I did sweet FA in my first year.. got in at 10:00 .. left at 3:00.. spent most of the time down the pub...

.. second year didn't change much either.. pub, pub, pub...

Probably why I overran by a year and a half!

How long did it take you guys to get your corrections?

I passed my viva with minor corrections on the 8th Feb... it will be 3 weeks on Friday.

I emailed the Internal over a week ago and didn't get a reponse so my 2nd Supervisor had a word with her on Monday and she mumbled she hadn't had time and I have ages.. My 2nd pointed out to her I was 'on the cusp' of minor and major.. I have another chapter to write and it's not fair on me to be kept waiting.. one more week and 1/3rd of my time will be up.. :-S I work full time and I need to do my corrections ASAP.

He's going to be kicking her up the arse AGAIN tomorrow.. but, do you know any ways I can get her moving if that fails? threaten to sue the Uni? or would I have to wait until I 'fail' when she doesn't send them to me within 3 months...

Hell, least you guys will both reach a mutual decision - I just think even in this day and age when you have women getting PhD's, excelling in the work place.. as soon as you think about having kids, society expects you to give up your career, education - not everyone, mind you.. as some are very open minded... but I ACTUALLY had one bloke ask me ' Why are you bothering getting a PhD? when you have kids it will be wasted...'

er when, WHEN? and even if I did breed... why would he assume I would be the one to give up my job?

Meh

' All the straight male managers have a wifey and kids though'

That's probably because they didn't take any time off work to raise them... therefore they can 'have it all' whereas more women tend to have to 'sacrifice' one or the other e.g. kids or career....

I think if I changed my mind and wanted kids I would give my partner a choice, if you want kids we both have part time jobs.. or you can give up your job and look after it whilst I work... I doubt he would agree so I think we'll stick to the cat

'Most of the women I meet professionally don't have children - some clearly by choice. It really is not a profession that is very compatible with parenting'

-- This is true in my company. In the IT industry many of the female managers don't have children and I do wonder would they have got to where they are today if they did? It would also be interesting to know *why* they don't have kids - obviously it's their right / choice not to have kids.. but I wonder if they got where they are by making a concious decision not to have kids BECAUSE of their career... or decided not to have kids BECAUSE they didn't want kids and therefore were able to devote more time and effort to their career?

Olivia, do you know what's odd? I post on a child-free forum (and no, it's not all bitter spinsters who hate kids or men.. most are married and there's a lot of guys who post as well) A lot of women share the same view about not changing their surname, more than I have ever countered in 'real' life and it seems that the more educated they are academically, the more passionate they feel about keeping it.

The BBC printed an article a year or so ago stating that 40% of women graduates won't have kids by the time they are 35 and 1 in 3 will never have kids...

I've been with my partner for 6 plus years, lived together for 4.5... and we have no intention of getting married. I respect people who do, it's their choice.. but as we have no intention of ever having kids (all maternal feelings are projected towards the cat), don't ever want the Mrs title or my partners surname and can be faithful without a ring and a peice of paper.. well, it's just not 'for us'....

I feel it's a shame some people look down on long term couples as somehow 'less committed' than those who are married... However that's their opinion, it doesn's bother us so we won't be pressured in to anything.. we're happy

PLUS.. if I wanted to get married, I would propose.. regardless of the date

Chat shows... like Jeremy Kyle

I felt like this, I worked full time when writing up... was working away from home and was writing up in the evenings and weekends. My work colleagues 90% of the time got a 'no thanks' when they invited me out.. so did my friends when they invited me out at the weekend. However, thankfully both were very supportive so kept asking me and didn't take offence when I said no.

Could you possibly organise one night out with your mates every 2 weeks and have something to 'look forward to'? have you got a def finish date?

I'd suggest you try again but only once your head is sorted and you feel confident in what you can achieve. There is no point going back to it feeling demotivated and demoralised. Weigh up the pros and cons in your head - will you regret it ten years down the line or will you be able to have a successful career without it?

If I can get one, having spent most of my 3 years in the pub and working 5 hours a day.. you should have no problems

LOL... 'No corrections', I wish! I was told it was on the edge of being minor / major as I have another chapter to write and about 200 smaller corrections e.g. typos (some of which I have already found and done) I also have 2 short sections to write in my literature review so nope, I certainly have more work to do

It still hasn't sunk in yet - all my work colleagues, family and friends are being lovely and saying 'congrats'... I'm still in shell shock... I think the 'problem' is having this huge expectation as to what it should be like and it being totally different to what I imagined!

Ahh jealously - I've encountered this so much. I've had comments such as ' I could have done a PhD if I had wanted to' (but you didn't.. so how can you assume that?) to men (not many women in IT) getting really agressive, asking me a computer science question to which I am honest and say ' I have no idea' and they'll reply ' Ha! so I know more than you even though you have a PhD... not so mart really, are you?'

Ahh yes, and the ones who deliberately trivialise it.. 'some course', 'you haven't finished yet? too much drinking?' .. I would just do the same to them ' so you have a kid? er great.. all you need to do is lie back, get pregnant and pop it out' .. ' new job? all you had to do was sleep with the boss'...

Suit - although your university might be laid back, you don't necessarily know if your external will be. Whilst you *could* turn up in a suit and the external and internal are casually dressed... I think that will be less worrying than if you turn up in jeans and are faced with 2 people smartly dressed. Wearing a suit in some cases suggests you take your viva seriously and want to make a good impression.

Good luck and although it might not have been intentional.. well done on the weight loss.. I think I have put on over a stone from comfort eating before mine and am now back on the diet

Well, after 6 weeks of hysterical crying fits, cronic insomnia and hours and hours of revising / thesis reading I passed my viva with minor corrections on Friday.

After reading some of the horror stories on here I was expecting my viva to last 2.5 hours minumum.

As it is, I get in there and get told that actually the external doesn't want to see my 15 minute presentation... ok, so I shut my laptop..

He completely skipped most of my contributions, didn't even *mention* chapter 5 - the in depth chapter with all my underlying theories and spends most of his time asking me to define what I think things are.. he kept looking at his watch and after 50 mins he said ' I'm done'... so my internal took over (she had pages of questions) however as she worked out the external needed to be somewhere she asked me 3 hardish questions..

I went into my 2nd supervisors office who thought there was something wrong... 55 mins mine took... I suppose I am just feeling slightly like a fraud.. all these people get grillings and I got nothing like that! Anyone else had a weird viva experience?

I think unless family members have been through the PhD process, it's very hard to appreciate how time consuming / life consuming it is, after all 'It's just another degree, isn't it?'

I found my family were supportive, and I found my friends were as well.. however *most* of my support came from my partner who had finished his PhD 2 years earlier and a friend who turned into my 2nd Supervisor and had finished his PhD 7 years ago.

Thing is, it's *your* PhD, YOURS! and therefore you need to remind yourself why you are doing it, suck it up and get on with it... I don't mean that in an offensive way as if it wasn't for the support I got, I don't know if I would have finished it... but keep your main reasons in sight... take regular breaks and even if your family / friends don't want to know about your PhD.. talk to them about other stuff instead - anything to keep yourself sane.