With a new cohort of PhD students arriving imminently and my first year coming to a close, I am about to achieve an important milestone: I will no longer be the newest full-time OPIGlet in the group!

Naturally, this makes me extremely qualified to impart wisdom.

In all seriousness, the first year of a PhD has been a strange and wonderful adjustment. I have learned a lot about nanobodies, of course, but I have also learned quite a bit about how to actually do a PhD. So, for the incoming OPIGlets—or anyone else embarking on their first year—here are a few things I wish I had fully appreciated when I started.

Give some structure to all that freedom

One of the strangest things about starting a PhD is suddenly having an almost completely self-guided schedule. It is not something most of us have had to deal with before. Undergrad comes with lectures, tutorials, deadlines, and exams. Most jobs come with meetings, working hours, and someone telling you what needs to be done.

Then you start a PhD and are essentially handed a very big question and an expanse of time that somehow feels both enormous and nowhere near long enough.

I found that giving myself a schedule helped enormously. For me, that means coming into the office at around 9:30, working properly while I am there, and heading home at around 5:30. The beauty of a self-guided schedule, though, is that it can be whatever works for you. If you are a night owl and your productive hours are 2 pm to 10 pm, embrace it. The important thing is having enough structure that “I can work whenever I want” does not quietly turn into either “I am always working” or “I have somehow done nothing today.”

Regular meetings with your supervisor are invaluable for the same reason. OPIG supervisors are great about this, and I have come to really value my one-to-ones. Having someone look at your work with fresh eyes, hold you accountable, and help turn a huge research question into tangible goals can be a complete lifesaver. When you have spent several days staring at the same problem, it is remarkably easy to lose all sense of what is obvious, what is important, and what you should actually do next.

Remember that a PhD is a marathon

This is probably the lesson I am still learning.

A PhD is long. You do not need to solve everything this week. Take breaks. Go home. Do things that have absolutely nothing to do with your research. Often, stepping away from a problem and coming back with a clear head will get you further than another three hours spent stubbornly staring at it.

I did not take enough proper breaks this year, and it caught up with me a bit. After a very healthy three-week stint back home in Canada, however, I am rearing to go for another year of nanobodies.

Ask me again how I feel about them next summer.

Get involved in the group

At the beginning of each year, Charlotte assigns everyone in OPIG a group job, so you will, to some extent, be forced to get involved. My advice is to embrace it.

This year, I was one of the OPIG social secretaries and co-organised the OPIG retreat. Organising the retreat was, at times, unbelievably stressful. It was also incredibly rewarding to see everything come together and watch the whole group enjoy such a great week.

More generally, getting involved has made me appreciate how much the people around you shape the PhD experience. Research can be frustrating and occasionally quite isolating, so having a group of people you actually enjoy spending time with makes an enormous difference. Fortunately, OPIG is full of very cool people.

Let your colours show

Finally, do not feel like you need to become a Very Serious Academic™ the moment you start a PhD (or ever, if you are Professor Charlotte M. Deane MBE FRS).

This year, I decorated the office for essentially every holiday or season I could justify and persistently pestered anyone who would listen into coming rock climbing with me. The decorations have received enough appreciative comments that I intend to continue inflicting them on the office, and I have managed to establish something of an OPIG climbing cult, if I do say so myself.

These things might have very little to do with my actual research, but they have been some of my favourite parts of the year. A PhD takes up a significant chunk of your life, and the people in your group are the people you will spend a lot of that time with. Bring your interests with you. Organise events. Be enthusiastic about things. Make the place somewhere you actually enjoy being.

And, obviously, when you join OPIG, you should come bouldering.

One year down

I am certainly not claiming to have figured out how to do a PhD after one year. If anything, I think I have become increasingly aware of how much I haven’t figured out.

But I have learned that a little structure goes a long way, that taking time away from research is part of doing good research, and that there is much more to enjoying a PhD than the work itself.

So, to the new OPIGlets: welcome! Make a schedule. Take breaks. Get involved. Bring whatever weird hobbies and interests you have with you.

And good luck avoiding the climbing cult.