Agreed, I've also been checking for news! Good luck sneaks!

Thanks Delta, it has been a bit of a run through the mill indeed. I guess it's not easy for any of us though, or maybe a bit more difficult for some than for others, I know you've not had it too easy yourself. I think a combination of supervisor issues, long distance relationship, moving for a job and now, unemployment have just wrecked my confidence or something. I got really good feedback from my viva and subsequent talks etc, and I've got two good papers that I'm in the process of drafting and submitting, but I just can't even bear to look at it. Which is stupid, as finishing the papers will really help my employability, and yet I just can't do it. The only thing I want to do is be able to settle down with my boyf and start living the life we've been putting off for 4+ years due to studying/working in different countries. But I can't move yet, and neither can he, so it's like life is paused, waiting to get going. I'm sure there are many people feeling like this, I guess it's just a case of holding on and sticking it out!
I can totally understand you going down the essay writing route though, as much as I hate students who pay for them, if it provides some income for you then fine - I'm sure they won't get too far on their own so it will all pan out in the end! I'm half tempted to skip off to live with my boyfriend and do it myself, although I couldn't do tutoring where he is!

wow, bad day Larrydavid, Beth12?!

I think planning a holiday is a great idea Pineapple, it was one of the things that got me through my final few PhD months! As others have said, if possible maybe take a short break now, it could be just what you need to recharge your batteries and get a bit better focus on what needs done. I'd recommend heading up to the highlands if you get a chance, even if it's just for a weekend now, if you make your way out to the islands like Mull (Skye is a bit popularised and busy in my opinion), the whole peace and atmosphere will fix your weary soul! Promise!
For a proper, proper holiday, if you are ok paying out for flights then New Zealand, Australia etc can be done quite cheaply, there are loads of backpacker hostels and offers on for poor students so the flights are expensive, but the costs when you are there aren't too bad. Otherwise, you could try places like the Caribbean, it's really really cheap in Tobago, although not all the islands are like that, and some places like Trinidad can be a bit dangerous if you are just 2 people, esp if no boys. If you are going on your own, then I'd def suggest somewhere popular with backpackers and travellers, it's safer generally, and you can get in on tours where you can meet people and make some friends.
And keep your chin up, it will end eventually! (up)

Haha, disheartening is one way of putting it! I got an email today to say I hadn't been shortlisted for yet another job, and tried to reason myself through it, being all positive and all, but I'm drowning under the weight of all this positivism! I just burst into tears as I was driving down the motorway, big shaky ones! Thankfully I was on my own! Proof-reading etc is one way to go, how do you get into it? Would you be able to get away with doing some tutoring etc? With the pressure on schoolkids these days to pass exams it seems everyone is getting tutored, that's my hope anyway (as depressing as that thought is in itself....)....looking back, if you knew then what you know now, would you still have done it? As much as I enjoy research, I don't think I would have.....

Hi Delta
Well, it's still all a bit non-existent on the job front, I've been applying away and doing whatever I Can to raise my profile, so hopefully it will change, but I'm not getting my hopes up too much. I've kind of gone through the whole mad-at-the-injustice-of-it-all phase, and have accepted that it will take a while, and all I can do is just apply away and see what happens. It's too much energy to stay frustrated for so long. I stuck an advert in the paper and will be starting school tuition for some students this week which has helped though, not a lot of money but a bit more to keep me going. I intend to move to where my partner is working in a few months, if I don't get something before then, so I'm kind of just biding my time, trying to accept the dole is where it's at for me.
I did meet with a lecturer at my old university to get an idea for what I should be doing to improve my prospects though, which was enlightening. My issue is that in almost 2 years, there has only been one advertised post-doc in my field, which I was second in line for, and this was before I submitted. So, since then, there have been none. I got my teaching job, but obviously that's not postdoc experience, so I'm still a relatively poor candidate for advertised positions. However, most funding applications for independent early career researchers require at least 3 years postdoc experience, so it's this ridiculous catch 22 situation. So, the advice I got was to just apply for small grants that will just about cover lab costs, get in with a lab who will take me on (should be ok as it's not costing them anything, and it's essentially to just do small projects that don't require a big time investment), and this way I can add funding applications to my cv - apparently travel grants etc don't count. So, that's my plan. I've worked since I submitted and didn't take a proper break after I finished so maybe it's what I need. I'm just applying, signing on, tutoring when I can and writing papers and looking for small grant proposals.
So, not great, but I'm trying to look on the bright side! How are things with you?

