hi

I took your survey, and I would suggest to provide space for general comments/ feedback, as I felt that the survey didnot cover important topics and opinions I wanted to express.

I also got confused on the definition of "child". To me it is completely different if a child is regarded from 3 to 12, or 3 to 17, and personally I would completely separate child sex offenders from sex offenders in general.

I am allowed to work up to 20 h per week. In the first year I managed to squeeze a few hours here and there in the evenings and weekends. Since I started my field surveys I barely have enough time to do my laundry or take a shower, so I have worked very little, maybe a couple of weekends since October. I am aware that in the summer I will have to do some work and hopefully earn some money. I think it depends on how intense your phd is, and how well you do with multi-tasking.

Hi,

I clearly remember during the first year the feeling of loneliness I experienced due to the absence of people to talk to. I didn't miss the pub conversation, I missed conversations with peers that would put my thoughts in order. I was the only student researching on a multidisciplinary topic. It was getting back, it was almost like I had a terrible secret I could not share with anyone. My supervisor comes from a different background, and could not advise me. By the way, I really appreciate his approach; if he doesn't know something he just admits it. It gives me even more trust in him, because I know that if he says something it has to be right.

After almost 9 months I completed a first literature review draft with detailed notes of all the papers I read, and compared them highlighting all the contradictions and uncertainties. Unfortunately this document was really long- it was more than 30.000 words and more than a 100 pages with lots of tables and graphs I produced. The massive size of the document scared my supervisor who didn't read it as I realised from the poor feedback. I have to say that was one of the most demotivating experiences of the PhD. I felt all these months of work were for nothing. If no one wants to read it, not even your supervisor, then what is the point?

I tried to reduce the document and most importantly I bound the tables and the references in a separate "Appendix" book (so it looked less scary), and gave it to him before a long international flight (so he got stuck and bored in the airplane), made clear that I have produced all the graphs included, and this is how he finally read it. He liked it, and we published it. After that point, it was easier to discuss too as I have managed to communicate my thoughts with him in the best possible way. It felt like we were coming out of mist.

Although at times I felt like all my motivation evaporated in one second, most of the time I am really happy I am doing a PhD. You just really need to keep going.

Hi!

apart from self-motivation and hard-work, PhDs need money, especially cutting-edge PhD with shiny new equipment.

So, if I were you I would try to secure funding first.

Good luck!

Hi Delta!

anyone else working tonight?

Apparently, all this time I was a student, this business I had no idea of, was flourishing... The "services" were mainly provided by fresh graduates thrown to unemployment exactly like me.

A friend of mine already in the business gave me the first client. I was a nerd, and if I knew how to do one thing, that was courseworks! And I was desperate and hungry; I was unemployed for a good 5 months. We (my ghost and the client) got a distinction, so soon after that I received a phone call (on my personal mobile) from a friend of the first client. We receive another distinction, so another phonecall followed... I never had to search for clients; they found my mobile through the word of mouth.

Soon after I got a proper job, and dropped out. They kept calling for a while, in the beginning I was turning their offers down politely, then they would keep insisting, begging, raising the money. They all claim that they don't have time but the truth is that they are unable to deliver something decent. I talked about that with my supervisor, and he said that they are aware of the problem.

However, I am very curious about the PhDs. What the hell do they do about the data collection? Do they fake the data? And then how do they publish?

Hi,

definitely not alone... I will be working the whole festive period too... I have a lot of work to do, and the tickets to go back home are bloody expensive, so here I am in my tiny little room working from the crack of the dawn.

Hooray!

hi,

Try to write a short paper on that - like 6 pages conference paper - and talk about it with your supervisor/ present it somewhere to get feedback. Compare your results with existing knowledge. See if you can persuade people- if not, what is missing?

Best of luck, well done for running a pilot, I wish I had some time to run a pilot before been thrown in the deep sea...

For health questionnaires the respondents must be examined by a physician and the results agree. You need a very large number of people, something around a thousand.

I think that developing a standardised questionnaire is a phd in itself. I use 2 standardised questionnaires: main advantage is that I can compare with previous studies. Administrating questionnaires is bloody hard, probably the hardest part of the fieldwork.

Basically I could have written this post myself.

