Congratulations !

I am not sure if I got this right, but I would never put the blame on a lab colleague when talking to the PI if there is no need for it. The project was stuck, you got it back on track. There was no need for telling the PI, as he/she anyway doesn't care as long as its running again. Things like that make you look overambitious, uncooperative and it definitely creates a bad atmosphere in the lab. I hope I understood "updated" right and did not make a wrong assumption.

You can't really do something about that. Jut keep up with the good work :)

LMU munich is of course a big university, as Munich is a big city ;) If you want a small university, for whatever reason, you should rather look in smaller cities. The entrance exam will be different depending on the subject you want to study. For more detailed information : Just search the world wide web for the specific degree. I am pretty sure there are some threads were people from exactly that university can tell you how it is like. I think this is the wrong forum to ask this kind of specific questions

I would not see it so negative. You already expected this or something even worse (downgrade). They were positive about the thesis and 90% is there, now go get the last 10%.

I am not really familiar with this "viva". Never heard it before. So far, everywhere I was they just called it a Phd defense but there you don't have the possibility to resubmit or further work on it. You pass or you fail. Where is the difference between both?

I would also suggest to prepare a research plan including the interest/motivation for that topic and then to apply (CV, academic redord and so on) at potential supervisors in that field that work in a similar direction.

It's probably just to check if you are capable of understanding and thinking about scientific publications. Maybe the way they do it during literature seminars. I would not worry about that. Confidence is the key in interviews. If you are not nervous then this is often just a friendly conversation were both sides learn to know each other a bit better ;)
Atmosphere in the lab, equipment (in case of natural sciences) and possibilities for further education (Courses, seminars etc.) are things I would be interested in and that I would aks them. Good Luck !

I would strongly suggest to apply at all potential places available, to have as many backup plans as you can get. Time consuming and for sure annoying but you already lost 7 months and even though thy seem to like the proposal, it is not a confirmation for a PhD :)

Can't believe that there are still people stupid enough to write something like this in an official response. Not really suprising that there are people who think like that, but they should at least be clever enough to not speak it out loud. It's like insulting your boss online.

@ awsoci

Of course a university is not the place to prepare you for industry. I meant that these things can often not be separated and one leads to another. For instance, tons of chemists and biologists end up in sales after their PhD. A position in which a bachelor degree would be more than sufficient. The reason why they nowadays demand a PhD is not that you need it but that there are so many PhDs. Why hire someone with a masters degree if you can have a PhD? As someone mentioned above, if you don't do the job then 20 other post docs waiting in line to take your place. This lowered the salaries over time and made the expertise cheap.
I'm not blaming universities for their mild interest in the industry sector because that should not be their concern. I'm blaming them for lying about perspectives and facilitating an oversupply of PhDs by creating more and more scholarships that are getting cheaper and cheaper. As a PhD student in the Netherlands I would start with 2100€ and would get 2700€ in my last year, while it is 1200€ in Germany for exactly the same job. Obviously some countries manage to restrict this a little bit by paying appropriate salaries. Of course PhD positions would get rarer, but that would probably not be the worst outcome.

I like your positive attitude but one always reads the same stuff "I learned so many things in my PhD, I will make my way". Everybody thinks like this, but obviously it is not true. These berklee students are not afraid that they won't work in academia but afraid that they just work nowhere (I mean of course field related. You can probably always work in retail or a diner ;) ).

But I probably agree with you that it gets worse in many job sectors at the moment :/