Over these two years many things happened, good and bad things, and obviously I have been realizing that I added a lot of knowledge not at the academic level alone but I am talking about living experience knowledge. This post will be all about life experience and almost nothing about the scientific content of my PhD, although it quite annoys me too...
Basically I wish I was aware of certain things I am now before I decided to start this PhD, and I hope that if you are reading this and considering doing PhD you will remember my advice :) or otherwise do not complain! ;)
First rule: Get to know your group first! This is so important, and I have been told about that, but for one reason or another I ended up forgetting to know more about the group I was going to be part of. It is really important that you like the group where you work, remember you will be there at least 3 years, the whole day, sometimes 7 days per week, you will possibly need to ask for help or one or two favours, you will be pleased to have colleagues that help you, that you identify yourself with, that you can hang out with, even if they are not or will never be your best friends, you will like to talk to them and enjoy the conversation. Remember that your supervisor must be a nice guy, in the end everything goes down to him, and he will be the responsible for you and your work, so your supervisor must be the guy that you will never feel angry with or have any problems.
So, to know the group is even more important than the subject of your PhD (actually the subject is not very important but I will come to that later). It is more important than the institution, it is more important than the place in the world. I believe that to feel happy at work with the people around it is already a very good help to get the work properly done, because you enjoy to be there, and best is when people work as a team and not like a bunch of selfish guys trying to see you is better like in a race where in the end things do not work and one feels very unhappy.
So do not forget, try to spend some time in a lab before you decide to stay there for you PhD, then you can make sure you are in the right place :))
Second rule: Supervisor success! I already said that the supervisor must be a nice guy, which is absolutely fundamental, you may not believe but that are really freaking supervisors around that can make your life a real nightmare, so be aware! Next important thing about your supervisor is he's rate of success at several levels but most importantly with publications. This is something very easy to track down, as in www.pubmed.com you can search for your potential supervisor's name and see which publications does he or she have. Be careful!! Sometimes there are people with the same name, so a quick look may make you overlook things, make sure the publications are all from the same person by for example checking the institution and the other people in the paper you will be able to track down who is working with etc... Obviously if your potential supervisor has been publishing like crazy in really good journals it is very likely that your project is going to be a success and you will probably enjoy it (but do not forget to check if the guy is nice.. it can be that he is a rubbish bastard scientist that slaves everyone in the lab to get all those papers out). By checking advisor's publications you will also be more aware of the work that is done in the lab, the techniques and methods in use, animal work and so on, so be sure that you don't chose a group that does something you are against or do not enjoy at all. Also very important is to know how many PhD students your supervisor had so far and if they all were ok, passed and published (in case there was a failure I would never go there, but that's just me)!
Third rule: Meeting with the boss! The meetings with your supervisor are very important moments of your PhD, so this advice is more for post-PhD beginning, but I decide to include it here because it is very very important. First, PhD students always think that the supervisor is watching them, or is thinking that they are not good enough maybe a bit stupid, basically in the beginning we all feel a bit overwhelmed by our supervisors, but everything we think is a myth and sooner or later we realize that... In fact our supervisors do not care that much about us.. and that's a problem because they do not remember what we discussed before, for example in the previous meeting, etc.. so meeting with your supervisor should be something very natural. please always feel or try to feel very confident when you talk to your boss, that will make you believable and you advisor will have a great (very temporary) impression of you, and probably will trust you sooner (meaning totally forget about you, which has the pro of at least you dont feel stupid anymore but the cons that you will have to run after your supervisor to have a meeting with him, otherwise he will never come to you). Most importantly, do not disregard these meetings as they are a confirmation of your success (hopefully), and usually your supervisor will guide you (if he is good) and give you ideas and tips that otherwise you would take a very long time to figure that out, and time is quite precious as it runs so fast..
Forth rule: Number of people around you! It sounds like what? but it is quite important that you are not isolated but also that you are not in a crowd all the time, so the amount of people you work with in a daily basis must be something balanced, so great enough for you to have choice, choice of friends, not to feel alone, it also helps to cope with the peer pressure, enough people to compare results with and to entertain the supervisor. On the other hand it is convenient that there are not too many people which could shadow you, or that your supervisor will be so busy taking care of them all that he will not have time for you.
Fifth rule: Institution/place in the world: Well this advice is very general, in fact the best place in the world is where you feel good, but you dont know before you stay there, so it is difficult to predict. Sometimes the most appellative place turns to be horrifying and vice versa, so here it will be very random and thats why the group is so important, because no matter where you are, if you are surrounded by the right people and nice people you will always be alright and feel good :) The institution matters a bit in terms of career for the future, so I would always look for the best ranked institutions first.
And there are some literature about it that you may want to read:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php gives you an idea of how painful can this life be
How to get a PhD : a handbook for students and their supervisors / Estelle M. Phillips and Derek S. - gives you an extensive list of tips and advice on this topic.
Good luck and remember to be sure before you start, because then you commit to a three year nightmare or spend time till you decide to give up and start again or change your life. Nonetheless I can promise you it is not going to be easy even if you take all the advice possible!
