I would agree with SixKitten on this, If you want to change your field the time to do it is after your PhD, Doing a masters would be seen as a step back of lack of confidence in your skills.

I don't know about your background but I know in science it's relatively common to change your field or apply your knowledge of your current field to an interdisciplinary subject, I don't know if this is possible for you

I was talking about the people that as soon as you say you do a PhD respond with comments such as "why don't you get a proper job" "just an excuse to stay a student" etc.

Adem

In reply to your questions I don't expect people to understand what a PhD is like I believe (rightly or wrongly) that it's something you can never understand unless you've been through it.

I just want people to realise that I don't just spend 3 years being paid to do nothing, that I am in fact working hard. I don't put people down because of their jobs/career choices and I don't expect them to put me down for mine.

What about 2nd supervisors etc? I'd also speak to the head of postgraduate studies in your department and school/faculty etc

I've been having a discussion with a couple of friends about how many papers you think you need to get to get a postdoc (in science) assuming you were moving to another institution (or not getting position from someone you know eg you supervisor etc)

Obviously I know there is no set amount, I just wondered what people thought

Been looking around at postdoc wages and they seem to be in the range 24-31k

I've got to say the comment I hate most are those about "proper jobs" and those that assume we do nothing. The majority of people that say these things work 35 to 40 hours a week. I work at least 50 hours a week!

Yeah tell me about it, I constantly get the tax dodger jibes and if we're planning to do something I'm the one expected to organise things because "they all have jobs" they are all under the impression that I'm being paid to sit around and do next to nothing. As much as I love what I'm doing I envy the fact that they work until 5pm then go home and have the rest of the time to themselves. When I get home I usually have to carry on working

I've heard the only people who fail are the ones who submit against the advice of their supervisors for whatever reason. As getting to the viva stage looks bad for the supervisor too

aliby, what's their arguement for not allowing supervisors or an independent chair in? I can see that people might not want to give up their time to chair a viva that's unrelated to them, but even that is quite a poor excuse. I can't see why you shouldn't be allowed to have your supervisor present as long as they keep quiet

Congratulations

Good luck I hope it goes well for you DJWickid

As for advice having never been there myself, I'm not sure I'm the best person to give advice, but I'd say spend some time getting stuff clear in your head this week and do something to take your mind off it at the weekend

Does your uni run transkills courses, I know mine does and they usually produce a decent little booklet covering everything, I haven't been to the one on presentations yet though

Nimrod81 it's not that someone with an honorary phd is going to take a job away from someone, as most honorary degrees go to people who never need apply for a job again anyway. It's the fact that the universities give them out to people who (mostly) on the whole don't deserve it, and this devalues all the hard work done by those people who have been working for 3-4years to achieve it

I've always hated the idea of any honorary degree as I feel that it devalues the award for the people who have worked for it.

The fact that the person an honorary degree is awarded to doesn't need it anyway angers me more.