It sounds like the first supervisor hadn't given the feedback by the time the final deadline came along so they had no choice but to submit without it!

I don't have experience in your field, hopefully someone will be along who does.

Maybe you should wait and see how the PhD pans out, as it seems you were excited about it before the worries crept in. See how the first few months go and if you are not enjoying it then re-assess? There is no shame in changing your mind, but I'd give it a fair chance first. I'm sure I've heard of people having a PhD in psychology and then going onto doing a professional doctorate afterwards to become a practising psychologist so you could do both perhaps?

First of all remember that people are more likely to talk on a forum about the bad times and not the good - when we are happy we are too busy enjoying ourselves to post on a forum. It's not all doom and gloom, all the PhD students I know have weekends off, holidays away, hobbies and still live a normal life. Yes you might work a few extra hours than a 9-5 job but not every day and probably not in your first few months as you need to settle in first.

It might just be nerves about a new start, it's normal to worry about the unknown so don't give yourself a hard time! Your first few weeks will just be getting used to the new routine and surroundings so relax and enjoy it!

I'd say the same as Hazy, have one account where you put money in for repairs and emergencies, and another for proper saving that you don't touch unless it's a mega emergency or something. I personally use my ISA as my 'don't touch' account and a normal savings account for the other one.

I also have this thing called 'Save the Change' on my bank account where every time I spend anything on my card it rounds it up to the nearest pound and puts it into a savings account. So if I spend £1.30, 70p goes into the account if I spend £3.02, 98p goes in etc. It's not a mega money saver but over the last 3 years I've saved about £300 from this which I use for xmas pressies.

Good luck with the saving =)

It sounds like you don't have the most supportive of supervisors! But in this day and age of course you can have both, people are just stuck in their ways!

What kind of PhD are you doing is it lab based? Is there any way you can do it long-distance or part-time? If not I'm sure there could be a way to get a year out due to personal circumstances (I know of a few people who have done this). You have been through a lot and being away from your partner will make it tough and maybe if you got to live with him and do the PhD it would be a little easier? I lived 500 miles from my partner for the first year of my PhD and I didn't realise how badly it was affecting me until he moved here and suddenly I could look back and see how depressed I'd been for the previous year.

As for having a family, that is obviously a very personal thing. If children are more important to you than the PhD then go with the consultants advice. But if you would like both perhaps the part-time or year out options could work for you?

I think of it as a job, for the first two years I probably did 9-5 or a bit more, now I do 8.30-6 as I know time is pressing on. My supervisor told me to try working more to get through some lab samples, and I did for two weeks and totally burned out mentally and physically (lots of hunching in my labwork so now getting physio for massive shoulder strain). I think you can work more hours but in my case productivity crashes after 6pm so I'd rather have less productive hours than more hours where I do less if you see what I mean! Everyone works differently though.

I haven't heard of anyone failing their first year assessment or upgrade, I know of one person who got told he hadn't done enough but he didn't fail, he just had to go back a few months later with another version. But every university is different so yours could be stricter. My report wasn't even read by anyone, they just asked my supervisor during the meeting if it was ok, he nodded and then they signed and dated the sheet and shuffled me out so they could get the next person in.

If you're like me panic can put you in hold mode, when I stress too much I just freeze and can't do any work. So try and get everything off of your chest to the supervisor you know and maybe the stress will he lessened and your productivity might come back a bit. Your illness will obviously also have an effect, I've read someone on this forum's experiences of a similar illness I think it's BilboBaggins, perhaps look back at their posts as I'm sure they gave some good advice and experiences about working with a neurological illness which may be helpful.

Firstly, you are not letting anyone down, you haven't chosen to be ill. I think you really need to tell your supervisor, university and funding body about your health issues. Later down the line you can use that to get an extension of funding and deadlines which you may need. It may be the stress of not telling them is making things worse. It sounds like you have lots of work done already, don't worry in your first year everyones work is a mess (mine still is in 3rd year haha!). If your university is anything like mine no one really cared about the reports anyway it was just to show you were doing some work and you had a plan with how to use the rest of your time. Make sure you get all the help you need health-wise too and look after yourself.

That is odd! Most jobs don't ask for the references until you'd been offered the post, but perhaps it's different in academia? That or they really don't like your ex-supervisor and don't want to work with anyone who knows them? Did you ask the person on the phone what they meant when they said 'because of your ex-supervisor?' did they mention references at all?

I had a similar situation with my masters, I did it part time while working full time and managed to hand in a dissertation which wasn't my best work as I really struggled to find the time to work on it. I got it back with a narrowly failed result the day I moved country to start my PhD, I was gutted and got very depressed and have panic attacks and couldn't think about it at all, it was odd like a total mental block. I had a chance to re-do the dissertation and pass but the mental block meant I just pushed it to the back of my mind. Eventually they just gave me the postgrad diploma and so I missed out on having a masters by 3% and it was all my own fault. I know now looking back that I should have talked to someone about it and gotten some help for my anxiety but at the time I was just frozen. You should contact the university department and ask for an extension to the 4 year deadline due to personal reasons and then contact your supervisor and say you have struggled but are willing to work on it from now on wards. It might not work but at least you will have known you have tried and not regret it later on.

Perhaps don't say things like 'I need to do a PhD' just say 'today I will write a figure heading or look at my references' just little simple things. It might help lift the block and ease your anxiety?

Most people have their papers rejected, I don't think it would have any bad effects for your Viva. If it is rejected from one journal you could try another (I think I got told once that a very high percentage of published papers had been rejected from other journals). Unless you are on a specialist PhD you don't need to have your chapters published before your Viva, in fact I am only planning to put mine forward for publishing once I have submitted as I don't have time to do it before.

Hi Tirred! It sounds like you have quite a lot written up already! You don't say what stage you are at, I'm guessing you're coming to the end of 3rd year and beginning the unfunded year? I'm at that stage although I managed to get another 6 months of funding and I have only half the amount written up as you do!

Would the job need you to start right away or could you have wiggle room to try and get as much PhD work done as possible before starting?

I would approach do as TreeofLife says and try and talk to your advisor coolly, explain your financial needs and hopefully he will see your side of the story.

Ah yeah recruitment agencies are a good idea, the last job I did before my PhD was a pretty good job in a lab at a government agency but I was a temp through an agency - it wasn't paid well but it looks really good on the CV.

As for Research technician jobs - I'm not sure, you don't get as many of these roles in my field, I know of one person who is doing a technician job while waiting for something else to come up. If I look at the people who have left my institute with a PhD perhaps half are in RA or temp research jobs, around a quarter in postdocs and the other quarter I either don't know or they are still waiting and applying. Although I think someone hiring for a tech job might not hire a PhD for the reason that they think they will just leave when something better comes - one of those double edge sword scenarios.

I think RA jobs are getting more difficult to obtain, perhaps because people with PhD's are often going for them now due to a lack of postdoc jobs. Having a quick look on jobs.ac.uk it seems that the salary can vary from starting salary of £17,000 to about £30,000, I guess it depends on the project, the university, the funding they have and how much experience they expect of the candidate. I would just apply for as much as you can and while waiting perhaps look into doing some voluntary work somewhere that interests you - sometimes volunteering can open doors and make contacts to help you get more opportunities down the line.

I think 20 minutes is a normal length for an interview so I wouldn't worry about that! Often I've found that interviews have a set of 'key phrases' they want the interviewee to say with each question, perhaps when you said the right things they were all nodding in agreement that you had said the thing on their tick list. It sounds like you had some tough previous interviews and from my experience it's not the norm to try and trip you up so don't worry too much about that not happening in this interview.