Hi Sneaks! I've just seen this now so apologies for weighing in late, but you will be absolutely fine. I was freaking out before my viva, I wouldn't even remember the simplest of things I did and was convinced I'd forget it all. The prep I did was to just read the thesis (I only did this once as I was soooo sick of looking at it I couldn't face doing it all again...) and highlighted some areas where I felt for myself I needed clarification. Then I just went through and marked some notes down in pencil, stuck in a postnote if I needed it, and had a flick through some key papers.
I would say definitely try to take a day off before it though, do something nice, and no work. It will help your head calm down a bit and allow all the thought-process you had for the £+years to come back. You did the work, so you'll remember why you chose methods you did, what you thought about them and the results so don't worry about that bit. For originality - I though of this as the new stuff I did, my experiments to answer a knowledge gap, quite specific stuff. Then for contribution to knowledge, I thought of that as what was the impact of my work then, how did this improve the info out there for my topic, and what did it do to close the knowledge gap and move the field on a bit. So it was a bit more general. Hope that helps a bit!
And for summarising my thesis/Phd - I basically thought of how I would describe it to my family in as short and consise a paragraph as I could get - if I said too much to them it would confuse them, so this helped me figure out the absolute key bits of info and what wasn't vital to understand it.

But above all, don't stress too much, it will all come back to you and, as others have said, your examiners aren't there to break you, they will most likely put you at ease, and it will be a nice productive discussion of your work! As odd as it might seem, I came out of my viva actually motivated to get stuck back in and get going on corrections and papers that we had discussed! Never in a million years did I think that would happen!! :) (up)

Thanks Delta, I think I'll go around that. It's just a minefield at the moments, I've looked at salaries for similar jobs and they vary from voluntary to 16,000 to 29,000. I think 24,000 is a reasonable amount given a PhD background, I just have to hope my cv is good enough that they will be willing to compromise if they think it's too high. I was speaking to a prospective employer tonight and it's just the same old story - excellent CV, excellent website, great publications and presentations record, would love to hire me...but there is just no money for the jobs they need filled. Bloody bankers and hedge fund speculators etc have a hell of a lot to answer for. Rant over! :)

Hi all
I'm applying for a background researcher-type job, basically lit reviews and preparing info for others to use. They ask for the applicant to state salary expectations in the covering letter, and I have absolutely no idea what to state. I don't want to go too high in case they think I'm having a laugh, but don't want to go too low either. I have looked at the living costs for the area and all that to see if I can work out a figure based on that, but I'm just wondering, does anyone know what salary this kind of job has? It's in the environmental field, and jobs here either seem to fall within the £15-19,000 or £24 - 30,000 range. I was thinking about 22-24,000 for this position, as a compromise, would that seem reasonable?! :$

======= Date Modified 18 Jan 2012 21:13:35 =======
Ahhh Mlis, tell me about it!

I passed my viva just over a year ago, great feedback from examiners etc, and today I signed on for the first time in my life. I hadn't even been in the Jobs office before today. It was rather soul destroying. I was lucky enough that about 3 weeks after my viva I was starting a new job, as a part time lecturer, but it was ridiculous. I was teaching stuff to students, including MSc's, that I'd never even studied before; I had roughly 3 days to learn the topic and put together a lecture for it at the start. Then as the classes piled on the time ran out and I was working 15 hour days (edited to mention - working 15 hours, paid only for the 3 or so hours teaching I did that day...) just to keep up with the teaching, never mind attending all the meetings, supervisions etc that I had to do. I was told I'd be able to get another contract for this year (it was a series of semester-long contracts, so 4ish months at a time) but then just before Christmas it became clear that there wouldn't be money in the budget to renew my contract. I knew that it was a starting job, plenty of teaching experience but absolutely zero for research and no time to even write up from my phd, so I'm way behind on that. I was looking for other jobs the whole time last year, and have applied for many, mostly ones that I'm over qualified for, some that I'm underqualified for but desperate. One lecturing job I applied for had 90 other applicants, who all had several years post doc experience over me. I've been finding it nigh on impossible to get postdoc experience - only one funded advertised position which was before I even submitted, nothing last year...and before Christmas I began the process of emailing people I'd met before, cold-calling academics and people in government labs etc, and sending my CV out all over the place. Even doing this was depressing, and still no postdoc or funding opportunities have come up. Everyone has the same story - no money for postdocs, government reducing funding for research etc.
It's really really crap. I haven't got another job yet, I have some minor savings that I'm trying to live off in the hope that I'll get a job before having to go to the call centre, but it's just the most horrible experience. I feel very angry like I know many others do, at what feels like a lie that I was sold, go to uni, work hard, get a good job at the end, which obviously hasn't worked out that way. I've gone through the whole range of emotions, anger, resentment, envious of family/friends who are doing well, and I swear I'll punch the next person who says something will come up. So I totally know how you're feeling. I'm not sure what field you are in, but does the whole networking thing really work in your field? So far I've been still presenting my research at whatever conference I can afford to go to, usually just small local meetings, but it's getting my name known a bit better. I've also made a website to try and get my stuff a bit more accessible, and am considering writing articles for a local newspaper, to see if I can generate a bit of cash that way. Is this anything you can do? I know being restricted geographically can make things much more difficult, but there is online tutoring you can do - not great money, but still academic-ish a bit... - and depending on your field, doing some science in society stuff can really help.

