Congratulations ToL! I don't have similar experiences to share - I only submitted yesterday so I'm still in the post-submission euphoria. My supervisors are all confident that my thesis is well written and a good read but I'm really worried about the length! It is 325 pages long and double-spaced although most of the pages are pictures. A colleague of mine who had her viva in June had a horrible experience. Her external examiners were very very critical of her work - to the point of asking her if her supervisors (one of who is also my supervisor) looked at her work!! She still passed with minor corrections but the experience really shook her confidence. She's taken it all on board and is nearly done with her corrections as well. All I can say is best of luck with your corrections and try to put the criticism to the back of your mind. It's all done now and it won't do you much good to be dwelling too much on it. Good luck with the corrections!

Hi Theboasker,
Best of luck!! I envy you :) I'm going through my usual morning routine of reading anything and everything unrelated to my thesis before I bury myself into it. Love procrastinating don't I :)
I am submitting next Thursday 29th if all goes to plan...I have Friday and Monday just in case. I'm currently going through my chapters renumbering all my compounds in the text, Figures, captions, etc. and it is really mind numbing! I've submitted the second draft of my introduction to my supervisors so waiting on that and hopefully all that will left will be some editing and making sure EndNote is behaving as told!
I'm so looking forward to this ending!

I think it depends on the your thesis - whether it is laid out in the traditional way: Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion as individual chapters, or journal style where each individual chapter is written in a journal format of Intro, Methods, Results/Discussion and Conclusion all within the same chapter. If your university doesn't have any recommendations to follow I think you have to discuss with your supervisors which style you go for. An increasing number of theses are going for the latter, that way each chapter could be a stand-alone article if you wish to publish your results later.

I had one of those count-down clocks on my desktop to motivate me...I'm not sure what happened to it but it somehow disappeared! When you are staring at the finish line I don't think you need to see a clock to remind you. I am very conscious of the tick tock in my own head!

I've actually managed to get off the sofa now to do some writing and I copied and pasted an image too (yaay)...so good progress..small steps I know, but every little helps :).

I've always found comfort in this forum...feels good to know I'm not the only one in this situation. Like I said before, when this is all done and dusted, we'll be amazed how we got through it :)

Theboakster...I feel your pain. I am in more or less the same boat. I need to submit end of this month. I have written and gotten feedback on my main three chapters. I am waiting for feedback on the second draft of my conclusion chapter but I still need to send the first draft of my introduction chapter. I did write most of the introduction during but i need to update and add some new sections too. I have set a deadline for myself to finish by the week beginning 19th - assuming I get feedback on my introduction asap. However, I lack motivation and each night I go to bed I promise myself to get up early to write but I end up waking up around noon :(...and today was no better. I'm just sitting here, watched the grand prix qualifying, now watching rugby even though I am not a rugby fan! Anything to procrastinate :(
We will get there...doesn't matter how but I have faith we will :)

Same here although I don't have a set date for submission. All I know is that I have until November 1st before I'm liable to pay fees so I'm trying to get everything done by then! Just submitted Chapter 4 for feedback this afternoon. I'm yet to do the Intro (I kinda wrote most it before but it needs updating) and the Conclusion Chapters. I'm just about to start working on the feedback/comments/corrections for Chapters 2 and 3.

We will get there! We've come this far...it's just a matter of dragging ourselves to the finish line now :)

Update: So I went up to this interview this past Tuesday. Had to drive up on Monday and stay in a Pub hotel because it was relatively - yes just marginally - cheaper than taking a train on the day and and getting there in time.
The interview started well, they talked about the company and what they do, what the new lab will be doing etc. Then I talked about my education and experience. Being a chemistry role, they then drew up a structure and asked me how to go about making it. I kind of 'expected' something like this to happen but I was still not prepared enough I guess as some of the stuff on there was something I did in my undergraduate some nine years ago!!
Overall it was a good experience for me - this being my first interview for a career - and since I'm not desperate for this role considering the money and the move it will involve, I think it's made me identify areas I can develop on for my next potential interviews.
I should hear from them by the end of the week whether I am successful or not but to be honest I won't be surprised if I don't get it and will be happy to not have to turn it down!

