shelleyanne,

That's something I've been thinking about when I come to finish, hopefully I'll have a postdoc job or something to go into, but I won't be able to afford a house, By the time I finish my Phd I calculated I'll have spent ~£20,000 on rent in the 7 years I'll have been at Uni!!!

Off the top of my head I pay £300 a month on rent add to that ~£25 a month for bills (gas and electric), another £25 on my mobile bill, £30 a month bus fare etc into uni, £30 a month on gym membership and sport and £100 a month on food. That covers half of the money I get, and that's before you even consider clothes, trips to visit friends/parents, music or dvds, nights out etc. It's quite scarey now I think about it

Are you a member of a professional body? I'm a member of the Institute of Physics, and in the group which is related to my field if I needed to I could apply for a grant to go to a conference to present either a poster or a talk. In return I think you have to write a review of the conference. Is there anyone like that, that applies to your field?

We have the option of doing it or not. I chose to do some

H, Me too, I needed 70% for a distinction and I got 69.4%

I think budgets etc depend on the nature of the research and how it's funded, ie if your supervisor has an active grant etc. I think there is a set amount of money given to the university by the funding body for your research, but I've no idea how much, and I guess that it varies from department to department and uni to uni how it's allocated or monitored.

It took me time to get my PhD place sorted when I finished my masters, so I took an unplanned 9 months out doing an awful job, which I hated for every minute. But I think that it has made me more motivated in my PhD as it's something I never want to go back to

Thanks pinktrifle

I'm the only person in my lab, it means I can do whatever I want, but it would be nice to talk to someone occasionally

Our uni is open almost all year around, there's a brief period over christmas and new year where it's shut for a week to 10 days or so. Some facilities such as the library operate shorter hours in the summer but that still covers most of the daytime

It used to be fine, ~2 weeks, but now it takes about 6-8 weeks, then we get a cheque rather than getting it paid into the bank

I guess it depends on the nature of your work and how long it takes to get a set of results.

I'm hoping that your supervisor is just giving you something to aim at to keep you focused rather than giving you a genuine deadline of this must be done by such a date, as I personally think that is unfair.

Generally people don't first author a paper until late in their second year (so I'm lead to believe)

I'm just curious about how much (if any) teaching/tutoring/demonstrating and marking etc everyone does alongside their PhD work, also if you volunteer to do it or if it's a condition of your funding.

I volunteer to do mine and do 3 hours tutorials a week + prep in each semester and ~4hours marking every 3 weeks through one semester

Hello and Welcome to the forum

I have no experience in this myself but from looking at other people thesis in my field they also tend to include discussion and conclusions at the end of the chapters. The Conclusions chapter only contains a brief summary and comparison of each with sugestions for further work, and in my field tends to be really short (2-6 pages double spaced)

I don't know if this helps