Hi Lucyanne,

I assume it is normal to feel burn out after a PhD.... I imagine that you probably need to earn some £££ to pay the bills, sometimes people finish and they are in debt depending on the funding they received.... BUT why don't you go on holidays for a couple of weeks somewhere warm, lie on the beach drinking fancy cocktails with little umbrellas ?

On the same time try to sleep - eat - exercise properly and take the weekends off.

You need to start listening to your body, last summer I overdid it with work and got ill. Not fun. I was also feeling extremely tired for a while but kept working because I thought I was "lazy".

I plan to hire a professional editor after I am happy with my first draft and my first supervisor has gone through the context quickly...
I will send the edited draft to both supervisors for final comments (all that IF I EVER manage to produce a draft)

I always feel disregard for professors (and senior lectures) who put their name before their students'.
We all know what happened there!

Good luck with your interview !!!!

I have little advice to offer as I don't know anything about interviews. I think you have good chances because your supervisor supports you and you are working on a publication. Yes, it might be competitive but you are doing your best.

Hi!

I think that I applied for my PhD studentship around Christmas, and got a positive reply around April to start in a September. So generally, it is a long process and the waiting is not fun. I did a publication in between, I did some paid work, but to be honest most of the time I was just paranoid worried about the scholarship. Just like you, I couldn't see myself doing anything else but research.

I think that you would enjoy travelling more after you have secured a place, I can easily imagine myself in the top of the Himalayas during a storm looking for internet connection to check my e mail for funding news... :)

I normally make an excel matrix with the method used, statistical analysis tests used and results by topic. I managed to publish 2 lit review papers with this method. After you have completed the matrix you can do a meta-analysis and compare with your results. You can go back to the matrix when you need to decide on the method or the analysis you plan to follow.

Good luck, and remember that a good literature review is the basis of a PhD.

Hi tt_dan,

I think it is quite common for supervisors to present students' papers. Last year I even prepared the presentation for him :) I still get to have a publication in the proceedings.

I don't know if I will make it this year either (I always end up snowed under with work), and if I manage to get 2 weeks away from my desk, I prefer to spend my holidays with my family (especially my amazing 5-year old niece) than a bunch of socially inept academics. Seriously.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. You have probably noticed in the literature there are a few researchers that they do very similar research, and you normally group them together. And if they found the same thing, then the evidence becomes stronger. You can use the findings of this work to compare it with your work in the discussion part, and if you have similar findings then it adds validity to your work. If you have different findings you will have to justify (maybe because of the different populations or the different method).

Hi Galgani!

I am at exactly the same stage with 9 months left, and I think that it is perfectly do-able. I even think that I have enough time to publish a couple of papers and go on holidays!

I am also struggling with statistics, but I keep positive, I do the descriptive analysis and organise my data, that it is quite easy to do and time consuming. I hope I will get some help later with the more complicated stuff. Good luck !!!

It is so unfair to fire someone because of pregnancy !!!! And it is shocking that there is not a law to protect employees!

n any case it seems like a stressful environment to work to, so as others have suggested, start applying to other unis where you are actually a PhD student. We do have annual reviews but cannot be compared with daily tip-toeing in the lab. Good luck!

Of course you are not alone! During the festive period there were at least 4 of us working daily full time in the school, a few other people who would occasionally come, and I am pretty sure a few others were working from home....

To be honest, I cannot find peace since I started with the writing up.

Hi!

although the limit in my uni is 100K, it is a general recommendation not to go above 60K or 200 pages (without the appendices). More and more people bind the appendix as a different volume.

Having said that, I never managed to be in the word limit, and it is going to be so much fun next year when I am trying to cut the monster in half....

Hi BigNige,

First of all, I find it really motivating when older people (defined with a very conservative approach) get re-involved in studying. There are many advantages of being a mature student- but I am not going to expand on that.

PhD funding is normally 2 times your rent. I find it really hard to survive on that money and I am not a big spender. I haven't bought any clothes since I started the PhD, or travel or any other "luxury". I am a "picky" eater, which means that I don't survive on bread and serials and canned soups, I make sure I buy good quality fish and meat and fresh fruits and vegetables, and this is basically how I spent my money :) I can imagine that your expenses are far more, and it would be very hard to survive on a stipend. Hopefully, if you have some money put aside it will be easier.

Moreover, these scholarships are very competitive so again, it won't be very easy to secure one (this one regardless of age, not all 25 year old can get funding). I am not the best person to give you advice on how to get funding, I got it because I was lucky, my supervisor supported me, and I had a publication.

How challenging a PhD is, is really subjective. For me it is easier than my previous full-time paid job, because I am left alone in a corner to read papers and write my thoughts. Flexible working hours, I don't have a boss, conference expenses covered, why would I go back to the industry?

Hi pushfor 10,

it is quite surprising that a lab hasn't published any papers in the last 5 years.... Why does this happen?

Good luck with your work.

Guys!

It's been almost a month? How have you progressed?

I had some parts of my methodology written, and I started editing them and putting them in context. However, soon after that I had to finish a conference paper, and then do some improvements in 2 reports I submitted last academic year, so after almost a month I had made so little progress!

I am getting so stressed because of all the things I have to juggle together with writing up! Do you guys have distractions too? I get furious when a day passes and I have not progresssed on the PhD. I am so much looking forward to Christmas, so I can have some quiet writing up time ....