I did all of my part-time PhD from home, including the writing-up stage. I'd email in drafts near the end to my supervisor, and he'd post them back to me. We had very very few face-to-face meetings. As usual it was very isolating, but I was isolated throughout my PhD. This forum was a huge help for support. And I got through. I graduated last week :)

I took a break and waited until I got the detailed feedback back from my supervisors. I was worn out by producing that first full draft, and I needed the break. And I figured there was very little I could usefully do until I heard from the sups - no point guessing what they'd say, and possibly changing things they thought were fine. Also once you start the final revisions it's very intensive, so it can be a really good idea to take a break now while you can.

If you must do something could you work on the bibliography or something? Is that done? And what about your abstract? And acknowledgements?

But I do think having a break has a lot to be said for it.

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Interesting thread. When I was a full-time computer science student over a decade ago I worked 9-5 office hours on my PhD Monday-Friday. And that was it. No PhD time outside. My husband did the same, also computer science PhD.

More recently in my part-time history PhD, studied over 6 years, I was managing for the first few years on about 10 hours a week, and more like 5 hours a week in the latter half of the degree. That was total per week, spread across the week in 1 hour chunks each day if I was lucky.

So no it isn't essential to work long hours. I also think they can be very counter-productive, leading to burn-out. But you may find them necessary for you, given your project etc.

Hang in there Chris. Just take the next few days, and try not to worry about what you've lost relationship-wise until then. Focus on getting the thesis out of the way.

I was wondering if you should ask for an extension in the circumstances, but you may prefer to try to get this finished ASAP. But not at the sake of your own welfare.

Good luck.

Mentioned this to hubby. He also recommended taking any talk on a CD as well as a USB stick, since the CD shouldn't be corruptible. When I went to an international conference in Canada (quite a few years ago now) I just had my PowerPoint talk on a CD.

Bit late Emmaki - you poor thing - but I'd recommend looking into Dropbox as a back up in this sort of situation. You can copy files from your home computer, then access them anywhere from a computer. And you get gigabytes worth for free, which should be enough for starters.

I found the comments about flexibility rang a lot of bells, as did the sheer bloody-minded determination required ;)

Thanks for the link. Very interesting to hear the supervisor's perspective.

Oh good luck. My best advice is to relax in the last few days before your viva. There's very little useful last-minute prepraration that you can do at this stage. So enjoy the sunshine!

I occasionally phone my supervisor up in his office, but would never phone him at home, and I don't think he has a mobile.

We arranged everything necessary by email.

I agree with the others. She's giving you good advice about improving your proposal. So take that advice and act on it. Don't view it negatively. And you're going to have to deal with much more of this sort of thing when you start the PhD. So start on the right track now.

If it was me I would look at getting a research assistant post, preferably one advertised to newly-qualified PhD students. You would be qualified based on your research skills developed in your PhD, but wouldn't need additional skills like teaching/lecturing skills. Then once you have that post look to develop your teaching/lecturing skills where possible, if you want to move into that field.

I started a computer science PhD so have some experience of this. Software Engineering too.

Normally in the situation you describe you would be expected to have software at the end. It might not be the full thing, could be a smaller-scale pilot study. But you need proof of concept.

Remember the whole point of the PhD is to produce a thesis which for computing often means the written stuff + the software. Don't get sidetracked too much into paper writing.

There are more theoretical computing PhDs, where you might be developing a theoretical model rather than implementing software directly. But you'd still be expected to have "something" at the end.

Goodboy's advice is good, but I'd still look at the computing RAE scores from the link I gave. If you're doing a PhD it's good to be in a strong research department, and that's not just based on a single supervisor, who might be brilliant or rubbish, but could be an isolated gem (or otherwise!) in a wider department. Basically you want a really good supervisor (which you try to judge as best as you're able to) and a strong research department together.