First Two Weeks Checklist

A checklist for your first two weeks in the lab. Don’t worry about finishing everything on a strict schedule — the items marked Must do are the priority. Everything else is a stretch goal that can slide into the following week if needed.

Week 1: Get Set Up

Administrative (Day 1) — Must do

• Complete HR onboarding paperwork
• Get building/office access
• Obtain Onyen and UNC credentials
• Set up UNC email
• Get added to lab mailing list

Computing Setup (Days 1-3) — Must do

• Request Longleaf cluster access (do this Day 1 — approval takes 1-2 business days)
• Install R (≥4.3) and RStudio locally
• Install Git and configure credentials
• Set up GitHub SSH keys (Git & GitHub Setup)
• Join lab GitHub organization

Communication (Day 2) — Must do

• Join lab Teams workspace
• Subscribe to relevant channels:
  • #general - Announcements
  • #computing - Technical help
  • #papers - Literature discussion
  • #random - Social
• Add lab meeting to calendar (every two weeks, Thursday 9:30am)

Orientation (Days 3-5) — Must do

• Meet with Dr. Rashid (1:1)
• Get overview of current lab projects
• Receive reading list (2-3 key papers)
• Identify project mentor
• Attend lab meeting (if it falls during your first week)

Stretch goals for Week 1

• Install Quarto
• Log into Longleaf via OnDemand (once access is approved)
• Browse the Coding Standards

End of Week 1 Goals

By Friday, you should have:

• ✅ Computing access requested or approved
• ✅ Git and GitHub configured
• ✅ Joined Teams and the GitHub org
• ✅ Met with Dr. Rashid and received your reading list
• ✅ Know who to ask for different types of help

Week 2: Start Working

Computing (Days 6-7) — Must do

• Log into Longleaf and verify R works (Longleaf Setup)
• Set up your .bashrc and .Rprofile on Longleaf

First Code (Days 7-9) — Must do

• Clone a project template (Your First Project)
• Install project dependencies (install.packages(c("targets", "data.table", "here")))
• Run the example pipeline (targets::tar_make())
• Make a small modification
• Commit and push

Reading — Must do

1. Coding Standards - Lab code style (especially the “Why Base R + data.table?” section)
2. Your First Project - Includes a “What is targets?” introduction

Reading — When you’re ready

3. Targets Pipeline Guide - Full reference (skim for now, reference later)
4. Project Consistency - Relevant when you start writing up results

End of Week 2 Goals

By Friday, you should be able to:

• ✅ Log into Longleaf and run R
• ✅ Clone, modify, and push to a GitHub repo
• ✅ Run a targets pipeline
• ✅ Render a Quarto document to PDF
• ✅ Understand the basics of the lab’s coding conventions

Questions to Ask

In your first meeting with Dr. Rashid:

1. What project will I be working on?
2. Who is my day-to-day mentor?
3. What are the short-term and long-term goals?
4. What background reading should I prioritize?
5. When is my first presentation expected?