The time all merges into one anyway - I get an allowance of 296 hours a year for PhD time and a bit more for normal research allowance but to be honest it all comes out of weekend and evening time at the moment - I'm hoping that after teaching finishes I'll be able to focus a bit more on PhD.  Trouble is I have children and so summer is when I try to reestablish some family time (I know as PhD student things like holidays are supposed to go by the wayside but as I have frequently said to my Head of Department it is never going to be my no 1 priority in the way it would have been were I 22 and unencumbered by responsibilities) - we have a big family holiday planned this summer around my doing fieldwork in the Rockies which is a way of combining the two.
I did do my MA (part time while working in a non related full time job) and MSc in similar circumstances so i knwo I will manage it (or at least I have to believe I will)

I agree that the PhD is more important than conferences etc but I am obliged to present at at least one conference and have one publication a year - this is required by my employer whether or not I am doign a PhD.

I'm a part time PhD student so will be doing this over 5 years. My Head of Department (the uni where I work not where I am takign my PhD) has given me objectives linked to my PhD - present at an international conference this year, submit an article to a peer reviewed journal etc (which are fair enough) but he has also said write 10,000 words of PhD (Lit review) before December - is this reasonable? Should I be writing so much this soon? I have' t discussed timetables etc with my supervisors yet (got a meeting this week) but thought I'd canvass views first.
Chris

I'm a mature (44 with two young children) student (with distinctions in MA and MSc) who has just started part-time PhD - my proposal didn't pass through the research committee and I have to rework it - I have no problem with the comments about the methodology as at the moment that is pretty undefined (and I think will remain so until I can get a chunk of time in early summer to do some preliminary fact finding) but the scrutinizer has said that the aims are not at a sufficient level for PhD and are more like MPhil. I'm now wishing they hadn't accepted me straight onto PhD but had made me register for MPhil and then transfer.

I have tried and tried to rework the aims and I just don't know what they are looking for - I was given one example as a template and my aims don't seem to be at a different level or scope to that, my supervisors weren't very helpful in the early drafts (comments like "yuk" "don't like this - get rid" etc) and I really feel that if all everyone is going to do is say what is wrong without giving any guidance on how to fix it then I am not sure I can do this (I have to do it though for my job).

I'm trying to stay positive and focus on the good comments (eg the background and justification are very good) but it is really difficult to hold down a full time job (it's Sunday afternoon and instead of spending time with family I have a stack of undergrad essays to mark) I am yet again working. Not sure I can do this for the next five years...

Chris

I would suggest you drop them an e-mail outlining your ideas and ask if you can call them or meet them.

I haven't done this but following a submission to a conference one of the top two academics in my field offered to meet me when he was in London recently (he's based in Australia) and has been really helpful and supportive.  I have found that most acedmics are helpful if you are interested in their subject.

Go for it!

I submitted my formal application (after being accepted informally following outline proposal and meeting with supervisor) and heard nothing - eventually my supervisor contacted me to say I needed to submit my formal application.  Needless to say it had gone missing in central administration and turned up (following chasing my post-grad administrator) the day after I re-sent it.

It depends entirely on the university and what their rules are eg whether the exam board has any discretion - For my MA my average was 69.87 (or something like that) but they gave me the Distinction - in part because of the way I took over the group project (at the expense of my marks on some individual work). Most of my course work was in the 70s but for two pieces. My dissertation only got 69 but I got the Distinction anyway. My suervisor said I was clearly Distincion material and they wanted to refelct that.

Hi Leaf
I'd echo what has been said so far - I have just submitted my proposal after a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  I got colleagues at the university where I lecture to look over it but it still got slated by supervisors - too little engagement with literature, too many references (go figure), unhelpful comments like "yuk" against one of my aims; things like improve this, rewrite that, take this out, why is this in at all etc etc.
I was really disheartened at first esp as I ended up with 3 days between their comments on second draft and the deadline for submission (otherwise 3 months). In the end I got there - where I disagreed with their comments I said why, where I had made changes to reflect their comments I wrote "sorted" next to their comments in the e-mail.  I think my Director of Studies is really tough (after being REALLY nice to me when I approached him about supervising me) but I've been told that it will stand me in good stead for viva. The committee met on Weds and I hadn't heard so on Friday I rang him to see if he had heard - he hadn't but he said it will go through fine with a couple of chair' s action changes to methodology (which I know is soggy and doesn't actually say "what" I will do - as until I do some preliminary research i won't know) and he called me "my dear" (Ok so it's sexist and I am at 44 a bit old to be called "my dear" but I took that to be a good sign).  I think you need to know when to accept their criticisms (something I'm really not good at) but also when to argue your corner.
Good Luck

Hi
You might think about going back and doing a Masters first - it's a big jump from BA to PhD and being away from studying for a considerable time makes it harder.  I graduated in 1988, qualified as an accountant in 1992, took my MA (part-time) in 1998, my MSc (full time) 2005, PGCLTHE 2008 and have just started my PhD. I don't think I could have gone straight to PhD having been away from studying for so long even with my MA.
As far as references etc are concerned, the university should be able to provide these - when I wanted references from my MA (when the course leader had died) the department were really helpful
good Luck

Hi
It's difficult to know without knowing what proportion of the course these account for, what your subject area is, whether you are looking for a funded PhD or whether you are self-funding / have funding in place.  You still have 2 semesters so presumably plenty of assignments. I got a really bad mark (53) for one of my assignments in my Masters but still went on to get a distinction and have just started my PhD.  Keep in there.

I wouldn't mind so much if it were a full time PhD but it is part time for which I get 296 hours on my workload plus £1500 of the £1720 part-time fee with no more for conferences, equipment, transcribing, travel for fieldwork etc etc.  I can apply to research committee for conference fee etc and hope to get some (I managed to get some this year so suspect that I won't get any next year).

I've just persuaded my boss to give me petrol money so I can go to a meeting (and I only asked for that as he had had some to go to listen to some seminar).  I tried negotiating and it was take it or leave it - I'm treating it as an interest free loan and I have persuaded them that the expectation that it would all be paid back in the two months between handing in notice and actually leaving is unreasonable and would leave me and my children destitute! They have now said that should I leave in before completion or within two years then I could negotiate repayment (£1 a week sounds good to me!)

I was one of a small number of home students on my MSc - some of the international students were really good (esp those from former British colonies as their English was really good) but there were quite a few Chinese students who had really limited English and I did wonder how they followed lectures.  The worst thing was the few students who had registered so they could get a work permit - one was deported two weeks before a big group project was due in and another spent all his time working at a hospital as a porter - he had dropped out the previous year and didn't complete when he did it again in my year.

I think it depends in part on your discipline - in some it is normal for people to read a paper when presenting (I heard an eminent professor give a research seminar and she just read the paper out) while in others you would present using powerpoints etc.  I guess 2500 sounds about right but why not find something you've already written and see how that fits into 15 minutes?

Thansk Miss Geography - I'll try to find that in my library

The difficulty I have is that I will probably not get a sufficient pay rise from any job (I am currently more than half way up the lecturer scale) - whe I worked in industry and qualified as an accountant fees were paid with no handcuffs as it was seen as a reciprocation which comes around. I guess my best hope is that Uni B (having had my fees paid to them) woudl possibly give me some sort of refund when I eventually get a job with them.
I'm interested though in other poeople's experiences in Uk universities (I know that overseas countries often do this for studetns who get sent abroad and get a stipend as well)