spacey, i hear ya!

i too feel that i might not even pass my phd. but i really dont care anymore. and i am certainly not staying in academia, not after feeling betrayed by my supervisors. i've lost complete trust in them. and i do not want to work for them, in the begining i was thinking of staying on and doing a project, but not now, i wont let them suck me in and exploit me again and then throw everything back in my face.

i'm so out of academia!

sillybilly "and no i don't go to lectures"

lol i get that too!! mainly from my parents friends, because they think, doing a phd is just a really long bsc degree, and i just have to learn topics or whatever and pass an exam. they have no clue thats its original research and sometimes things just dont work out! and takes longer than you think!!! i get so irritated when they say, "oh you not done yet? what are you doing??"

i want to bite their head off, but i just smile meakly and say, oh yah it's coming along. and feel like s%%t afterwards for being the worst loser phd student in history!

missspacey, i also have come across such ignorance!!

especialyl from medical doctors.

i think if you go back in history. the true doctors were the academic doctors, and medical doctors werent called doctors at all! then later on they were given the title, because they worked so hard yada yada. and now they act like they own the title, but originally doctors were experts in a particular field.

or something. im sure you can google the true history of the title of doctor.

Hmmm PhD's, well Im second year going into third, what have I learned so far...

1)its seriously hard to get motivated
2)you will feel lonely and somewhat isolated at various points of your work but you will come through it.
3)fellow PhD students will play games of oneupmanship with you, quite often the best thing to do is in your department just take everything they say with a pinch of salt, i have a few who used to tell me the huge amount of work they had done, it does nothing but make u feel inadequate. Dont listen.
4)You will frequently feel not good enough, or that your work is pointless, don;t its all part of the process.

Ok what can I say thats good, its just an exam, at the end of the day thats what it boils down to. You have three years, and after that you will be a doctor which is pretty neat. Try not to stress.

"I have the same experience explaining what I do to some friends that did not continue to further education- I am constantly saying no I'm not going to be a GP and no i don't go to lectures, I work on my own project!"

When people who don't understand grad research asked me what I did, I said I 'worked in a lab'. It was a far more effective way of conveying that I am occupied on a full time basis, and no I don't go to the odd lecture and then sit around watching day time TV. Doing a PhD is a full time job, and I wanted that recognition from people.

Oh yes, liminalplace. I've had those encounters from other phd's.

- Waiting outside office for supervision, encounter somebody who thinks she is v. intelligent, and said, without blinking: "I've just written 20,000 words this term, what have you done for the meeting?". There is me thinking that I'd be very lucky to crunch out 20,000 words in the whole YEAR.

There are other random things. I do think that some people have their own agenda, and it's mad, as we're all working on different topics, so no real point of comparison.

oh I know, i have a fellow phd student who used to be a teaching member of staff in the department that they encouraged to do a PhD and honestly I just feel like im rbbish, he is doing quite a dull project with the aim i think of getting a council job that will pay him well, but he is always slagging off my supervisor or saying he didnt think many people applied (not true) or something u just cant believe him, yet I feel a bit ostracised because im not kind of already chummy with everyone.
But u know I get in there and do my own thing teach and keep my head down.
At the end of the day I dont plan on staying there after my PhD anyway so its no big loss.

xx