Take a step back and breathe.

Yes, this is not an great situation, and ideally it is an error that should have been picked up by whoever read your thesis. It probably reflects worse on your supervisor than it does on you.

Sense of perspective - you've misinterpreted one result out of several, and written a couple of pages of error out of 200+. It is a mistake, but it doesn't have to define your entire thesis.

Those with experience of vivas here can advise on how best to handle the situation (you are not the first person to have made (and spotted) and error prior to via and it is not an automatic reason to fail).

There is plenty to be angry about, but if you can try to defer dealing with that till afterwards and keep a cool head, that would be best. It is done now, and what will determine the outcome of your viva is how well you handle the problem. Calm consideration is likely to help more than defeatism or blame, though those are perfectly natural responses.

Thanks both. The job has some overlaps with the kind of things I've done in my PhD - the main issue is that it's more secondary research than primary, and I won't get to use some of the quantitative skills I've developed.

Thanks both. The job has some overlaps with the kind of things I've done in my PhD - the main issue is that it's more secondary research than primary, and I won't get to use some of the quantitative skills I've developed.

There are good reasons for a person to have 2-3 degrees from the same uni. These may include that uni being top class for that particular subject, or personal circumstances of the candidate meaning that relocating may be problematic. There can be bad reasons too, though, such as a candidate being unadventurous/unwilling to get out of their comfort zone, or unlikely to be accepted at another university.

So I think it basically comes down to you and what your reasoning is, and whether you could 'defend' that should you need to. There is no harm in sticking with a good formula if you believe you have hit on one, but you should be aware that you might lose out a little in terms of being exposed to the different perspectives you might get elsewhere if you had moved on. But this can be, to some degree, remedied by getting out of one's comfort zone e.g. going to conferences and lectures at other organisations.

Essentially, the extent to which it's a potential problem (if at all) is in partly in your hands with regard to how to ensure you don't get too stale or narrow in your focus.

It was this document I was thinking of:

I was just wondering if anyone had any experience of taking a non-university job after they finish their PhD and then successfully returning to university based research afterwards?

I've been offered a job at a government agency/quango type place, which involves appraising research and bringing it together to develop policy. It's a well paid role, great location, some scope to learn stuff and network, apply some of my existing skills without being overburdened with new stuff. It would give me a bit of post-PhD recovery time in which to knock out some thesis-related papers, and I might even get a paper or two related to the job out. It could well give me some head space to make sure that the next move I make is the right one, or alternatively the time to put a decent fellowship application together without as much stress as if I was on a short term post doc contract.

But.... I just have this niggling doubt that if my first role after the PhD is not a university based post doc that it'll be frowned upon for subsequent post-doc opportunities/fellowships. I'm fortunate to be in a field where there are actually a decent number of jobs (and growing) and I'm pretty confident that if I went straight for a post doc now I'd get one. But for various personal reasons it might work best to take this other job and then return to the fray 12-18 months down the line when various circumstances are more suited to it. I just don't know how it would be perceived though.

In reality the kind of work I would be doing would not be conceptually that far removed from my PhD work, it just wouldn't involve primary research. It *shouldn't* count against me. But I can imagine that a more traditional academic prospective employer might not view it that way.

Any advice?

Just had an odd experience. Wrote a post that contained a URL and when I hit submit, a post appeared with my name, which appeared to have no content. I tried editing it several times to no avail, and only succeeded in getting anything to come up when I removed part of the URL which contained a hashtag in it. Are hashtags blocked?

Try here (Data tables tab->vital statistics):
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Births+and+Fertility

I had a mentor who was very much of the view that "funding begets funding" (his words). Perhaps not so relevant for PhD level funding, but in biomedical sciences I've heard research councils freely admit that if a candidate is funded by them for, say, a junior fellowship, they are considerably more likely to be successful if applying for an intermediate or senior one subsequently.

It may vary from field to field. You rightly point out other features that may take priority. But it probably does come into play if all the other factors are fairly equal between two candidates.

Though before you spend a lot of money on books, check whether
1. the uni does training courses to support you with these things and
2. If the careers departments holds copies of said books.

And your PhD topic is codebreaking? ;)

Well, "London's global university" certainly has a very good reputation and is at the top end of the Russell Group rankings. I know less about N...umbr.ia. The importance of the difference may depend on the subject area. Also whether the uni/department has good working relationships with other institutes.

All I would say is that there is zero correlation between university prestige and how you will be treated as a PhD student. I've had PhD experience at two different Russell Group unis. At one I (and others) experienced bullying and decided to leave. At the other (less high profile) I have been treated better though not necessarily received much supervision. I'd say my experiences on both occasions were far more shaped by the department/supervisors rather than the uni itself.

I didn't mention earlier, but funding itself has currency on one's CV. If you are shown to have attracted funding at one stage in your career, you are more likely to attract it at your next stage. That might be unfair but it can be considered an endorsement of your work/your profile as a researcher.