Hi,

Thanks Reenie and Satchi. I'm already back at my home country for about 1 week. I have to arrange for everything again- find a new house, decide whether to buy a car or use the public transport etc, and getting used to the way things are done in my country again.
Wow, Satchi. Your early experiences- harrassed by teenagers on the streets, chased by a boy, was called a p**** by a small child, house was burgled etc are quite terrifying. Thank god I never had those experiences while staying abroad previously. It's good that things are getting better for you now. Hope everything continuous to be fine until you graduate :-)

Hi!

I'll leave the country where I did my Master and PhD soon, after being here for about 5.5 years. I feel quite sad as it's quite far from my home country so I can't get back as frequent as I want and stay as long as I want after this. I'm feeling quite nervous to return to my country. I will have to adapt with a new surrounding again, many things have changed over the past 5 years.

I'm trying as much as I can to enjoy 'the last time of many things' e.g. 'the last time of eating/ drinking all the food/drinks that I like here', 'the last time of going to .....', 'the last time of seeing ....', 'the last time of traveling by ....', 'the last time of meeting some friends' right now. Of course there are few things that I don't like here (every country has its positive and negative aspects), I don' want to be a student here anymore, I'm happy to return to my country and I love my own country, but I'll definitely miss

1. the food especially t_ _ _ _ _ _ _
2. the people- their dynamic, their smiling faces, their politeness - although sometimes they are just pretending to be polite
3. the beautiful sceneries
4. the clean toilets
5. the clean cities
6. the trains :D
7. the transportation system
8. just walking in the city
9. exploring the new places in the country
10. the sense of achievement everytime I have successfully arrived to the destination while traveling alone (because I can't speak or read the local language)
11. all you can eat/ all you can drink service
12. feeling safer that my own country
13. the stability/ stable feeling
14. the harmonious feeling
15. my counselors
16. my life in here
17. cycling to the lab- funny because I used to hate going to the lab

Anyone else feeling the same?

How did you know it was a bogus conference? Was it based on the bogus place where they claimed it would be held?

Just think positive Dr. Pineapple...
Sometimes the solution to our problem comes from the way that we never expected it to be...

Hi

Thanks Pineapple and Vimes! :-)

I've just met my third examiner to ask for the clarifications regarding the corrections that he asked me to do. I think I know how to do them now and it feels better to get a clearer idea of what the examiners' questions/ suggestions really mean. However, I just can't bear the thought of having to meet the same examiners and to have the same provocative and aggressive discussion again in the second viva. But, one of my friend told me that her second viva was easier than the first one and was conducted in a more friendly and relaxing atmosphere. Hopefully it will be the same for me.

Yeah, I read about your long wait for viva and examiners' verdict (post-viva), Pineapple. I also pray that this time you won't have to wait so long for your minor corrections to be approved. Good luck and all the best to you too :-) :-) :-). Thanks for sharing your way of keeping yourself motivated while doing corrections :-).

Vimes, is there anyone in your department besides your supervisor that you can refer to regarding your problem and can advise you how to protect yourself? Was you verdict "pass with major correction" and you don't have to sit for another viva? I read a few posts in this forum saying that the students that get '"pass with major/minor correction" will pass as long as he/she do all the corrections that the examiners have listed. Is this the same for your case?

I guess that this correction together with my second viva is my one last push. After February 2013 I won't have to edit the thesis ever again. I'll put my best effort in this one month and go for a long trip accross the country before going back to my home country at the end of February- hopefully!

Good luck to everyone here who is doing corrections!!!

Hi

I found out that I could edit my thread, but I couldn't edit the title of the thread. Is that correct? Or am I missing something here?

Hi

I had my first viva (in our university we have 2 vivas) at the end of December 2012. In our university we are not given the pass with minor/major corrections or revise & resubmit or mphil verdicts after the first viva, but we are given some corrections to do and we need to present them in the second viva. In my case I got several corrections to do, some are minor such as adding additional references, clarify my definitions and assumptions, but there are some quite major where I need to add an analysis in the case where one of my assumption does not hold and to evaluate what the result would be if I use another technique. My second viva will be in the middle of February and by right these corrections shouldn't take more than 1 month. However, I feel it is difficult to bring myself to do those corrections. I feel so lazy and so bored looking at the thesis again and again and again.
My supervisor assured me that there is almost zero possibility that I would fail and one of my examiners told me not to worry since I had done a very good job. But, I am still afraid that I will fail if I don't get the corrections right.

Is there anyone else doing corrections too? Care to share on how do you keep yourselves motivated?

Hi everyone.

Thanks a lot for your feedbacks. :-) :-) :-)

I had thought of consulting a senior professor (seniority is very much respected here) about this and my counselor had even asked for my supervisor's name so that she could ask the head of counselor to talk to him. But I from my previous experience, even if my supervisor checked what I had written, he just pointed out the syntax errors; and of course, the last thing that I wanted to do was to annoy him at this stage.

So the best that I could do were:

1. I still submitted my thesis to my supervisor and asked him the specific questions that I needed to discuss. But, I was not surprised at all when he told me that there was no suggestion, except for just to add the list of nomenclature; and when I asked about his opinion whether to place 'some explanation' in chapter 2 or 3, he just told me that anywhere is ok. At least I tried my best to get the most from him.
2. I asked 3 of my labmates to check the chapters which had not been sent to journals yet.
3. I managed to get one of my friends who had finished his PhD and he provided valuable inputs. It helped a lot.
4. I referred to some thesis samples in the internet.
5. I referred to thesis writing guidelines in the internet.
6. My supervisor agreed to pay (using the lab money) for the proofreading cost of my introduction and conclusion chapters, leaving me to pay for only the content chapters. And I thought that, most probably I would have only one PhD thesis in my life and I could afford to pay for the proofreading cost of the content chapters, so why not just pay for it. Once I thought that there would be someone who would correct my sentences, I was not stuck anymore and was able to continue writing until the end.

