Question: what do you do as a phD student

Emma Weir answered on 3 Oct 2025:

The idea of a PhD is to explore a novel topic in-depth and contribute to new knowledge.
For me in the field of neuroscience/biology the topic was set by my supervisor (boss) but I have guided the project as I’ve learnt new things.

On a daily basis, I do experiments and analyse the data, and based on my analysis work out what we’ve learnt, whether it worked, and what to do next.
The experiments are very varied, I also spend a lot of time keeping my cells alive, going to talks, lab meetings, and doing admin!