"This forum is full of people who prefer to argue and react to things rather than actually take positive steps to solve a problem. They prefer to moan. Hence why I'm commonsense".

pmsl that's hilarious. It's easier to talk down to people when one has a distorted image of ones own position or self-worth. After all your writing on here CS, no-one has come on to agree with you. Never mind, eh? As far as I recall people on here haven't asked for your "help", your "solutions" or your "advice" - I think we're old enough to look after ourselves ta. Then again, that never stopped you dispensing your "elite-university" knowledge and wisdom. Good lad

Matt - stop being a patronising baby. You just love to complain how things aren't perfect. Wake up, that happens in every profession amongst the reactive and lazy.

In addition Matt I would never think you were capable of following any of the productive paths I set out but you did ask how those more proactive folks might be able to take the opportunities a PhD presents them with. I can just imagine you in 20 years a bitter old academic who hates the progressive direction that academia has taken, hates university management and all they want to do is retire (moaning about whatever system replaces the Rae bla bla bla). There's many of your type.

But first you'll have to prove that you can actually get this academic job which you tell us you have the perfect qualifications for. But I imagine when you got to interviews you arrogantly put far too little emphasis on teaching skills, you are unwilling to engage with the enterprise agenda and your lack (I think you've said this) of publications counts against you because you think the Rae is rubbish and haven't produced enough to be taken seriously.

I am quite happy to take advice from anyone, however, if is productive and useful, though I think you've only told us ever what isn't possible with a PhD rather than what is possible.

And on that note I'll leave you to moan amongst yourselves. I can't be bothered to engage with people who always want to see the negative side of things. That is not looking down on anyone. Just my choice in life.

What an absolutely super chap. Why can't we have more people like him on here.

LOL @ golfpro

Hands up, I'm sorry, that was bait.

But my god caught a whopper there, CS bit pretty hard and curled up into a SEETHING ball of rage and fury !!

Like posters below say though, seems a pleasant enough chap, not sure he laughs all that often in life though methinks!

Would i do it again..... Oh my God NO!!!!! run, run away as fast as you can!!!!!

I'm doing a masters at present and not likely to get a distinction/PhD funding - would anyone like to take a guess at my chances of getting a lecturing post in Literature without a PhD? I'm recoiling from the idea of financial ruin caused by self-funding...

Not great I am afraid. If you read the Times Higher Educational supplement you will see that humanities is an area where there is an oversupply of PhDs looking for lectureship posts. For you to get a lectureship post you would be competing with people with PhDs and often with publications/ book chapters.

Furthermore most universities now see the PhD as a basic pre-requisite, and even those that used to get lectureships without doctorates found that their salaries capped out quite quickly without it.

I'm only a month in to my PhD and things keep happening that are suggesting that I should get out while I can....i.e. my supervisor is moving to another university in a city that I wouldn't chose to move to and I by chance happened to notice this forum discussion in which the overwhelming opinion seems to be "Get away from academia, run as fast as you can and don't look back". Perhaps someone somewhere is trying to tell me something!

would I do it again if I knew what I know now HELL NO! With hindsight would I have done things differently HELL YES - some of the work I did in first year is crip but it's still got to be a chapter somehow. Hmmmmm the difference is I dont have any regrets, at the time the decisions I made were sound, hindsight is a beautiful thing. The point is you dont know if you're gunna like it/gunna finish it/gunna fall in love with academia or hate it unless you try, it's different for everyone. It turns out academia is not for me so no I wouldn't do it again but I didn't know that before and i dont think I've lost anything as a result of trying it.

Hell NO I wouldn't do it again it has been an uphill struggle all the way and 3 years and a month later I'm still not done. I'm not going to lie, it has been and still is grim. I think there are 2 types of PhD student; those that live and breath their research and enjoy their PhDs, there are those that will either realise it's not for them and quit, or who will struggle on and get there through sheer determination. I definately fall into the latter category. Looking back I should have done something else, or I should have quit when the struggle began but that's not to say I regret the decision I made then, there was still a chance it would get better so I hedged my bets and battled on. The point is you have to ask yourself 'Is it worth the fight?' Can you grit your teeth and push on for whatever reason (whether it be 'coz I am not bloody quitting' because you want to be Dr X, or because of the job ops). If the answere is 'no' then get out now, there's no shame in that AT all.

I dont know anyone that cant think of ways of improving the studies they ran in the first year or so, a PhD is a learning curve after all.