Hi Pineapple

Agree with the others that hard though it is, please try not to focus on the negative; rather try to think Obama-style - Yes we can(up)

I know one person whose supervisor didn't think much of their thesis but apparently that person did an absolutely fantastic viva and was passed, just with corrections. At this stage, even if there are problems with your thesis it is literally in the hands of your examiners so I would concentrate on the viva itself. At this stage there is nothing you can do about the thesis itself but the viva is still within your control to a degree. Talk yourself up to yourself in the mirror and 'Yes you can!' :-)

C8-)8-)L Dunni, great news (up)

I can get the first one but not the second - pm me your email if you want the pdf

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Congratulations - it just goes to show that nothing is settled until it is settled. Well done :-)

I have been to three due to conditions of my funding. My experience is that they are a mixed bag! Def a chance to get to know people in your field and actually tenuously related to your field. Some of the workshops/talks are good, some okay, some were total rubbish. It all depends on how the person delivering it have been briefed. Did I learn anything from them? Eh, not really I don't think! I would have preferred if they had been of a more applied nature but I guess that could be just me? Sometimes I find the endless theorising a bit self-indulgent. I think some of the presenters and facilitators ignore the word 'school' and use them as an opportunity to give yet another presentation.

I sound a bit negative - I don't mean to be and hope I haven't put you off. I have a couple of colleagues who went to a few on the Continent and they reported that they were very worth while. Probably it depends on the programme, the calibre of who is involved and the brief those involved have been given.

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Hey All

Have been in Paris for the past few days with all the beautiful people (;-), the women in front of me def had had a face lift!!) at the French Open tennis in Roland Garros; saw Nadal, Sharapova, Soderling and Li Na, very enjoyable and for the first time in yonks didn't think about my PhD - well not much anyway! However on the drive home the doubts starting seeping through again. What if my feedback is a directive to return to the beginning, what if my draft amounts to nothing better than an extended 3rd year undergrad project :-(?????????? Also travelling to Paris necessitated naviagating through the airport. For most of you this means organising passports, tickets etc. For me, it means encountering people I used to work with, all asking how I am getting on, calling me 'Dr.', asking questions about future plans - 'so are you going to be lecturing then...?' The pressure was a bit overwhelming!

Checked my email to see a message from my supv about another prof who would be interested in discussing future collaborations with me. That's good, right???? However, my reflex reaction was 'OMG, I have nothing to say to this person'. Am I never happy???

Dunni, re: another post, self-funders are no way stupid, even the word 'stupid' was a rather stupid word to chose for the original question, I thought. You are really close to that finishing line. I can't believe a copy of your thesis has been mislaid by admin. Is chasing this up not in the remit of your main supvervisor either to tell admin to reprint or for him/her to contact the member of the viva panel who didn't get a copy and request they accept a pdf? Surely it can't be totally up to the student to sort out themselves? Did you send it via the internal post of your uni or by Royal Mail yourself. Can either chase it up for you?

Good luck all - Slowmo and GlobeTrotter, you guys sound close. My supervisor hasn't seen some of my draft before which is why I am expecting difficult feedback.

That's great news Pam, and in your preferred museum sector - even better:-). Heart for those of us who are still getting 'thank you for applying but...' or worse, nothing :-(.

Enjoy (up)

As far as I know ALL correspondence between you and the company/organisation is kept and given to the review panel. Therefore I would only ask a questions if I genuinely did not know the answer. I have done it a couple of times to check if I am eligible to apply for the advertised post. If you contact them with a question which has been covered in the advert or is on their website, it doesn't really make you look efficient.

Hi Ashklea

Sounds good to me what you propose. I would leave potential problems etc for the questions and answers bit. With only five minutes to present I think you have to focus on what your project achieved. Also, but I suppose this depends on the panel and the nature of the PhD you are applying for, it might be worth mentioning how GT positively affected your study, ie you followed the analytical trail from your data etc.

Best of luck

A

Thanks Milly Cat, that's brilliant. One of the professors at my uni (the one who frowns on less than two page cover letters) delighted and freaked us out by telling us that his CV was 32 pages long!!

I agree with the one page cover; just hope I can convince the panel that I'm worth interviewing. I don't have 100% of what they are looking for but I feel that my pre-academic life experience would be very useful for this job. Fingers crossed...

Thanks again, much appreciated :-)

How long is too long, how short is too short? :-(

Just wondering if anybody has any advice on the optimum length for a cover letter. I was told by a professor that an academic cover letter should be between 1-2 pages long. All advice I can find on other types of cover letters state that they should be no more than one page. I am just about to apply for a non academic job but in a third level institution so am confused how long the cover letter should be. Any advice greatly received.

Fingers crossed for you 404. Advice I was given for academic interviews was to make sure you convey what YOU will add to the department. Obviously your own topic but are you willing to play an active part in the dept; teach other classes etc? Read some recent papers by people in the department you are being interviewed for. Try to get a handle on current work and ongoing projects the department is involved in, even if they would not directly involve you.

Best of luck :-)

Best of luck with the viva Blue; hope it goes your way :-)

Hey Pink

Still waiting for feedback from supv; we are not meeting 'til early June. He is going to read it and give me a 'referee's report'. I don't mind robust criticism as long as there is a few chinks of light in there. Plus my husband keeps saying "maybe he'll say it's grand" thus inadvertantly adding to the pressure. As a result with every passing day the thesis is getting worse and worse in my mind. This is a strange sort of limbo situation. I obviously can't work on it until I hear my supv's verdict but I feel like I should be doing something. I have been proofing my bibliography for commas, italics etc but have only found a few errors so it hasn't taken me that long. Plus motivation is zilch.

My daughter made me two cds last night, full of my guilty pleasures, ie lots of poodle rock!! Too embarassing to go through what's actually on them on them but save to say that I am now off for a drive ;-)

How is your own work going; are you happy with your thesis?