own experiences and discussions with first year students. I don't know if that actually helps, but I can assure you that a majority of PhD students spend most of their first year panicking.

It's unusual for a lab-based PhD where funding is tightly linked to large-scale projects. It is normal in other areas though and for experimental projects that do not cost zillions that will be down the toilet if you are wrong (in that case supervisors are usually very keen to see what you are up to).