I started both a full-time science PhD (left due to progressive illness developing) and a part-time humanities PhD (completed). They are very different. So your experiences as a science PhD-er may not be that comparable to what your friend would go through in the humanities.

Relevant funding bodies would be ESRC and AHRC, depending on whether he goes for economics specifically or a wider form of humanities.

I don't worry about it, and know that another day/week will go better. If it's a totally unproductive day it's usually a sign that I need to take a bit of a breather from it too. Ok not always so easy to do with pressure, but my mind can turn over thoughts/ideas while I'm in more of a relaxing mode.

Congratulations! :)

I quit a full-time PhD, back in 1996, but can't help you with the employment question. I quit because I developed a progressive neurological disease. I can't work with this. It's slowly killing me.

But I did go back and have another go at a PhD, totally opposite discipline, part-time. And I got that.

You'll be ok :) I found out my viva date 21 days before, so about the time scale. Just focus on the tips we've given you, and you'll be prepared in plenty of time.

Thanks Clarabelle. I'm downloading the Merlin demo now. I've also got the OmniPlan demo and am trying that out too. It's a similar cost to Merlin. At first glance it looks like over-kill for what I need, but trying it out. I may stick to my Prolog :p

I would expect that AHRC would want you to repay anything you have received in advance. So, for example, if you leave on 1st March, but received funding through to the end of March, you might be asked to return the portion for March. Bit not anything before then.

I think that's the case because I left a funded PhD in 1996, though mine was with EPSRC (my second go at a PhD, part-time this time, was AHRC-funded). And I wasn't asked to pay back anything before the time that I left. I think I left just about bang on the time we got more money, so it was all easy. I left due to a progressive neurological illness developing, though it was sometime afterwards that I was finally properly diagnosed.

Leaving does have consequences for a department, so they will want you to stay. But if it really isn't the right place for you maybe you are better leaving and cutting your losses.

Good luck!

I used a hand-coded system in Prolog, a logic programming language. Not very widely applicable! But it got me through the task of writing my thesis. Can't take the computer scientist out of me :p

I'd be interested in what others recommend though, especially anything that works on a Mac.

You should be eligible for any standard funding available, for example from research councils. It's also possible you might qualify for charitable funding due to your medical condition. See http://www.turn2us.org.uk/grants_search.aspx for charities that fund according to specific criteria.

As a disabled student you will also be eligible to apply for Disabled Student's Allowance. This is an additional allowance to pay for extra costs due to disability, and to buy any gadgets that will help. For example if you might need a scribe or additional help from someone else this would be paid for. If a gadget or software might make things easier for you this would be covered too.

Contact Exeter university for advice. They should be able to advise you on funding opportunities in general, and how you would apply for the Disabled Student's Allowance as well.

Good luck!

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Actually I think describeing a part-time PhD as a hobby is a bit understating the effort and commitment involved. It tends to require about 5-6 years, of constant dedication, week after week. It's not like another hobby that can be dropped for a while. It's a huge commitment.

If it was me I'd be stressing this to the partner, while at the same time commenting on other things they do in their own time. I certainly wouldn't stand for anyone telling me what to do.

With my part-time PhD I had just 5 hours total a week by the end. But my hubby was perfectly happy for me to wander off every night about 8pm, and put in an hour's work in the study. He just got on with other stuff. It helped he has a PhD though (full-time), so knows what's involved.

Good luck!

I don't think it's possible to anticipate every possible question, and I didn't personally find it helpful to revise lists of dozens of potential - but similar - ones. That's why I narrowed things down to 5 key areas, using Tinkler & Jackson as my guide. And those stood me in good stead on the day.

It's really important to know your thesis very well though. Rereading it and summarising it, in the way Tinkler & Jackson describe, is a good way of doing this. One of the key things the examiners check is to make sure (through deep questioning) that you wrote your thesis. The other essential thing is that your work makes a contribution to knowledge. So focus on those.

