Before starting

Make sure that Jess knows your intended arrival time on your first day so that she can arrange for someone to meet you. Also let her know how you will arrive - most people will either drive using their own car, or take the Genome Campus shuttle. If driving, let Jess know so that she can arrange parking for your first day. The shuttle is free and does not require prior booking, but has relatively few times and stops. Once you have your IT account, you will be able to use the free campus coach service which has more extensive routes.

You should receive an email from HR after accepting your employment offer with useful information about moving to the Cambridge area and finding housing. Additionally, you should be able to sign up with the Cambridge accommodation services to access listings for properties owned by the university or university affiliates. Note also that EMBL payroll is once per month, and if your first day is after the 10th of the month, you won’t get your first paycheck until the 20th of the next month, ~6 weeks after starting. HR can help you get paid earlier, but you need to ask them for help.

First day

On the first day, you should:

• Get your temporary access badge from security.
• Basic IT: pick up your EBI laptop, connect to the EBI network and sign into your email and Slack account.
• Send Jess a Slack message asking her to add you to relevant research channels.
• Choose a desk and set up your keyboard and mouse.
• Download the Welcome Genome Campus bus app and book your trip home (if using the bus service).
• Is it Wednesday? Go to the South Building to get your picture taken. If not, make a note in your calendar to do this on the next Wednesday that you’ll be on campus.

First week

Within the first week, you should:

• Add your contact and logistical details to the lab contact spreadsheet. Access is restricted to lab members, so you will likely need to request access. We use this in the case of emergencies, to record dietary preferences for lab events, and to coordinate birthday treats!
• Complete the health & safety courses available through Workday.
• Request access to the cluster (HPC) using this link. Next, read the ServiceNow articles on an introduction to EBI HPC computing, remote access using SSH, where to store data in the cluster, an introduction to SLURM usage, and interactive HPC sessions.
• Ask Jess to add you to the Ewald Lab GitHub organisation. Send her your GitHub handle in the request. If you don’t have one, create a GitHub account with a personal email so that your access remains after leaving EBI.
• Read through the lab day-to-day, conducting research, and Github guidelines pages of the handbook. Write down anything that is confusing or unfamiliar to you - you can go through it with Jess during your first 1:1 and she can help clarify.
• Make sure that you have an HR induction meeting scheduled. This is where you will learn how to access your health insurance, how to take annual leave, etc.
• Check out the HPC Training Program and watch any relevant recordings of prior trainings. Also let Jess know if there are any future training sessions that you’d like to be registered for.
• Once you get a notification that you’ve been added to the Ewald Lab Google Group, you will have access to the main lab folders for projects, publications, presentations, and CVs. Add a shortcut to each folder on your own Google Drive: hover over the name of the folder, go to ‘Organise’, and then ‘Add shortcut’.