Thank you everyone! :-)

Hi pushfor10,

You sounded like me when I was at this time of the year, one year ago especially on the part

... so I can quite relate to what you're feeling right now. :-)

What I did was,
1. I left all my study for 1 week, took a holiday and went to a countryside, which was totally different from the city that I was living in (which was full of buildings everywhere and everyone was rushing and chasing after something) and came back with a fresh mind and new perspective. Sometimes, we just need to stop for a while and step back from the situation so that we can see things clearly rather than being too close to it or in it.
2. After coming back to the university, I went to talk to an international student advisor (a professor) where he told me that he also had a similar situation like me when he was a PhD student. It was quite a relief because I thought that I would not have any future, but that was not true. I learned that, what I was facing was quite common and even professors had the same experience. That gave me some hope to get out of the situation.
3. You mentioned that you had met counselors and they told you to 'man up and get on with it'. But did they tell you how to do that? My counselor told me to list down only the two most important things to solve at the moment and ignore the rest so that I could have enough energy to solve them; and then only I tackle other problems. It worked :-). I had also requested for the counseling support until the end of my study, where I can say anything during the session and that let off some steam every week.
4. I am not a sports person, but I started jogging after that time.

You mentioned that your lab have not published any papers in the past five years - is it conference papers or journal papers? Can you just send any papers to conferences or journals? While writing, it will help you to organize your ideas; if the paper is accepted, it would be great, it'll help to build some confidence; if not, you can still gain some input from the reviewers' comment.

I prefer the previous orange + purple layout- looks more energetic.

Hi,

Thanks pikircool, nearlyfinished and vadro.

I had my 1st viva (we have 2 in my university) last week and none of these questions were asked in the viva... but posting them here and your replies made me calm down a bit and be more prepared for the viva.
And I had a mock viva with my supervisor before the real one and it really helped a lot.

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

1. I have developed a mathematical model of a mechanism taking into account the effect of the linkages mass. After I have developed the model, I have read in another paper saying that, since the mass of the linkages are actually very small, the model can just be approximated using motor model (no need to take the mass of the linkages into consideration). How to respond to examiner's question if he points out that it is useless to use my method since the effect of the linkages mass is actually insignificant? And I am actually quite agree with this.

2. How to respond if they ask, 'Since the mass of the linkages are small, your experiment actually does not verify your proposed model' ? How to answer this, because I think this is quite true.

3. In the model, I have assumed that the potential energy is negligible (to simplify the modeling process),and I have tested the model that I have developed by experiment. But then, when I use the model to simulate of my controller, I have included the potential energy (the model with potential energy has not been tested by experiment). How can I answer if the examiner point this out? I think I did a lot and huge mistakes in my research.

4. How to answer to theoretical questions that I don't know how to answer?

5. How to answer to the things that you heard for the 1st time in the viva?

6. How can we know when to defend and when to accept the examiners' comments?

7. I feel like I don't have enough time to review all my work and I am feeling so tired right now. Any tips on how to prepare at the very last minutes?

8. Is it ok to say 'I don't know' in the viva?

I had a hellish viva during my master, and 2 (I will have 5) of my PhD examiners will be the same ones from my master viva . It's really traumatic and my mind goes blank everytime I look at them- and of course I will be facing them during my PhD viva. They are also really expert in my field. I am really scared. Feeling like jumping on to the rail tracks at the moment. T_T

Please... any advice will be appreciated. Please, please, please help me. I'm panicking already.
Thanks.

Thanks Maccle. I'll check it out.

Hi,

I am currently writing my thesis and I find that it is hard to finish my writing, partly because of the difficulty of the job itself and partly due to the fact that I know that my supervisor won't check my thesis. I know this because he didn't check my master thesis previously, he never checked any journal or conference papers that I submitted, in fact he didn't even check any of my lab mates' thesis. I would like to get some feedback in terms of technical aspect as well as english but I don't know where to get it from. I had already expressed my concern to him but his response was sort of - just write whatever you want to write, then send each chapter to journals and the introduction chapter is not important. I don't have any co-supervisor or a supervisory team that I can refer to, he is the only supervisor that I have.

So far I have tried:
1. asking my labmates to proofread my thesis- undeniably they will give some useful inputs and I'm very grateful for their help. However, I need some feedback from someone with PhD or at least a PhD student because at least he/she knows what is required in a PhD thesis.
2. to ask for help from another Prof but he told me that he's way too busy
3. to ask only few parts that I am not confident about to another Prof but he reluctantly answered my question. I tried so hard to fight back my tears.
4. to ask for help from another lecturer who has just moved to another university- previously, he told me he would help but he doesn't even reply my email now
5. to find proofreading services in the internet but they are so expensive and I think at most they can only correct my thesis in terms of english

Another option is to convert my chapters into journals and submit but it's too late to get any feedback since my submission is due in December.

I feel that everything that I write is crap. Why do I need to spend so much time and energy writing rubbish? I don't know how will I go through my viva. I'm so tired of writing and looking for support. My supervisor has been neglecting me since my masters and I'm not sure whether I can take this any longer. If I knew that this is the kind of supervision that I would get or if I know how to supervise myself or if I have already known everything, I don't have to travel thousands miles away from my hometown just to learn.

I know that many people in this forum struggle/d with the same problem and many had even finished their studies. How do/ did you guys survive?

Any advice from anyone are welcome.

Congratulations Swetchha!!!!!(up)(up)(up)

I'm so happy for you :-):-):-)