So, basically, what I did was reread and summarise my thesis, and think about the 5 core areas that Tinkler & Jackson said. That was it. Very little time required, very little work. But it made me confident enough to approach my viva, and to be able to field all the (mostly quite unpredictable) questions on the day.

I'd recommend thanking everyone who was essential/helpful. So in your case, yes, the participants should be thanked (anonymously). I was a history PhD student and thanked lots of archivists and librarians who'd helped me get access to records I needed, singling out a couple who were particularly helpful. I also thanked my funding council. And I gave a big thank you to my secondary school history teacher who caused me to catch the research bug.

Paper production is a slow process, so I've been finding it helpful to work on at least 2 at the same time, with another 2 in the back-burner / thinking stage. Then once the first 2 were submitted I moved onto the next 2, and so on.

Maybe your examiner is offering to read through your paper before you submit it? Peer-reviewed journals do have anonymous reviewers, so your examiner couldn't guarantee to be one of those.

The only down-side I'd say is that supervisors are often very hands-off after a PhD has finished. There's no major compulsion for them to help you any more, and certainly not to spend lots of time advising/reading papers. Mine have been very helpful, but I think I've been very lucky. Generally, though, I'm trying to stand more on my own two feet now. I've been awarded an honorary research fellowship by my department which is giving me continued access to electronic journals. How are you for that? Are you affiiated to a university at all? If not it can be harder to access the resources you need, when converting a thesis into journal papers.

Good luck!

I'm in the process of producing more papers from my thesis now. I had one big one during my PhD (+ a short opinion piece, also in a peer-reviewed journal), but now I'm really applying myself. Have you finished your PhD? I got advice in my viva from my examiners on what parts of my thesis would be most suitable for publication. Before then the papers that I submitted during my PhD fell out of my research quite naturally, and didn't require substantial additional work.

For me now - at least in the humanities field - it's not simply a case of lifting things from the thesis and doing a bit more editing. The thesis is just the start, and there's an awful lot more contextualisation required to get it into a journal, both in the introductory literature review part of the paper but also in the main section discussing my findings. I'm also working on a number of papers which draw on findings from multiple chapters of my thesis, again based on my examiners' advice.

I'm trying for at least 3 more papers from my thesis, so that would be 4 proper ones in total. I'm aiming the best ones at the best journals first, being scarily ambitious in some of the journals I'm aiming at, thanks to encouragement from my supervisor. If they ultimately reject it (I'm currently revising for resubmitting to the most esteemed journal) I'll just resubmit elsewhere. But I'm always trying for the best journals possible, and the best fit of paper to journal.

I left a full-time science EPSRC-funded PhD in 1996. I started a part-time humanities PhD in 2003, and won AHRC funding in 2004 for the rest of my part-time PhD. When I applied to AHRC I was asked about previous research council funding, so declared what I'd received, and explained why I left. I could have received reduced funding the second time, but suspect I didn't, partly because I had a very good reason for leaving (progressive neurological disease developing), and it was a different funding council, and a totally opposite discipline. So expect to be asked about your past PhD if you leave and start a second one.

I do wonder if you've allowed the anti-depressants long enough to kick in though. They don't work right away, and can take quite a few months to be effective. Also not every drug works for every one, so maybe you will need to try a different drug anyway.

I have a little experience of these drugs, being put on some for anxiety half-way through my PhD (not I think due to the PhD, but due to the brain damage + side-effect of chemo drugs I have to take). It took a little time for the drugs to kick in. Also I had to go onto a second one because the first one wasn't working effectively for me. But now I'm very happy, popping my pill ;-)

Also make sure you make use of support facilities at your university. Counsellors are available to students at most universities, and can be a big help, in addition to whatever other help you're getting. You may also find it helpful to talk to the chaplain, if there is one. I did this, even though I'm agnostic, as I was struggling particularly with the life-threatening nature of my disease.

Anyway good luck!