I cannot blame the PhD for anything, I ve been single for a century, and I wonder about the few friends that stick around considering the minimum effort and time I put in them.
I ve been working non-stop for a few years, and continued working flat for my PhD. So, after a year and a half of virtually no holidays, working most weekends, a month in the hospital due to an accident of a family member, a paper, the upgrade and 2 months of fieldwork waking up everyday in the crack of the dawn and hitting the pillow at midnight.... I can say I am completely burnt out, I want to cry myself to sleep every night - or in the toilets alone (but I am too tired to bother crying or even screaming).

I will take sometime off hopefully in Christmas, maybe for a month. Until then I bite a pencil. Facial feedback hypothesis.

Just get some holidays

Hi,

since the offer was unconditional I doubt that they will withdraw it.

However, you somehow need to make sure that working will not affect the quality of your PhD.

Good luck

Hi

why don't you do a comparison between the 2 countries?

No matter how amazing and suppotive a supervisor might be, from my experience, he is not going to waste time reading a rough draft. They are busy. They have a herd of PhD students, lecturing hours, deadlines for research proposals and a desire to watch rubbish TV.

Therefore, I only send something that is pretty much edited already. We only agree on the structure. After the first supervisor reads it and thinks it is good, he involves the 2nd. First I send the structure. If we agree on that, I put bullet points of the main topics and graphs and tables. If we agree, I write one sentence for each paragraph (What is the purpose). Only after that, may I send a complete draft.

Hope this helps. Don't bore them, use supervision time efficiently.

I have completed my first year, and the little advice I can give you is to make a daily schedule that helps you produce work AND keep you happy and healthy.
So, on the first year I read a lot:
1. If the office is distracting, move to the library for at least 4 days a week. Write 500 words per day. You will edit them later.
2. I don't socialise with the people in the office, and they all hate me, but I can live with that. The fights started when they were happily chatting/ eating/ gossiping next to me trying to concentrate. Moreover, I rarely make friends from work, as I am obsessed with my privacy.
3. Don't read much on general things, focus on your specific topic, and keep detailed notes, so you can compare similar papers. Focus mostly on papers that will form your research/ same approach to your research. Plan now what exactly comparative tables / graphs you want to produce for the lit review, and keep notes towards this direction.
4. Take writing courses in the uni.

Regarding your personal well-being

1. Do some excercise. I prefer exercising in the morning, as it wakes me up... I never study well in the mornings anyway. Find something that you enjoy doing, for me it is swimming. It can be yoga or similar, I definetely ecommend something with breathing exercises as it really calms you down.
2. Sleep well. That means you need to go to bed early, and wake up early. If you go to gym at 8:00, then you can start wotk at 9:00, work until 5:00 or 6:00 in the afternoon with a lunch break, and you have plenty of time to cook, watch some TV or socialise midly, before you hit the pillow again.


It doesn't seem a very exiting life. I found that I need this kind of routine to keep going in a steady pace. And I am a bit older, had plenty of party years, so I only focus in one thing: in 3 years time stipend will be over, and if I am not finished, I will have a big problem. I have no savings and no one to support me, no safety net. So, I try to make the most out of each funded day that I have something to eat and a room to stay.

Hi

I am not a native speaker too, but generally I prefer to talk/write about my research area in English, as I am more familiar with the technical vocabulary, and there are a few things I don't think I can translate to my mother tongue.

I don't think you would have a problem. To be honest the majority of PhD students and researchers is non-native speakers presenting in conferences etc. Moreover, if you were capable of writing it, you are more than capable of defending it.

Another thing is the accent. I have noticed that people struggle in the beginning with my accent, after a while they get used to it.

I don't think you will have a problem. I had my upgrade recently, everyone in the panel was British but me, and it went fine.

Hi!

I had mine earlier this week, and it went fine. Different unis have different regulations, so you need to find out exactly what's needed. I had to give six different documents. One of them was the report, that was something alone 1. intro 2. Lit review (2.1, 2.2 etc) 3. Aims and Objectives 4. Methodology (4.1, 4.2 etc). Also, these subsections also depend heavily on discipline ... And of couse, sort out your references. They want to see a structured piece of work, with very clear research question.

I also had to give a presentation, which I kept very simple. I started with a *very* short introduction (1 slide), then I set out my research aims and objectives (1 slide), then I summarised my lit review...divided it in 3 sections, and give 3-5 slides per section. In methodology, I didn't go into detail; very briefly the parameters I measure, then a time plan for the remaining period. I didn't present any results.

Good luck