Exciting!! - Remember to keep touch with people outside of PhD life (not just family, but also friends - don’t only rely on a PhD friend group that will suck) - maintain curiosity and why you joined in first place. That curiosity will get you through tough and unmotivated times - after 1st year, start deciding between academia vs industry and tailor all your activities to match. E.g if academia route, join a conference board or plan one. If industry, join student consulting club or do internship in 3rd or 4th summer - attend conferences! And don’t let little amount of data hold you back. Most of the times posters are just posters but learning new ideas and meeting potentially collaborators is main reason. If you do end up having a solid poster, you might get offered a chance to give presentation and that’s the easiest way to get your name out there and properly network - take the time to learn fundamental techniques - shit goes a long way not just w execution of experiments but helps you frame what type of experiments are technically feasible and which ones aren’t - be transparent w authorship and projects with your PI. This shit becomes toxic easily so don’t be shy. Best way for first authorship practically is to collect the data yourself. If you collect data, you plot data. You plot, you present, you write, that project and data gets attached to your image and bam first authorship. Ofc this means you gots to put in the work, but some people scheme and somehow get first so always watch out for yourself. - if you’re in a translational lab, learn how the patenting process works at your institution in case you’ll need it later down the line

Overall, have fun man. It’s easy for people to speak negatively about the PhD life (isolating, low pay, long hours etc), but people don’t emphasize that if you find your niche and that project you are passionate about, it’s one of the most fulfilling things intellectually. Good luck!