how can teaching be voluntry AND well-paid. speak clear english please

It is voluntary because you don't have to do teaching, it's not mandatory. If you do decide to do teaching it is well paid. Ok, I'll work on my English, you bloody Brits!

if my PhD is in english, then I would be worried about the spelling, but its not, I couldn't give a s***. Anything I write normally is spell checked, so thats that problem solved. If me missing out an 'a' bothers you that much...sory abowt vat

Stu, check your dictionary before critising! Here are the Oxford English Dictionary definitions for 'voluntary':

Voluntary (adjective )
1. done, given, or acting of one’s own free will.
2. working or done without payment.

Yes, yes, before anyone points it out I realise that I have mis-typed ‘criticising’ in the previous post, groan!! ;o)

[Postgrad team, any chance of an edit function?!]

And to get the thread back on topic...

Bluesky, this week's New Scientist has a section on what it's like to do a PhD, might be helpful for you?

Stu - Don't you think that's a little unfair? If English isn't your first language you're bound to make occasional mistakes. Personally, I have great admiration for those who learn a second language to a high level. I'd like to see you post on a German site ohne fehler.

I agree HappyDays. My point was that AnonGerman didn't make any mistake. It's perfectly possible for an activity to be voluntary and well-paid.

Hope noone starts looking at my spelling, I make mistakes all the time. Had to look up how to spell 'aeroplane' earlier as forgot

I agree with all the others ... you can hope to finish in 3 yrs but this is not always very realistic ... it depends on many things - firstly if you do a lab based project this generally won't happen as things always take you think so always allow extra time for things to go wrong/change of plan etc... The nature of project is important - if it is very lab intensive allow extra time as one of the first things you learn is that there are many things outwith your control that you have to allow time for! Then there are postgrad training courses, presentations, reports etc which all take up time so you have to allow time for those as well. It requires good time management to finish on time!

I forgot to say that it mostly requires LUCK and hope you don't run into any major problems!

... you are not obliged to do any teaching but if you choose to do so then you will be well compensated for your efforts

Hi, thanks again for everyone for all the information. I think the best thing may be to actually get a job and then I can always do a PhD from next year. The thing is though, does it matter what age you start a PhD? I'm 26 and so will probably be 27 if I start a PhD and so around 30 when I finish. Is this considered too old to get post-doc or other further work afterwards or are many people around this age? Or is age not really an issue?
Thanks again.

Nope age is not as much as taboo in academic circles.