I'm working this weekend too. Treated myself today by going to a coffee shop and working with a huge cup of coffee and a big slice of cake. Got loads done which was super. Albeit mildly depressing watching all of the families having a fun day off together!

Think I'm going to drag myself to the office tomorrow though. The temptation to just chill out is far too great, I'm afraid.

For a conversion course you won't need to worry too much about the Maths - most places will just want to see strong evidence of interest in the subject. For example, at York the MSc in Information Technology is the "conversion" course and the only requirement is that you are proficient in at least one programming language.

I think this also largely depends on the source/type of funding... if your funding comes from a specific project then yes, you will possibly have to work within more constraints, e.g. your external partners may wish you to do the funding using X tool even though you'd prefer to use Y.

My funding was a Doctoral Training Account studentship - as a result, I could do whatever I wanted as there were no external partners or other project constraints. That can be a blessing, and also a curse!

This blanket statement of "self funded PhD students have more freedom" is simply not true... be careful about overgeneralising*.

*A good lesson for your research as well!

I started a funded PhD in October 2010. I developed depression in during my 3rd year which severely affected my work and my life. All the other students who received the same funding as me received a 6 month extension. I was told I hadn't made enough progress so would not receive a funding extension.

So, I started job hunting. I was really lucky that, within the same department, a Teaching Fellow post came up, initially for 18months at 50% time. I applied for the job and got it. Fantastic!

I started the job in September 2013, straight after my funding ended. Working part time and doing my PhD full time made my depression worse. I ended up taking a Leave of Absence from my PhD in February 2014 for 9 months. I continued to do my teaching job throughout, because although I suffer from severe depression it seems to be unaffected by the teaching aspect.

I am now back working on my PhD in earnest and am hoping to submit by the end of June, or perhaps with a slight extension to my 4 years of registration which I should receive due to said period of extreme depression.

This morning I was interviewed for, and offered, a full time Teaching Fellow post in a different department for a period of 2 years.

I know not everyone is keen on teaching. But so many people have repeatedly told me you can't make an academic career out of teaching. Well, I beg to differ. Hopefully at the end of this 2 years I will have a) passed my PhD and been awarded my doctorate and b) developed enough experience of both teaching and research to get me onto the permanent job ladder.

It's been a struggle. It's literally almost killed me. But, I love my job. And it's absolutely 100% worth it.

Well, this whole thread has evolved to make me incredibly sad. I thought the stigma associated with mental illness was diminishing, but evidently not in this community. Encouraging people to hide their illness when they want to be open about it just perpetuates the stigma surrounding having one, which makes it a hell of a lot harder to deal with having a mental illness.

It's nothing to be ashamed of. And in fact, I'd be proud that you are achieving good work despite having to struggle against your brain on a daily basis.

I unequivocally, completely and utterly disagree with those saying you shouldn't speak to your supervisor about this if you want to. Part of their role is to provide pastoral as well as academic support. Your supervisor should be your mentor. They can't do that well if they don't know about such a life-altering condition. They will know how to signpost you to get the help that you need. And if they don't, then they should find out! It is part of their job.

Doctors are great, but they don't understand the academic requirements of doing a PhD. Your supervisor needs to know so that they can support you to do your work better. And, it means if you are absent for an afternoon or need to say "no" to a meeting time you can respond honestly rather than making up an excuse. When I was having therapy, my supervisor knew I wouldn't be around on Friday's because on Friday morning I had the therapy session and on Friday afternoon I worked from home because sometimes the therapy resulted in me needing to not be around people. If I had just been absent every Friday for no good reason then there would have been concern.

There is absolutely no shame in having a mental illness and the people who are telling you to hide it when you are concerned it is affecting your studies are just... well... sigh.

Firstly, yes you absolutely need to tell your supervisor. I understand wanting to present this as an email, but to be honest I think it's much better coming in person. And, if you cry, so what? Yes, it might make him and you uncomfortable, but it would show that you are trusting him to know something very personal and very difficult about what you are dealing with here.

That said, if you are adamant about emailing I think you should add two things:

1) You don't explicitly state that you have medically diagnosed depression. You need to make sure that you do, and that you mention taking medication as prescribed by the doctor. To that end, have you been back to the doctor since you noticed this flare up again? It is really important that you see your doctor regularly just so there is an official medical record of your condition - you may need it later.

2) Explain that you are emailing him about this as it's hard for you to talk about, but you know it's important to be truthful and open about this and how it is affecting your ability to work. But, you would like to be able to talk with him about how you can work together going forwards in the least stressful way.

