I had done this job myself, I am not exactly proud, but I paid the bills. I used to charge far more around 1000 pounds for a coursework and more than 3000 pounds for a master's dissertation. I was getting more money than any " normal" job would pay and I was never out of work. Honestly, I could ask any amount of money because these students were desperate. From my experience they were not lazy, these students were incompetent. The whole situation is sad, and is really shocking that it extends to PhD level. At the end of the day, you don't need a PhD written from someone else.

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No one needs more a holiday, as the man who just had one :)

Other than that, I know that I am ready to go back to work when I get bored of doing nothing. At some point, I just really miss going back to my structured PhD life. Allow yourself more time, it's been a hard year.

Hi Micronaut,

just to say that I empathise with you. I can only imagine how difficult this situation might be. I cannot offer any practical advice, apart from wrap it up as good as possible and focus more on the things that actually worked. I don't think that (although true) the excuse ' My supervisor made me do it!' can work.

And this bit that he doesn't need you, would have been my defence in court after I had murdered him.

He is petty, no doubt.

I normally act very emotional and I have a very strong sense of justice. I would probably ruin my relationship with him, mostly because I wouldn't respect him as an academic and a person any more. How can you trust someone who takes advantage of someone weaker for own benefit.

if you take legal actions against him do you have any alternative for supervision? Do you think that it could destroy your future in the uni? Will the other academics support you or will they support their colleague? How long do you still have to go with your PhD?

I don't know if it is wise to keep it quite or more power abuse will follow if he can get away with this.
Good luck

Me too. My second supervisor left the uni and the country when I started my PhD. I still haven't replaced him, so I am basically with the principle sup alone. He offered to proof read my work, which is an excellent offer as I totally trust him and he had really helped me in the past. Still, the fact that he is not around and I cannot just pop in his office and brainstorm makes a difference.

I don't know what to suggest. I think I will need to choose another supervisor as the upgrade is smiling at me with rotten teeth :)

Hi Lacaniandream,

I totally agree with Keenbean, as getting enough sleep and exercise in the morning seems to make me more efficient. I also work with mytomatoes, suggested by wonderful people in the forum. I found out that timing the actual work time helped me improve a lot. I have stopped procrastinating, checking e mails etc. I set clear targets, in half an hour I need to finish a specific task etc.
I also start from the most time-consuming, boring tasks, things I need to finish and cannot get away with, like tables and graphs, then I move to an overall structure, and start from the easiest and most essential.
I guess after you have a basic structure you can go back and redraft, add or remove. I allow time between each redrafting to detach myself from my writing. I rarely write more than 500 words per day, sometimes I do, but then I know that after editing I will get rid of at least half of them.

Just keep swimming

Hi!

I come from an engineering background too, and started my PhD at a similar age for very similar reasons, as working in the industry can be really demotivating after a few years.
I can't generalise, but I enrolled for a masters, where I had a chance to work with a bunch of academics and choose my supervisors, who also helped me get funding. I highly recommend to know your supervisors and have worked together prior on some short research project, a publication or a dissertation.
PhD studentship is normally far less than money than what an engineer normally gets.  Calculating the amount of time I put in my PhD it is like I am getting paid 1 pound per hour or similar :)
So, since the reason is not financial, find something that is really stimulating, and make sure that you will enjoy the experience.

Good luck,

I only want to echo KB.
There are bad and stressful moments during the PhD, but on the whole it should be a pleasant experience. It is not worth it if it causes you to lose your mental health.

I also believe that although a supervisor might be an excellent academic there might be a clash of personalities, making it impossible to work smoothly as a team. Can't you use more your second supervisor? Or maybe try to be more independent from her, agreeing on a general direction of the project, asking from feedback on what you 've written from time to time? I would be honest to her about my feelings and my expectations.

I could not even imagine my supervisor calling and screaming at me for any reason, we generally try to get our point across without hurting each other.

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

Yeah,

thanks a lot. It was exactly what I needed now. After a year working myself to death and having produced nothing.

Well if the party is anything like the parties we used to have in a shared house of 5, a year ago, then you definitely need a lock. Actually these parties were quite famous in the area :)

Although we had loads of boozy strangers coming over, we never experienced thefts, but there was a vomit in the carpet once or twice and the room stunk for ever after regardless the cleaning efforts, some couples hide in the rooms and after 3.00am I was too tired and old to stay in the party, and people would just keep entering the room, although I was sleeping inside. Next day I used to wake up, party was still on, tripped over dead bodies on the stairs, had to queue to use my own bathroom.

I guess nothing of this sort will happen in your place, but especially if you go to bed early, lock from the inside. I would advice to socialise a bit and have some fun, before the PhD eats you alive.

Hi Patseya,

I had a similar situation, of course it cannot be compared to a PhD. After a year of working on the thesis of my first degree, my supervisor was putting pressure on my to submit in February. I told him that it is not done and we had a little fight. Most students had the opposite problem, begging their supervisor to let them submit cry if they wouldn't let them to, so on top of everything all my peers treated me with hostility. We were working in an open plan space and everyone could hear our argument :)
In June he blackmailed me, that if I didn't submit by July, he wouldn't even come to my public defence! I wrapped everything as good as possible, and it went fine.
And the same thing happened during the PhD, with my current supervisor attacking me for not having a publication ready and me almost crying and asking for " one more week" (every week for a month...) working like mad in depression, managed to submit finally, accepted with no corrections.

Let me guess, you are a perfectionist, who works almost obsessively 10 hours a day, every day ? ;-)

Well, a little bit of crying and arguing can buy you a few more months... For me crying works better.

Hi First year,

I want to echo Chinglnc, I think it is pretty normal to start the PhD and have to cover ground on a new subject. Being away for 2 years from academic life and having no research experince is very common. I went through the same myself, academics comfort you saying " it is a steep learning curve" but I think they always sound like big talking fortune cookies :)

No need to panic, it doesn't help and slows you down. I always think that although I am quiet ignorant, at least I am cool 8-)

It is true you need to put a lot of effort- I am sure you are pretty capable of doing that, since you were offered a studentship. And as chinglnc said, try to attend courses in the uni, preferably some Master that is close to your subject. It might help you to build a general background on the topic. Attend writing courses too, they were very helpful for me.

Communicate with your supervisor these issues, like you need more guidance, may be he can give you a list of reading material.
Remember it is equally hard for everyone. Don't give up without a fight!

[quote]Quote From pixie:

Hi, the notebook thing in office is called 'onenote'.

Pixie is right. :)