A typical PhD in our lab will likely have the following broad outline which includes theoretical learning aspects, practical training and experiments, project management, dissemination of your progress and results, supervising younger lab members, and career planning / soft skills.
Months 1-5
Theoretical and practical courses by the Neurobiology faculty members and technicians
Attend seminars and Journal Clubs
Obtaining health, animal and other certificates
Get some first hands-on experiences, follow experiments of other lab members
Reading of literature
Deciding on the topic and first steps of your project
if you haven't decided yet for a lab, you may follow experiments in various groups
Months 6-12
Maybe attend a workshop or similar
Attend seminars and Journal Clubs
Learn the first 1-2 relevant techniques for your project (e.g. behaviour assay, stereotaxic surgeries, electrophysiology recordings, immunohistochemistry...)
Collect first pilot data
Prepare first year progress report with focus on your project question and outline ("What's your specific question?", "Why is this an interesting question?", "What do we already know about this?", "What will be your first experiments?", "What techniques have you learned so far?") - usually we start preparing around August (Month 10), practice in September (Month 11) and progress report presentations are in October.
Possibly attend scientific dissemination or other soft skill courses
Year 2
Attend seminars and Journal Clubs
Collect a lot of high-quality data
Learn additional techniques if necessary
Get a first idea of what your broad findings might be and whether the project question/hypothesis needs to be adjusted
Attend 1-2 conferences
Prepare second year progress report with focus on first results, what they might mean and the concrete next steps to get closer to an answer
Maybe co-supervise a Master or intern student
Possibly attend scientific dissemination or other soft skill courses
Year 3
Attend seminars and Journal Clubs
Collect data that addresses more specific aspects based on your previous data set
Analyse data
Possibly contribute to a colleague's project or a small side project
Possibly learn to critically analyse papers by co-reviewing a paper
Refine research question, read up more on your subject
Possibly contribute to a manuscript or review
Attend 1-2 conferences
Prepare third year progress report with focus on a more complete picture of your results, embedded in the big picture of your research field
Likely co-supervise a Master or intern student
Possibly attend scientific dissemination or other soft skill courses
Year 4
Attend seminars and Journal Clubs
Collect very specific data to clarify last "holes" in the project
Possibly learn to critically analyse papers by co-reviewing a paper
Perform in-depth analysis of collected data and make high quality figures
Write thesis and co-write at least 1 manuscript
Defend your thesis
Attend 1-2 conferences
Think about and discuss future plans; possibly apply for next position