Until you do data collection, you won't be able to see what contributions your research will give. I know for myself I felt similar, but after data collection and doing analysis, I had some really great and interesting results that my examiners thought would make strong contributions.

Your data can and will surprise you if done correctly, so make sure you don't worry too much about the contribution portion and instead focus on the research! Your thesis will need to be changed to suit the data, do not try and make the data fit your thesis!

I think you need to get away from the mindset that international students don't receive R & Rs and focus on what can be changed. There are many students who have passed PhDs and done well with R & Rs on this forum. Your PhD is unique to you, and your result is not (or should not) be dependent on your student status; but rather, the quality of your work.

R&Rs don't mean that you aren't intelligent, or won't do well in life. They just mean that major revisions are needed for this piece, take this as a learning experience. In regards to your supervisors, you need to get in contact with a student union that can help you through this process and other areas of the graduate school so you can succeed.

I understand where you are coming from in relation to funding/costs etc as I am an international student myself and its horrible that your supervisors refuse to see you through this process, that's unacceptable.

However, you have to take some responsibility as well, such as your comment about the anonymity of your informants, that really shocked me. Didn't you fill out an ethics application where you had to claim that all participants are anonymous? This wasn't something my supervisors told me, but rather, something I knew of when filling out the application. I'm also not sure why you would expect your supervisors to correct these in your thesis, did they explicitly know that you had not changed the names? 40 informants is a lot (well done, by the way in recruiting that many!) and your supervisors would not be as intimate with the data collection details as you would be.

Seek help from your graduate student union to find out your options of supervision, if your supervisors refuse to help you, someone else should take over. The uni does have a duty to you as a student.

Also, the extension you requested, did you already have an extension? You should be allowed 6 months from the 3 years?

This happens! Often meetings slip supervisors minds, and I have on occasion gotten the date completely wrong myself.

I wouldn't take this personally if it has been a one-off, remember that supervisors have a million things on their plate, you are just one of em. They are also human and have bad days too.

The former doesn't surprise me to be honest, it's all fraternal nepotism really.

I've noticed a few students on this forum struggling to secure PhD positions and I'm just curious as to why you need to join a project, as opposed to doing your own? Is that the nature of the discipline you are studying? When I applied there wasn't a 'position' that I had to apply for. Rather, I had to develop my own research project/area and get supervisors. However, I'm a social science in Australia.

Are theses positions meant to be like employment/paid work? I'm just interested really, seeing as I have a very different experience?

You might want to get in contact with a legal aid firm that specialises in immigration/student visas. This is probably outside the knowledge of many here? Alternatively, you might be eligible to apply for a resident visa.

I'll be giving my supervisors their presents when I submit the final copy (just doing minor corrections at the moment) as a hardbound copy of my thesis will be included with that.

That's lecturer description for sure, not Admin.

But I think HazyJane might be right in that there has been an error?

Hey Soycho,

I'm sorry to hear that you're really struggling and just unsure. It's hard to know exactly what you want to do post-graduation of a bachelors.

It is your call on what you do, and as someone in sociology who determined their own project, I don't have much advice about trying to find a PhD for a project you might enjoy. There are individuals on the forum who have struggled, applying for PhD projects and not getting anywhere.

Have you thought about giving this project a go? There will definitely be moments where you hate it, and moments where you might enjoy it. Getting funding is also not easy and you should be proud of what you have accomplished so far, even if it's not something that you want.

I'm a big believer in gut instincts. If my gut tells me something isn't right, I go with it.

But this is a major decision, and I think perhaps making an appointment with the school counselor should be your first step to work out why you're feeling the way you feel. You should also sit down with your supervisor about your concerns before you make any major decision.

I think it's important to remember though that you might not find exactly what you want, and will need to make compromises. It doesn't mean you can't work in your chosen field, it just means you might want allow it to develop more organically. You can have a look and see if there are any projects more suited to what you're looking for.

And remember that research is not solely the realm of Academia, you can be a researcher in Industry as well, and your research expertise doesn't necessarily have to follow that of Industry, it can be loosely based. A PhD means you learn the technical skills of research, but become a subject expert in your field. Plenty of PhDs work in industry not directly in their field, but utilise the skills learned.

For me it was both practicality and saturation of data.

I also had a homogeneous group and stated that my research was influenced by a particular lens (white, middle-class, male etc) and therefore not representative of all men.

Hi Chococake,

I was in a similar boat, with only 20 participants. To 'justify' I discussed the difficulty of recruiting as well as what you just described, similar results in the data.

The below article is a good article to read about how to justify low interview rates.

Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How Many Interviews Are Enough?: An Experiment with Data Saturation and Variability Field Methods. Methods, 18(1), 59-82.

I just received an email today that my PhD examination results are in (in Australia) and that I've passed the PhD with minor amendments (exciting!!!!).

