Agree completely. University counsellors are there for a purpose, and they do help people. Go and see one as soon as you can.

Good luck!

If it doesn't get better go and see your GP. There's things they can do to help with anxiety. It needn't be a crippling problem. And I'm speaking as someone with experience of this!

I used to find iTalk and my iPod handy for memos, and I have a similar recording system set up on my new iPod touch. But for recording lectures or conferences the microphone might not be sensitive enough to pick up on the sound to record it well enough. As part of my Disabled Students' Allowance a Sony dictaphone was bought for me together with an external microphone so I could record memos and rough drafts of my thesis ready to type up (due to brain damage I often find that an easier way to work). That dictaphone works pretty well, but the battery tends to be flat whenever I want to use it so I haven't used it as much as I should!

If there's a Disability Services department at your university maybe they could offer you advice on good models since they often recommend such devices are bought for students for disability neds?

If you really don't want to use Word on your Mac there are free options like OpenOffice and NeoOffice which will produce compatible files. My husband used Latex throughout his PhD. I stick with Word on my Mac.

I had a similar issue during my writing up phase. I decided to delay the revising of chapters until after I'd finished producing drafts of all the chapters. I found revising chapters thoroughly depressing, and if I'd done it sooner I think it would have really put me off carrying on! Plus it would have delayed how quickly I could produce the new chapters. But if you do this you do have to allow more time at the time for revising.

However I did carefully read through my supervisor's comments and try to learn from the higher-level issues that he raised about writing style, so as not to make the same mistakes in subsequent chapters.

By the way I always worked on 2 chapters at a time. I get really bored doing 1 thing at a time and found it better to have a pair of chapters that I could flick to-and-fro between. I even used to have 2 files open at once, side by side, in Word, 1 for each chapter. Then once they were sent off it was onto another 2 chapters, and so on.

I've nearly finished my PhD. I'm just finishing off a bit more research to plug into the thesis, but essentially it's complete.

A couple of years ago I took a 5-month medical break from my part-time PhD. In addition to that, due to long-term illness, I regularly have periods of many months where I can't do any work and need to return to things afterwards.

My technique is always to draw up to-do lists of things that need to be done, very long lists, and then I pick off the most appealing (or least unappealing!) and work on those. This way I build up my working stamina steadily and get back into the swing of things. Maybe something like that would help you?

Good luck.

In my subject (History) there is an annually updated list of theses in progress. But I think this is unusual. Most subjects don't have things like this.

www.theses.com is good for completed theses. Otherwise you just have to cross your fingers! I found a fellow student doing a closely-related topic to me. I only found out 2 years into my part-time PhD, by which time it was too late for me to change tack. But luckily we worked out where the differences between our research were.

A Masters topic needn't be related to a PhD one at all. Mine wasn't, and I still won funding for my PhD and have nearly completed it.

Personally I'd choose the Masters dissertation topic that appeals to you most, that is the most interesting to do. It can be quite a slog working through a Masters dissertation (even if not as long as a PhD slog!) and you might as well make it as much fun for yourself as possible.

It could definitely depend on the area. In my area (humanities) the convention for PhD thesis writing is clearly the passive form, and I've been warned rigidly to stick to that by my supervisor. Never I, never my name.

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Accessibe supervisor is really important. I'd be very concerned about the people who haven't replied to your emails - would they be any more contactable if you're their student? For the same reason it's a bit worrying if someone is supervising a very large number of students already. Again how much time would they have for you?

Teaching experience is a good thing if you want to continue in academia. In my subject area it's a standard thing that full-timers take on, which puts them at a huge advantage employment-wise against part-timers who don't get any experience in this area. Yes it's time-consuming, but it could be beneficial for you in the long term.

A 4-year funding place sounds appealing, but would they really encourage you to get to speed with things right away? A 3-year place might be more aware of time limits and get you moving faster from the word go.

Ultimately only you can decide which project is right for you. Well done on getting yourself in the position where you have so many good options to choose from! Good luck with your PhD.

I was going to suggest that you contact your supervisor as well. It's very unlikely that they will be able to persuade the library authorities to give you full access without being a registered student, but they may be able to get copies of specific things for you, and could lend you books etc.

I'm long-term ill (since 1994) with a progressive neurological disease. It's been a problem throughout my part-time PhD but I only took 1 official medical break (largely because my funding council won't support much in the way of breaks, even for medical needs). I didn't do any studying during that period, and just picked things up when I was fully registered again and obviously had access to papers etc. My biggest challenge was getting into the way of working again. I drew up lots of to-do lists of tasks to be getting on with and picked off the most appealing. That way I picked things up again slowly, and built up my stamina for the PhD work again. Because of the illness I also have periods of many months where I can't do any work at all. Again I use the list technique to get me started again.

Good luck with your PhD.

I went straight from a BSc to PhD over a decade ago. More recently I went from a BA to MPhil (taught Masters), and from there onto a PhD again. I didn't do any preparation/reading in advance for either step upwards, and enjoyed my time off! I started studying properly when the courses started.

Postgraduate taught Masters degrees require you to be a much more independent student than during an undergraduate degree. There's a lot less hand holding and basically you have to be more reliant on yourself, making sure you stick to your own deadlines and finding your own solutions to problems. During a taught Masters the staff really should be talking to you about PhDs as well because some of the students will want to go on to one. Basically a taught Masters is a good preparation for doing a PhD, teaching you essential research skills to get through it.

When you're doing a taught Masters beware that it will probably be a 12-month course if studying full-time, i.e. you don't get the summer off. Indeed you'll be very busy during the summer working on your dissertation. As a postgraduate at two different universities I've never had a clue when undergraduate holidays are! I'm always studying. If you're doing a PhD then holidays are even scarcer. Basically you're always studying. So make the most of the break you have now!

Enjoy!

I'm doing a PhD the second time, but in a totally different discipline (first was science, second humanities). There are implications for funding if you don't succeed the first time: if you apply for funding again the new funding council can ask you to declare what prior funding you've received, and reserves the right to reduce your second round of funding accordingly. You can not declare things to them, covering it up, but I was totally up-front in my application. I think it helped that my second PhD was in a totally opposite discipline, so I got the full funding again. You also have to consider how keen a new supervisor would be to take on someone who's failed/quit the first time. Again you can cover things up, but is that something you should really be doing?

AHRC (arts and humanities funding council) expects PhD entrants to have a Masters now. It is possible to get funding to cover the Masters as well, but I'd be doubtful about whether you could get funding to go straight to PhD. This isn't a problem if you're planning on self-funding the PhD of course, but if you are seeking funding do bear it in mind.