I will donate nothing. Beer is too precious to give up the beer credits

in fact congratulations mc2006, it is nice to hear that for somebody doing Phd is a nice experience- that is an ideal universities (and all of us) should strive for:))

Mia - Hubby's money is yours.

LOL - You are so generous. I tell my fiance that all his money is mine and my money is mine too since somewhere down the line I am the one who is going to carry on his family line!

Mohsin, stop trolling.

I agree with Mohsin on this one

LOL

Also this person is only in his/her 1st year. I remember thinking everything was great in my 1st year... Now that I am in my final year, I have realised... in the words of Spidy...

With great power comes great responsibility!

I think you're missing the point a bit here and don't see the significance of saying where I am or who my supervisor is. Attention seeking anonymously on an online forum would be pretty sad, even for me All I'm saying is that when I was thinking about a PhD, I came across this forum and thought no-one had a positive experience. I'm saying you can.

That's because people usually post on a forum like this when they want help or advice or just reassurance that what they are experiencing is 'normal'. Hence, the number of negative posts will always outnumber the positive ones (btw posts about favourite song lyrics/films/bar snacks are considered neutral for this arguement!).

For the purposes of informing prospective PhD students, it's good to talk about the positive side of PhD life and, obviously, there are plenty of positive things otherwise no one would ever put themselves through the stress! However, PhDs are all so different that unless you have the same supervisors, research facilities, funding, background education, topic and luck as someone else, the PhD experience will be practically incomparable. Hence some people will publish twice in their first year while other equally hard working students won't publish until after they have submitted a thesis.

Anyway, glad it's all working out for you though, enjoy the good times!

hehehe don't do it! Run as fast as you can to all potential PhD students unless you want your head checked!!!!

Or if you have mc2006's stipend, supervisors, uni etc.... How can you publish twice in your first year? Whose results are you using? And can I have some money please so I can also go to numerous conferences and buy myself numerous gadgets? Who is funding you apart from the fairy godmother?

Thought I should contribute to this thread with my happy news... After my mock viva, talked with my supervisor who sent me an email saying that he thought I was ready to face the world and defend my thesis!!!

Wow that was quick, so you won't have much revision to do on the first draft? I have allowed 2 months for revisions after the supervisors have seen it, but I would be so happy if my first draft was almost good enough to submit!

I am incredibly pushy with my supervisors and have been telling them about the dates for a long time so that they have taken that into account in scheduling.