I'm finding it very stressful, by far the most stressful part of the PhD and am deeply unhappy with some of the corrections I got. The examiners were right to give them but it only backs up what I very much suspect, that my supervisors didn't read my thesis.

Oh dear. I'd say if Alan started he'd mostly likely be finished. Although I was talking to someone a few years back and she was going into her 12th year, part-time...

I've also noticed something in my department. Those who get work in the department after finishing tend to be females with young families. Makes me think the department go out of their way to look after them but if they perceive you as mobile they leave you to it.

Strange you've just posted that. I had a look this evening to see what some of the past PhD's my department passed are doing and some are doing well but although one person seems to be in constant employment since finishing hers (10 years ago!) it has involved three moves across the country and she's a research fellow at present. Sorry, definitely not for me. I've put far too much of my life on hold already. Years, years and years. I'm in good form and so not saying this in a depressed mood but for me nearly a decade at university seems to have been a complete waste of time. I just don't find research that interesting...

======= Date Modified 05 Feb 2012 21:40:59 =======
Good advice from the previous poster but alas, I suspect, about 18 months too late for the opening poster. Well beyond last minute...

Hi Alan,

How is the part-time PhD coming along? It's a long process but you'll get there eventually...

I agree to a point DanB but in my case my supervisors wouldn't provide much feedback. I would give them my work and I had real problems getting it returned. I guess you could say in this respect they took ownership of my work :p Actually it stuns me that I call them supervisors:-s

Thanks Bewildered. I hope he got something lined up eventually. I'd find academia in itself OK, but not thrilling, but the pressure to find a way in and once in to stay there just wouldn't be for me.

Best of luck with it all, work hard and I'm sure you'll do it!

Don't worry Ady, I'm bored.

Getting slightly concerned though because I wouldn't like to think I've closed all the doors. However, at my university most of the lecturers do the work and opportunities are few and far between for most things.

Bewildered, I'm in the same position, no conferences, no publications, no teaching but don't feel academia is for me. However, what is that person doing now? Do you know?

I'd heard early on that the funding stopped once the thesis was submitted but that was only in discussion with one person at my university and so I'm not too sure if the information I was given was right but I wasn't taking any chances. I had been looking for jobs but nothing was going, had there been I may have attempted to finish sooner but with limited opportunities I saw little point.

I think it can be done but depends on the type of project and things such as data collection, ethics and waiting on feedback from supervisors etc, etc. If these all ran smoothly and no waiting was involved then a PhD could be completed in less than 3 years easily. For me, there was a lot of hanging around at points waiting for things to happen and this held the process up. I also didn't want to finish before the funding run out because a studentship pays significantly more than unemployment but didn't want to go over the time either as I wasn't prepared to pay for writing up.

Actually that's not a bad idea Sneaks, it strikes me as being fairer.

Put it this way, based on my experience, throughout the PhD I received no criticism of my work, no rewriting, no significant revisions but as you may know I don't feel my thesis was read and I said that before viva. My impression is, although I can't be sure as I haven't seen the examiners reports, the examiners did read the thesis but perhaps not in full, certainly they gave much more feedback than my two supervisors combined over three years and had issues with it. Not enough to constitute major corrections but it was not the great work my supervisors made it out to be while talking to me (I don't know what my supervisors wrote in their reports). I would lean much more towards the examiners view of it but strongly feel a lot of the feedback would not have been given had my supervisors read the thesis. I feel very uncomfortable with how the whole thing went and will not rest easy until my corrections are approved.

The whole PhD process doesn't impress me as there are too many varibles that can determine success or failure. I would never pass judgement on someone who has 'failed' because they could be a good student worthy of a pass. The whole thing is just too subjective for my liking.