Welcome to the PhD Dojo! This week, I'm bringing you part three of the PhD Dojo series on tools and strategies to make the best out of your PhD experience. Today – Assembling the PhD Expedition Team, or how to ensure your PhD won't be a solitary endeavor and that you will have help and resources when you need them. Below, you'll find the full – edited to be read – transcript of the live taping of this episode. VIDEO https://youtu.be/5cgvJZilcQU?sub_confirmation=1 FULL TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Welcome to this new episode of the PhD Dojo by Papa PhD. Today's episode is called "Assemble the Expedition Team". It's part two of the series about advice for first year or early PhD students. Last episode, I talked about what you should prepare to start this endeavor, to start this adventure.[00:00:27] And this week is going to be the follow-up, let's say. Because your PhD, yes, it's going to be your personal contribution to your area of research and to your domain, but it's not supposed to be a solitary endeavor. Ideally, besides finding a lab, finding a supervisor, you should try also to find the following people to be part of what I consider to be the team or almost the village that makes a healthy PhD experience.[00:01:06] And the first other element or team mate let's say would be an external mentor or a committee, someone or a group of people who can bring a fresh outlook on your research and on your progression. without the pressure of being your supervisor – the supervisor PhD student has a lot of pressure on it, the relationship, and this is why my advice is to, if you can, if you're able, if there's someone around you that could fill that, that position to find someone who can in an unbiased way, in that sense, be a mentor for you, be someone who you can turn to with all your questions, all your difficulties that are not specifically to do with the details of your research, but to do with your experience as a graduate student at large, with your your life plan, for example, with how your PhD is fitting with your values and with how you project yourself professionally into the future. So, mentorship, or at least, you know, having, having an impartial, let's say committee that regularly can go to.[00:02:31] The second element that I think can be really, really a plus for you during your PhD are what I call research mentors. These would be post-docs, senior researchers, people who are finishing their PhD and who know the ropes and who you can resort to in your day to day to help you just move your project along.[00:02:58] When you start, there's a lot of unknown, there's a lot of of doubt, there's a lot of searching, and if you have people around you in your team, in your lab or in labs around you, that can help you not be let's say digging to find something that they have already found, well, establishing a relationship with these people and having them be part of your team, it's also going to help you a lot. Because, you know, PIs, very often, they're super busy. They, they can't answer your every question and they can't be available all the time. But people around you, people who are at a different stage of the graduate studies journey, they can help you, they, I'm thinking of the life sciences, which is where I was, but they use the different equipment, they do the different techniques, they have tricks, you know, they have advice they can give you. So don't, don't forget that they can be a resource for you. And also this is a give and take – I'm always saying this thinking of you as part of a community where there's, there's give and take, but as someone who's beginning, well, you need more help. This is why I'm I'm I'm suggesting this. So – research mentors. [00:04:27] The third element or teammate, let's say, I would say are peers, peers with whom you can discuss your research, share your questions, work on on student community projects. So,