You are going to have to learn to talk to people about this. It might end up that you need to take a leave of absence to get yourself better, or you might need to apply for an extension to the deadline. For either of these, you will need good medical evidence to support your application for either of these things.

I started my PhD in October 2010 and am still going. I had to take 9 months leave of absence and am now applying for a 6 month extension to my 4 years of registration. I'm only able to do this because I have really strong evidence of my depression and anxiety and the impact this has had on my ability to do my work.

I started mine 4.5 years ago (not part time)... I guess I'm useless and hopeless then. Oh wait, no I'm not.

I'm not sure what subject you are in, but this video might help.

You absolutely need to discuss this with your supervisor, if you haven't already. They can advise you best on what the university's procedures are and any additional help you can get from an academic perspective.

There is absolutely no shame in taking a Leave of Absence now if that's what you need to do to get better - though, if you are funded there are implications for this. Another option might be to drop down to part time for a bit?

Trying to get yourself mentally healthy is hard. PhDs are hard. Trying to do both at the same time is really, really, frigging hard.

I've suffered with mental health problems and am now in my 5th year of my PhD (I took a 9 month leave of absence during my writing up year to get myself better). If you want to talk further, I'm happy to chat about it, just drop me a PM.

Just adding to what waderingbit said with regard to what counts as published material. In my CV I have a section for "Refereed Publications" which includes conference papers, journal articles, book chapters, workshop papers etc. and then another section for "Non-Refereed Publications" which is where I put things like my blog, technical report, science-outreach press articles, undergrad thesis etc..

It's basically making the distinction between what has been peer reviewed by academics and what has just been put online for the whole world to see but hasn't been subject to any formal review process.

I'm not sure about the white paper thing - this sounds similar to what I would term a "technical report" - a document that I have written (with my colleagues) but has not been subject to peer review and has just been published internally and sometimes made available externally. Often these are more detailed and broader in scope than a paper because we're not trying to publish it anywhere so are not subjected to page limits.

I hope that helps a little! I'm also intrigued about others responses to the white paper issue.

Well, Big Data is the official buzz word of our time. But it makes myself and many other academics want to scream. Like.. ugh.

What do you find more interesting? Have you identified a supervisor you can work with in these areas?

I took out a Career Development Loan to fund my MSc. At the end of my MSc I received full funding for my PhD at the same university.

It sucked. But it had to be done to pursue the career I wanted.

Also, I know of at least 2 people who started MSc's and within about 3 months withdrew to start working on fully funded PhDs at the same institution. It's not common, but does happen.

So yeh, basically... if you want to be an academic you need a PhD. It's very rare to get onto a PhD (especially a funded one) without an MSc/MA/M-something. And yes, you will have to fund that yourself. Sucks, but that's how it goes I'm afraid.

I think you're going about this the wrong way...

What aspects of CS/EE interest you? You mention Computer Vision, but can you narrow that down further?

If you're set on living in Nottingham, then look at the research interests of the lecturers there. Then, see if you can formulate any interesting research questions around their interests. Read some of the papers they have written, then identify whether there are any holes or gaps that you could do work in to extend their research.

There are many, many, many interesting research questions in this field. But, the only way you will find them is to read around the subject area and think hard!

That said, unless you have a very compelling reason to be in Nottingham, I would consider looking at all CS departments in the UK and identifying those that have specialist Computer Vision research groups. These are probably where you will find the experts, who are the people you will want to work with. Another way to identify departments with an interest in Vision is to look at their undergraduate degree programme modules and identify those that teach "Computer Vision" as a module. These places will most likely have people interested in the area.

What I'm saying is... it's up to you to formulate a research proposal that interests you and aligns with the interests of the people you might want to work with. So, you're going to have to do some research. It's not going to be given to you on a plate. And neither should it be!

As a woman in CS I could say a lot about the comment on Athena Swan - i.e. please point me to the evidence that says funding is influenced by Athena Swan awards - huh? Really? But, I don't really think this is the right place for that conversation.

I am about to run a research study on this EXACT topic! So I saw this and immediately thought "where's the evidence?!?!?!"

I would be interested to see how this works for other people. I suspect that although it works for you, if you are a heavy metal fan then the suggested songs would make you want to implode rather than work better!

Hi,

Is anyone able to access this article? http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02699939408408931#.UjgyoGTF1bk

Thanks in advance.