By Daniel Strogen August 30, 2025
Beginnings are such delicate times. Yes, that's a quotation from David Lynch's 1984 film Dune. This maxim is associated with the Bene Gesserit, a fictional pseudo-religious sisterhood of spies and scientists who achieve superhuman abilities through rigorous physical and mental conditioning. While I wouldn't claim to have unlocked any such powers during Year 1 of my PhD, I have come to agree with the phrase: beginnings really are delicate - full of promise yet also fragile.
Embarking on a PhD - or indeed, any significant undertaking - carries with it a peculiar fragility. Early decisions—selecting a supervisor, defining a research question, establishing work routines—lay the foundation for years of work. Yet these decisions must be made at the point when you have the least amount of information and experience. It is also in this first phase that we establish patterns that can either nurture or hinder our progress. The habits shaped in those first months—how we organize our reading, structure our days, balance work with rest—often calcify into long-standing approaches that many believe become increasingly difficult to change as time passes.
You might think it’s a bit premature to write a blog post like this, when I am only one year into my PhD. And you wouldn’t be wrong. If I tried to give advice to other PhD students, Early Career Researchers, or students in general, it might amount to little more than practicing “wise words” without much substance. So instead, I want to frame this post as a reflection: what I’ve learned so far, and what I think I’ve taken from my first year.
One of the great freedoms of the PhD is that you get to design your own schedule. One of the great challenges is exactly the same thing.
When I was interviewed for the WGSSS doctoral studentship back in 2023, I had the chance to ask the pathway convenors a question at the end. (Tip for anyone preparing for a studentship interview: come with a few good questions). I asked them what they thought was the most challenging aspect of a PhD. Their answer has stayed with me: the transition from being taught - working to essay deadlines, receiving grades, being pushed along by structure - to working almost entirely under your own steam. You decide when to work, what to work on, and how to keep yourself moving. And many PhD students struggle with this independence. I'd agree: the jump from Master's to PhD is wide.
What has helped me is starting each day with a sense of purpose. For me, mornings are crucial. I won’t rehearse the whole “morning routine” discourse—there are already countless monetised blogs, vlogs, and TikToks selling their own version of the perfect start. What works for me will not work for everyone, and I’m certainly not a role model. So I’ll spare you the details of when I wake up, what I eat, or what vitamins I take.
The point is not what I do, but why. The PhD encompasses people with very different responsibilities and circumstances—some are parents, some work alongside their studies, some have other commitments. My mornings will never look like theirs. What matters is that each of us finds a rhythm that supports our own purpose. Whether it’s exercise, reading, writing, coding, or something else, the question is: what gets you out of bed and into the day you want to have? After all, why get out of bed unless you have a very good reason? Without that pattern in place, I know I would get half as much done as I do now.
One of the hardest lessons of the first year has been learning to live with not knowing. At the start, I thought I needed to have a perfect research question, a flawless methodology, even a clear idea of my eventual conclusions. The reality is that the first year is all about circling your topic—reading widely, testing ideas, and slowly narrowing down what matters most.
This uncertainty can feel uncomfortable. It’s tempting to try to nail everything down quickly for the sake of security. But I’ve realised that embracing uncertainty is part of the PhD process. It’s what allows us to be flexible, to change direction when we discover something new, and to grow into researchers rather than just students. In other words: it’s not wasted time if you’re exploring, as long as you’re learning from it.
PhDs can be lonely. This doesn’t mean everyone’s PhD is lonely, nor does it mean yours will be. But they can be. Depending on your discipline and institution, you may find yourself in a bustling research centre with colleagues all around you, or you may be the only person working on your topic for miles. Even within the same university, two students can have radically different experiences—some spend their days in lively shared offices, others work from home in near-complete isolation.
The loneliness isn’t just about physical solitude, though. It’s also about the nature of the work. You’re diving into a niche that, by definition, very few people understand or even care about in the way you do. Friends and family may ask how it’s going, but it’s hard to explain the significance of spending two weeks agonising over a single footnote. That gap between your world and everyone else’s can feel wide.
And yet, it’s not all bleak. Awareness helps. If you know the PhD can be lonely, you can start building in structures to counteract it: regular check-ins with peers, casual chats over coffee, attending seminars even when they’re not directly relevant. These small acts of connection add up, reminding you that you’re not alone, even if your research is.
For me, support has come in different forms: my supervisor, who keeps me accountable and challenges me; fellow PhD students, who understand the strange mix of freedom and pressure; friends and family, who remind me there’s a world beyond the thesis. These networks don’t just provide encouragement—they also help keep perspective. A casual chat with another student often does more to solve a research block than staring at a page for another two hours.
It’s easy to think of the PhD as a solitary achievement, but I’ve learned that the only way to get through it is with other people in your corner.
Looking back, the first year of my PhD has been less about producing polished research and more about learning how to live with the process itself. I’ve started to see that the PhD isn’t a sprint toward answers but a slow apprenticeship in asking better questions, structuring my time, and discovering how I work best. It has been challenging, yes—sometimes lonely, sometimes overwhelming—but also deeply rewarding in ways that are difficult to capture in neat advice. If beginnings are indeed delicate times, then perhaps the value of Year 1 lies not in its certainty but in its fragility: the experiments, the false starts, the tentative steps that slowly take shape. And crucially, none of these early habits or ideas are set in stone. Part of the freedom of a PhD is that you can restart, rethink, or reshape your approach at any point. With that in mind, I don’t know exactly what Years 2 and 3 will bring, but I know I’m better equipped to face them than I was a year ago. For now, that feels like progress.
Want to know more?
On starting a PhD: The Guardian’s “So you’re doing a PhD? 10 things you need to know” is a classic starter.
On productivity and routines: Cal Newport’s Deep Work offers ideas for building focus (though best taken with a pinch of salt).
On academic life: Inger Mewburn’s blog The Thesis Whisperer is a goldmine of reflections, advice, and community.
Closer to home: The [WGSSS Doctoral Training Partnership website] (link) outlines the support structures I mentioned above.
Personal note: If you’re thinking of a PhD, feel free to get in touch—I’m always happy to chat about the application process and what the first year has been like.