I've just had a read through of my reports. One is really positive but balanced, outlining both what was done well with the thesis, and what could be improved upon, alongside highlighting what chapters would make for good articles. Their report was very comprehensive (going through each chapter) and despite listing some areas for further development/improvement, they awarded it a pass with no changes.

The other report is very negative, with no discussion of what was done well at all, and seems to run off into a tangent about the theoretical approach/use of another particular theory, I think because they don't agree with what's been said. It doesn't discuss any of the chapters in detail or demonstrate a comprehensive read, being only a small page in comparison to the quite full two pages from the first examiner...

Despite all the negativity, they awarded it a pass with minor amendments (that don't need to go back to them) with very short (vague) details about what to change. I find this odd, in that if they really didn't like the thesis/didn't believe it was well done, why award a pass with minor amendments, and not really provide much detail about what those should be?

I'm ecstatic about passing (overwhelmed really) but I was wondering if others in Australia have had overly negative reports, and how they handled the deciphering of the feedback to produce good amendments that will address the errors?

You could give it a go, there might be a summer course running that you can teach, which would free up a tenured lecturer's time to get more publications out, or even just put your hand up for marking work.

Or you could send out an email to your department/faculty looking for casual RA work. Maybe there are unit courses that need updating with relevant literature for the topic(s) etc.

I think the other issue as well is that the shift in Academia has led to increasing pressure to produce research and publish, whereas I think it used to be 80% teaching 20% research, it's now 100% research and an extra 40% teaching (lol). So we get the rise in the casualisation of academic teaching, where postgrads teach units, and academic staff not tenured are working their butts off to get as many publications in ERA rank A journals as they can just to be considered with little energy or time for teaching commitments.

Add the lack of setting limits on classes now (at least in Australia), where you could once only have x amount of students depending on your workload (you would set your enrolment cap), now the classes are not capped, meaning that your classes could go from a manageable 60 students to 250. That's a lot of marking, and without prior knowledge of enrolment numbers, getting funding for teaching assistants (and getting the right teaching assistants!) is also difficult.

I agree with the taking care, it unfortunately happens. If I have a problem student, I send their paper to be reviewed by a tenured academic staff member in the same subject area, if they agree with my grade, they make a note on the paper and it goes back to the student. Double-Marking, just because I don't want a student to harass me. I do mark conscientiously and provide a generous amount of feedback, but I don't have the time to mark up papers the way I would like. Students get a qualitative rubric with a chunk of comments at the end, but no mark up on the papers. With over 100 papers to mark and less than 2 weeks to do so to meet the turn around, there's just no time for proper marking that would show them how to improve.

3. Apply to multiple schools. While you'll have a first choice, sometimes your second or third actually end up being the best option. I didn't go to my first choice school, but my experience has been really great in terms of supervisor support and getting teaching experience. The best schools with the top-notch scholars are not always the right places to do a PhD, which leads me into number four...

4. Your supervisor(s) (in my experience) will always be 100X more important than the university, and it's probably better to choose a supervisor whose not directly related to your study, is not a superstar but has a decent publication record, and has successfully helped a good number of PhDs. Some universities will list past and current students being supervised, so you could get in touch with past ones (networking!) to get an idea about how their experience went. Linkedin is a good way to do this.

You could go to a top uni with a superstar supervisor, but if you have a bad supervisor, your experience will be hell. There are plenty of students here who have had awful supervisor(s)/horror stories to tell. Superstar scholars are often not able to commit fully to supervision, having so many other things to do and I would try to avoid getting a PhD under them. Rather, collaborate with them on something once completed.

My supervisors are not directly related to my research on masculinity in Australia, one was religion/men's studies, the other in sexuality studies, but both were amazing in critiquing my work and getting me ready to submit.

Hope that helps! :)

1. I'm not sure, though it'll be considered. I think considering you did a masters you might have a good chance to get into a PhD program, the averages are more so about whether or not you'll get funding. Funding can be very competitive (it really all depends on the University on how it handles it). Here in Australia when I applied for funding, you needed an H1 average of 90 or above to be really competitive. I graduated my undergrad with a 92% average, but only just got funding despite having heaps of RA experience, a publication and not-for-profit research experience alongside strong recommendation letters. I received a faculty tuition, which meant I had to keep applying for the graduate school one each round as a condition. I was also an international student which it made it more competitive than perhaps at a local level.

2. Doing a PhD to get a better job is not the way to go, and many PhDs on this forum and others really struggled to get work in industry upon completion. If you are going to go the job route, the best PhD would be no PhD (lol) or, going the academia route. It's hard to tailor a PhD to a job as the market always changes, and unless you do a PhD in something like cancer research, there's no guarantee that there will be demand for your subject expertise. A PhD really means you become a subject expert in a particular area, and if you do go into Industry, you'll have to learn how to market your skills effectively.

Do a PhD if you want to do the PhD for the experience, not because it *might* get you a better job in the end. Do something that interests you (others will tell you different) because you'll be researching that for 3+ years. It doesn't matter if it's not applicable in Industry, that isn't the point of a PhD.