I know it seems like a waste of time to have done the PhD by now, but still, we've done it, and we just have to make the most of it. But don't feel too alone in being peeved off about the whole thing and flailing around looking for a decent job, I'm right there with you!

======= Date Modified 24 Oct 2011 20:49:43 =======
lol the data is a bit crazy sneaks, ecology stuff tends to not do how ud like it to do sometimes...there are so many variables, I'd have to twiddle with data in different ways to get it all parametric and, to me, it just sounds fishy when you play with it a lot, plus it's quite a sensitive result so I'd rather it not be open to questioning the stats, I'd prefer them to be solid and clear.
I've emailed my sup to see if he has any special test on how to do it, or even if he's actually thinking what he's thinking, as it's always possible that he's not....I did some cluster analysis on some of the data, stuff that I could get parametric, but he wants something more specific, and the cluster stuff is too general. ah hoo.
Thanks!

Thanks for the replies sneaks and kbara!
I think I've not made it really clear excatly what the data is...It's literally two unrelated groups, i.e. control sites and (different) experimental sites. I've got them in similar geographical locations, i.e. one control site is near to a corresponding experimental site, and there are 15 of each, dotted around the country. The aim is to see if there are similarities in these sites, caused by being in the same location. so, the are paired in that sense, Gp1_site 1 is paired/in the same location as Group 2_site 2, but it's not a true pairing so im not doing a paired t-test in that sense. I sampled on two months, so two data sets. However in each site, there was only 1 value, so no repeated measures stuff going on. So it's literally comparing one value with another.
So far I grouped all the Group 1 sites and compared them with all the group 2 sites, which was fine for my viva (!) but the sup has gone back to this individual comparison, and I'm not sure how he think I can do it!
Plus, to add to the fun, it's all non-parametric, and transforming doesn't fix it, plus there are lots of zeros for some values which messes up some transformations!

On writing papers form my phd, an old issue has resurfaced between one of my supervisors and myself. He keeps telling me to do a paired comparison of sites I have sampled, and I've told him before I can't do it as I don't have enough data for it, and I though we had it sorted, but we obviously don't. So, hopefully some lovely forumites can help out....
I have 30 sites, roughly paired up, so that there are 15 in each group. I sampled all sites twice, so I have 2 data points for each site. I have done a mann whitney, comparing all of group A with group B, for each sampling set, i.e month 1 and month 2, as I'm expecting (and found) differences in sites depending on month sampled.
As far as I can make out, my supervisor wants me to do a paired comparison, like a t-test, to see if there are any differences between site 1 in group A and site 1 in Group 2. Looking at each sampling month separately, I have only one data point for each site, so I'm comparing one against one, which obviously I can't do. If I combine sampling months, then I'll have two data points for each site, so I'm comparing two against two, which I think is pushing it. Is there some analysis that I'm overlooking that would allow me to do this?!

Thanks!

Hi Slowmo
I'd agree with the others, you sound like you've prepared as much as you can, so make sure you get some down time on the day before, and get a decent sleep if possible. However, depending on how you are, if you feel the need to do something other than this then that's what you've got to do. I recall the night before my viva, staying in a friends house as it was closer to the uni, and frantically trying to read through my thesis because I was convinced something was wrong, and there was something I had missed. I had this awful ominous feeling in the few days leading up to it, and for my own sanity, I couldn't rest until I'd figured out what it was. Cue sitting up at midnight the night before, finally finding a sentence in one methods section where I had referred to a result which wasn't presented in the results section - easy to miss in a 60-odd page chapter, and it wasn't a very important result, but still! I was worried my examiners would have picked up on it, but felt infinitely better that I had found it, and took the missing result in with me the next day. So, frantically reading ones thesis at midnight the night before a viva and printing out results the next morning before walking in, isn't exactly the ideal way to prepare, but I had to know for my own sanity! The examiners hadn't even noticed btw, so I didn't mention it, and on doing corrections, I noticed a few other things that me, my 2 supervisors, and 2 externals had also missed, so don't worry!

And Good luck!! (up)

Morning (nearly afternoon!) folks!
I'm back here as I'm turning away from the work mode and falling back into procrastination habits, so I must nip this in the bud! Today I've no lectures, so I'm determined to get my next paper draft finished. Have loads of changes to do, extra papers to read and all, and haven;t been working on it for aaaaages so it should be a challenge! But I shall do it!
Goal 1, read through new papers, and get key points relevant to paper...Good luck everyone!