' think that the women/biological clock thing is in part a product of social construction'

Agreed 100% - there was a BBC news article last year... 30% of women in the UK *choose* not to have children and that number is apparantly increasing every year..

I have no clock, I have no desire - I *do* think certain women have a desire to have children though... I have a huge desire to have an awful lot of cats... sadly, as I can't afford them and my lifestyle doesn't lend itself to cats, I am responsible and only have the one.

Picking up on a slightly earlier comment, I do have to say I wonder why women do PhD's *if* they want to be a full time mother? If I ever changed my mind and wanted to pop a sprog out I would try and take off as little maternity leave as possible and make damn sure my partner was willing to sacrifice his career to a point as well - either we both went part time ... or he gave up his job.. or we both changed our hours and it went into childcare....

I can completely see why businesses are wary about employing women of childbearing age if maternity leave is a year long.. sadly they're not allowed to ask 'do you plan to have children?' so I've actually mentioned it as don't want to be discriminated against due to my gender..

[waits for the flaming of her fellow sisters... ]

I'd say as long as your partner does his bit, then there is less need to worry.

It always interests me when the onus seems to be *always* on the mother to give up her job or go part time but never the Father..

As long as your partner does 50% of the child care or helps out around the house, changes nappies , does night time feeds etc then I think you'll be in a much better position than where the mother does 100% and the Father just works, comes home and doesn't help out...

Looking after a child *is* work.. and it's a 24/7 job so needs a team to make sure the child is happy and cared for in my opinion - however I don't think that job necessarily requires the mother.... so it's a shame some women feel guilty for working if they would rather - at the end of the day it's about what *you* feel is best for *your* family

I found the book 'How to survive your Viva' very helpfull indeed.. think I bought it off Amazon...

Maybe worth a look? don't think it was that expensive at all

Hey - Computer Science PhD here too... Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble. I'd say you would have a hard time getting an extension because surely the Uni could counter with 'Why wait until now to bring it to our attention?' and could surely point out that a lot of experiments fail and that's the whole PhD process? How far are you into writing up? what's your area? are you 100% sure that *nothing* you did in the first 2-3 years is relevant?

I went straight from a BSc to a PhD and I am glad I did as it meant less debt in the long run.

I got a 2:1 in my BSc (68% ) and didn't judge myself against other friends who got firsts or who had MSc's.

I'd *personally* say.. go straight to the PhD, if your supervisor is being supportive then that's fantastic... and although it might be a steeper learning curve as long as you don't completely piss around and not do any work... then you might find it less of a shock to the system as you think.

Also..

I got an 'E' at A level maths and 2 'Bs' at Business Studies and Computing ... and I only just got that E! ... my 'intelligence' isn't great and therefore I find it very sad when people think 'only clever people can do PhD's....

Yes, you need a good level of writing... and communication - but I seriously think that as long as you knuckle down (I spent the first year drinking.. hence why I overran my 3 years...) don't take the mick and just *keep going* ...

I felt like crying after working a 9-10 hour day and sitting down to pages of red pen and writing up my thesis... it was CRAP... but I just got on with it...

... Just 'keep on trucking'

Lara... as I said before on this board, when I first came across this forum I was really, really gobsmacked as to how some people viewed a PhD and how evil some supervisors were... My Supervisor was cool and my PhD was very easy in terms of...

1) First year transfer report - just wrote 20 pages, had 10 min interview... that was that
2) Conferences - never went to any, didn't like speaking so used to write joint papers with a mate and he'd present
3) Office mates - all cool, nice people, no jealousy or nastiness.

I came straight from a BSc - never did an MSc and the biggest shock was going from lectures to having to manage myself in terms of time and research direction. However, although my research made a number of big turns within the 3 years, I'd say all of the things I had researched helped 'shape' my thesis so none of it was wasted...

Get all the drinking and going to the pub out of your system in the first year... 'cos it gets harder in the 2nd and 3rd year

1) Make sure you save all the URLS or have written where all your papers come from - it saves a lot of time when, 6 months afer you read something you think.. 'Oh, that reminds me of that paper I read.. now where is it?'

2) It's never too early to write stuff - I copied and pasted a lot of what I had written in the first and second year into my thesis .. yes, I had to re-write as I sounded like an idiot and had matured my writing, but it gave me a good basis for starting certain sections

3) Don't think you have to be mega smart to finish.. you just need determination... loads and loads of determintion and DON'T get dishearteened when you have to re-write for the 5th time... it's normal (well, it was for me, anyway)

'but it's a tough old world out there without a PhD!!!'

Dude, trust me.. it's a tough world *with* the PhD and if you want to work in industry, you can face suspicion as to 'why you did a PhD' and academic jobs are like gold dust...

I applied 9 months before my funding finished as most of the vacancies were advertised a long time before they started... PLUS, a lot had 4 stage applications... an application form.. an interview... a group assessment center... sometimes 2 assessment centers... this took time.

Depends on the industry but I would make damn sure that as *soon* as your funding ran out, you alredy had a job you could walk into.. so I would start looking about 3 months before your funding runs out... as if the worst happens, you could always overlap...I did for 2 months...

When I did mine, I was funded by the ESPRC...

I *think* it was...

Oct 2003 - £10,500
Oct 2004 - £11,000
Oct 2005 - £12,000

So mine did go up each year... I subsidised it by doing labs and practicals as well sa working for the disability office.

My friends who were funded internally by the Uni, however were on a totally different amount of money and theirs didn't go up at all during the 3 years.

Now I have one.. and guess what? I'm getting hassle to put it on my internal CV so they can charge me out for more, yet I get nothing in return, no promotion, no pay rise, no apology for being treated badly... so I've refused and am currently looking into other jobs. Sadly.. no matter how 'normal' you are.. people see 'PhD' and feel threatened and can make very snide comments about it. I would suggest you keep your head down, finish your PhD and leave....

You cope by finishing your PhD and getting the hell out of there. I know where you are coming from as I had exactly the same problem, however chose to work full time and actually enter an IT graduate program from a very well known and respected global company. Rather than going out 'networking' I commuted 4 hours a day to and from home and wrote up my thesis... I got told by my manager that my loyalty should be to the company, I got a bad annual appraisal as I wasn't a 'team player' and was told in meetings ' you don't fit in.. you should look into being a lecturer' - oddly enough, until I mentioned I was doing a PhD... everything was fine.

In some cases, a PhD is also viewed as a negative thing.. when my friend graduated he couldn't even get an interview - he took his PhD off his CV and replaced with 'Postgraduate award' and suddenly got numerous interviews and a job within a couple of weeks - and even that company asked 'why do a PhD if you don't want to work into academia?'

It's not all doom and gloom as I don't regret doing mine at all - but then, I didn't do it to increase my job prospects. On the other hand, my partner also works in IT and he *only* got his job as he had a PhD... and most people in his companies have PhD's... and he's on £10K more than me! Sooooo, guess it just depends..

In my experience? No... not at all. I have a PhD in Computer Science - whilst writing up my thesis, my company were very unsupportive... now I have it, they don't give two hoots, no extra money, no recognition, nothing. I'm currently job hunting in the same industry and have found once again, that experience seems to matter so much more than qualifications. I got told that one of the reasons is that employers don't always understand degrees, that they have changed a lot in the last few years (with all the media saying they have got 'easier') so for employers it's easier to look at the experience than to try and understand your degree.