Well, you are the complete opposite of me! I hate public speaking mostly (am much better) and never wanted to teach. I do love it though and am better than I thought I would be. I am sure with a natural desire to interact and love of public speaking you will be great. You seem very enthusiastic about your subject and that too is a fantastic and necessary quality.

Post PhD there are lots of things you can do. My love is research so I want to stay in academia. Ideally I would like to get a lectureship so I can continue to do research. Now that I know I can teach and actually do like it, this seems the ideal combination for me. My Uni is very research focused so this is a great combination.

I am not sure what your feelings about research are, but I do know of people who teach in teaching focused Unis so maybe this would be more of an option if teaching is your love. Obviously you would need to do the PhD first anyway, so research is inevitable at this point.

Of course not. If it is about whether to do a PhD then that is a complicated question. I would suggest thinking about why you want to do a PhD first. Do you love your subject? You have already said you want to lecture so that is good, you do (mostly) need a PhD to do that. Do you like research? Dim question, but if you don't then 3 or 4 years slogging away at a PhD will be hard going! Are you someone who can motivate themselves?

I would recommend it but I found it very hard going at times!

I don't think it is all doom and gloom! I do enjoy academia but it is a tough area to work in for lots of reasons. I love research and have enjoyed doing th PhD so I would recommend it personally. I also started teaching last year and on the whole really love that too.

I think lots of us use this forum to vent our frustrations. There was a recent thread about what we love about research and also the positive points about doing a PhD (honest!)

Hi

I have just received an email with my necessary corrections and one item is confusing me. I made my own list on the day thankfully and one item which appears in the email was not requested on the day as part of corrections. Is this allowed? My supervisor was present for the debrief session so I could confirm that it was not requested. We did discuss it but no one requested that I change anything (and I am not sure they have understood what I presented correctly anyway).

I have asked my internal for clarification but he is away until next week. Easter holidays are a pain! I am not trying to be lazy but it would be a major pain to change and I think there has been some misunderstanding of what I did. I don't personally think it is a useful change. Bizarrely, one thing they did request verbally for change does not feature in the email although I have already made this amendment. It is useful so I am leaving it.

What would you do?

Congrats sylvester.

Sympathy vote, good idea. Maybe try your luck, they might say yes!

Great news Jojo. Good luck for the Monday deadline.

Hi

I would say that you would be expected to pay for these yourself. That is my experience but perhaps my Uni is a little stingy!

Sounds great though.

Another one out walking today after some boring DIY. Happy Easter everyone.

I have heard of cases of people who have failed but don't know of anyone personally. I would like to think it is relatively rare as it hardly reflects well on the supervisor etc.

I had these worries myself but I think the mock viva helped as well as this forum! I would recommend reading the Tinkler book that someone else suggested on another thread. I also went to a Uni session about the mock viva and that was really useful. They outlined the possible options (e.g. pass no corrections, minor, major, mphil etc etc).

I did, it was about a week before the real thing. I found it really useful. A couple of days before I also had a chat / session with someone who videoed me whilst they asked me some questions. Whilst they were not au fait with my topic, it was useful to see what I actually looked like when put on the spot. It was not as bad as I thought thankfully!

I think PhD stress has a lot to answer for. Try not to worry too much (easier said than done I know!)

I would suggest the same. I am really sorry you are having problems with your supervisor, a 5 week holiday seems totally unbelievable at this point!

I think talking to your internal is a good idea. I had some conversations with mine about the viva and also other PhD stuff before and after I submitted. I would also try your director of studies if you get no joy elsewhere.

How about looking at other theses on the library? I don't know if all Unis have this option but ours keeps copies of all PhD student theses. I found this helpful when it came to formatting (e.g. order of things, tables of contents etc).

Good luck and do give yourself a few days break. I remember how tiring that last effort is.

Thanks Rick and Ann. I think I will graduate in June so hopefully I will have the big party then.

Sorry for the typos, it is difficult to type with a dog balanced on my lap!