I've seen people in my department get 6 months for minor-majors if that makes sense! Basically the lesser end of the major corrections scale but a bit more than fixing typos....

I don't think there would be a problem with talking to your old supervisor if he was on your project at one time. I'm not sure about rules though! And yes, I know a few people who have emailed externals asking for clarification etc. on things but never written work.

Edited to add: I do not know anyone who has had major corrections rejected in the UK. I don't know anyone anywhere really (aside from on this forum).

Can you take a reasonably short break? A month, for example?

What made you want to do the PhD in the first place? Is there something you can do to try and rediscover that motivation?

I use reddit a fair bit. There are quite a lot of groups on there for PhD students/working life and I've been surprised at the level of support you can find on there if you find the right group.

I definitely understand about friends and feeling comfortable sharing details. I have one very good friend who I was lucky enough to meet at Uni 10 years ago, and I do feel comfortable sharing pretty much anything with him. Apart from that though I'd say I only have 1 other friend. It can be lonely but then I'm happiest on my own! Sometimes I feel like it's more that it SHOULD feel lonely than it actually does.

I don't know about SA but I do have experience in the UK. Here, I think it very much depends on what level of teaching you are looking at - primary schools do tend to require QTS (qualified teacher status, which a PGCE gives you), whereas subject-specific teaching at the higher end (higher/further education and to a lesser extent A-Levels) would probably be more open to you without QTS.

Edited to add that there is also a public/private division here -- the private school sector does not require a PGCE, although many schools prefer it.

This is just from my experience.

I used social media to recruit for my study and also an organisation called Prolific - they have a bank of over 10,000 people in the UK who sign up to do research - obviously this has self-selection bias as an implication. I got about 2/5 of my sample from there and the rest primarily from facebook groups and Twitter. Tweeting organisations/people involved in what you are looking at normally resulted in retweets, etc.

Thank you for the replies, they have given me a lot to think about. I do like the thought of a career in academia - I've been involved in organizing departmental conferences, and even joined the departmental teaching and learning group. I guess I am just very concerned about the competitiveness and the need for a plan B (which I need to figure out).

Hi everybody.

I'm part way through my second year of a PhD that is interdisciplinary in psychology (covering health and clinical psychology). I am starting to think about what to do after I finish and I'm really not sure which route to follow. I am thinking about academia but I realise how competitive it is, and as I am quite unique in where I 'fit' academically I'm not sure there will be a lot of room for me anywhere.

I'm also not in a lab-based field, so I can't really go to industry.

I realise this is an odd ask and I have done extensive googling before posting this, but I was wondering if those of you who have finished your PhD's could share about what you have been up to since you finished? If you are in academia how do you find it, and for those not in academia what do you do?

Thanks,

Kenzie

That's a good idea thanks Nad. I might put the spreadsheets themselves in the appendices.

Yeah, but ideally I don't want them to take up that much space.