Thanks Sarahk5275 and Angelofthenorth. Have opened mini champagne bottle (Moet & Chandon - ooh fancy!) and it was lovely. Now feeling rather merry 8-)

Thanks Squiggles and Heifer. Well I'm having tonight off anyway! And won't be starting proper viva preparation until at least next week, when I'll start thinking about main questions/themes that might come up. But I've flicked most of the way through a viva preparation book (was reading it this morning while waiting in hospital!) and it's making me much less terrified, which is good.

As for the dreams, yes I'm sure I'll have the viva ones later. Not looking forward to them much :p

My thesis was submitted this morning. Wahoo! Going to have some fizzy tonight to celebrate.

Suspect my viva may be late March, but my internal examiner hasn't been appointed yet, so it's still up in the air.

Have already cracked open a viva preparation book to prepare.

It's "The Doctoral Examination Process" by Tinkler and Jackson. I'm finding it very good for demystifying things, and highlighting core issues/themes I want to be prepared for.

I'm a part-time student, based away from campus, so can't rely on others' viva experience much. Well apart from my husband that is :-x

======= Date Modified 09 Feb 2010 12:30:38 =======
I'll be submitting (all going well) tomorrow, and would normally have the viva within 6 weeks. Eek!

I cracked open my viva preparation book last night before bed. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be ;-)

I've started having submission dreams! Aarrggh. Signing bits of paper - with the correct person signing in the correct place - is becoming a recurring theme in my dreams :p

Should be over by later this week anyway. Have fixed the day my sup will be signing.

Good luck to all the night workers out there (and Sue in the day time!). I've just been dealing with correspondence from my sup, re signing and formal submission of my thesis later this week. And expecting to start viva preparation tomorrow, if the ordered book turns up.

Hang on in there PhD-ers, especially those of you near the end.

When a very similar thing happened to me, and I checked Oxford's regulations on transfers, I found that they were very reluctant to accept them. I can't remember exactly what the rules said, but it didn't look promising.

I stayed on at my university, with my existing funding, and eventually got a new supervisor.

I self-funded the first year of my part-time humanities PhD. I was rather expecting to self-fund the whole thing, but won funding from AHRC for my second year onwards. Would you be eligible for AHRC funding? They have certain residence requirements. See their website. If not, what other funding options might you be eligible for? The universities you are applying to should be able to advise.

Maybe it's different in Australia then. Over here post-doc adverts typically specify the requirement "completed" for PhD, and also often accept applications from people close to completion.

It's a bit essential when graduation can happen up to a year after the degree is finished.

Good luck!

======= Date Modified 05 Feb 2010 22:10:44 =======
Is the graduation date really critical Sue? If you are awarded the PhD the graduation is a formality, and you'd effectively have the PhD (and that should count for jobs too), with the graduation just crossing t's and dotting i's afterwards.

Here in the UK our graduations are typically held in June/July, so many PhD students graduate the following year. Sometimes there are graduations in November or so too, but people are accepted as having their PhDs after the corrections are approved, even if they graduate many months later.

Glad I could help. I'm afraid my experience was pretty tough - not just the illness factor, but just being so isolated, and it got worse and worse. There was very little the institution could do to help, especially because most PhD (usually full-time) students in my department didn't even use the online bulletin board facility provided for us to communicate online. So not good.

But on the plus side I'm on the brink of submitting. So it's doable :-) Also it was my second go at a PhD too: I had to leave the first (full-time) one 13 years ago after my neurological illness developed. Which was very upsetting, but at least when I had another go at a PhD (totally opposed discipline!) I knew what to expect. So that will put you in a good position Sue2010.

Just a quick reply to say I'm really pleased things are looking up for you, and wish you all the best with finishing off the thesis. You can do it!

I have heard of PhD students in creative writing producing a novel as their thesis, or at least a significant part of it - normally the creative writing part would be accompanied by an appropriate analysis. But generally such students would be expected to have an academic background in the field, including a relevant taught Masters. Try googling for "phd creative writing uk".