@Caro, yes right now I'm not kind of struggling to find a job as I've just negotiated with my supervisor to extend my stipend until August so yes, it would have been a different story if I've been sitting around without anything for a while!

Hello all. Some update. I've been invited to go up for a face-to-face interview next Tuesday. It was short notice and quite expensive too :(. My original plan was to take the train but it was ridiculously expensive - more than £100! - so I'm going to have to drive up there. Since they haven't mentioned anything about reimbursing me for travel, I've decided to fill up my tank and just drive the long journey up :(

Deep down I know I won't take the job - not unless I can negotiate the pay which from what I've gathered from the phone interview is non-negotiable - but part of me feels I should go through it for the experience as this will be the first proper interview I'd be doing, and I can learn from the experience. I know some will say it's a waste of a day and maybe some precious time preparing for it since I've got writing to do but hey,I feel it'd be a good learning experience :)

Will see how it goes!

Personally I go to ones where my topic of interest will be discussed and where I'm likely to learn something I haven't known before. I was an only student in the project I was doing and the only one in the department doing a project in that discipline so I found I learn a lot from the conferences I go to. Sometimes I'd meet people who've published papers on the topic I'm researching which is nice :)

@Dunham...yes I did think about the experience part and if I do decide to take up the offer, this will be a contributing factor. I guess one major advantage of starting in such an environment is that hopefully in 5-10 years - if I'm still there - I'd be one of the pioneers and who knows how far up the ladder I'd have moved up by then?
Regarding the mortgage, my partner and I would like to get on the property ladder sooner rather than later considering how long it'll take to pay off a mortgage...so say if I am to take up this offer with the intention of staying with the company for a considerable duration, I think it'll be wise to settle down somewhere and be paying a mortgage than renting.
Anyway, I haven't had a proper interview with them yet - only spoke to the HR guy on the phone who said he'll pass my CV to the recruitment manager - maybe he won't because I think I lost my enthusiasm after he mentioned the salary and it may have come across in my voice. If I do get a concrete offer then I'll have a good think about it. I've sent a few speculative CVs to a few pharma industries here in the east so will see how that goes. Fingers crossed!

Oh I forgot to add that the role is 100% lab based.

Hi all thanks for your posts. Yes I thought it was quite a low wage for an entry level post for someone with a PhD. I think they are paying graduates - Masters and PhDs - the same salary. I did look at houses there and they are just about cheaper than where I am currently living.

HazyJane, you are right. The 'Footballer country' tag has probably bumped up some of the house prices there. I did ask the guy if there's any possibility of quickly advancing to the next pay level but he won't promise anything. After doing some research, I found out that if I'm paid £24k p.a. my take home pay after tax and NI contributions will be roughly £1600. This doesn't include any pension deductions and the like. I'm not sure how much they deduct for pensions but if I have a car - and was thinking of getting one, and I have to contribute to say a mortgage and household expenses, then I will be in a similar place that I am now with a stipend from my PhD. I know jobs are hard to come by but I don't want to make a rushed decision and accept the first job that comes and later regret it. The company itself is about 5 years old and they've already got an established division dealing with a specific disease area. This is their second 'branch' they are opening.

Maybe I should just concentrate on finishing my writing *sigh* and worry about getting a job after. My partner doesn't mind if I don't have a job straight after I've submitted but I just keep having this nagging sense of not being good enough if I don't secure a job after I'm done :(

Hello everyone! I find this forum very informative and helpful and wonder if I could get some of your perspectives on a phone conversation I just had with a potential employer.

I am currently writing up my thesis but in the process decided to look for jobs as well. I have been reading this forum and know that there's no guarantee of job offer when I finish so I decided to start looking now. I just got off the phone with someone for a potential post starting maybe October - they are flexible with starting dates which suit me fine - and when it came to salary he mentioned that the company being small and looking for people starting in one of their subsidiaries, they are looking at paying PhD chemists a starting of £24,000 p.a. The company is based in Cheshire UK and I'm currently in the South East. I know living standards will be cheaper there compared to where I am, but I thought that was a low salary. My colleagues who've just finished their PhDs in my office mostly started somewhere above this value like £27k+. What do think? Is this a reasonable salary range for a PhD graduate? There's no negotiation.