Hiya, www.jobs.ac.uk is a UK site that mainly advertises academic positions, so you'll see adverts for lectureships, professor posts and so on. However there are a fair few PhD studentships advertised as well, depending on your chosen area - worth a look as they sometimes indicate what the PhD stipend/bursary pay will be

Mwah ha ha ha ha ha! [evil laugh as the Kronkodile sneaks in there!)

Also, while these amounts may not sound a lot, bear in mind that you will not pay tax or national insurance on a bursary, which makes quite a difference. If you want to get a better idea of what's out there, look on jobs.ac.uk, where most PhD stipend figures are published with the invitations to apply

Hi, so sorry to hear of your situation. How long has the bullying been going on? Was there a certain point at which your supervisor changed towards you? Did he/she resent sosmething you said/did?
I'm assuming you felt OK with them at the very beginning? Can you identify the point at which it all changed? were there any other people you confided in about this point of change?

and good evening!

Thanks everyone. Sorry to be so anxious, but I'm consumed with worry. I won't contact the external - I think I knew deep down that it was not a possibility anyway. I feel disadvantaged, as I have not had any contact with him at all. My friends who have forthcoming vivas all know their externals. I have a mock viva arranged. I guess I am scared if the examiner is the type of person who isn't open to other ways of working except his. This happened to a friend, her examiner was very nasty and the university are considering sending the thesis to another examiner. Another friend got major rewrites which also terrifies me - people seem to think I am in control of my work and say I present it well, but I am so frightened of being struck down and letting people down. I'm starting a new job soon, but can't focus at all. You must think I'm stupid, I know I'm not the only person ever to have a viva, but right now I'm so upset I'm seriously wondering if I can go through with it.

Hello again all, nerves have got the better of me again. I just wondered if you could advise me if you thnk this is the "done thing" at all? A couple of my friends are having viva's soon with people they have met befeore and know in some vague capacity, but at least they've met them. I and my supervisors have not met my external, and don't know him. Apart from familiarising myself with his work, I just want to know a little bit more about him - what he's like as a person, if he has a reputation for being tough in viva's etc. I have met some of the academic staff from the university where he is, and was considering ringing them up to find out a little bit more. Or coudl I email him directly, by way of introduction? I's unlikely he will have read my thesis yet so it's not as if I'm hoping to sway anything!

Sorry about this - I'm just not coping with this period between handing in and viva very well at all, feeling tearful and fearful all the time.

"too quiet" said Custard

AAAAAAAHHHHHH, please tell me to stop being stupid. IT is only 3 weeks since I submitted, and the waiting game is already driving me mad. I think once I get a viva date I 'll be OK (within reason), but now I'm plagued with all kinds of anxieties - like what if my thesis is too crap and they're not even going to bother examining it?!? and what it the point of a viva when they've pretty much already made up their minds when they read it?

Anyone else who's submitted, do you feel like this? At my uni there's alot of info about submission guidelines, and applying for a PhD at the beginning, etc. But once you've submitted it's like everything goes into some sort of black hole and you're left wondering "what happens now"? What does happen anyway? Does the examiner write to you and ask when to do the viva? Or is it managed by the university? Would they actually bother setting one up if the examiner thought that the thesis needed major changes? Please help as I'm going out of my mind with worry!

Hi Tina, you talk about speaking to your supervisor, but it's probably worth contacting your research student office/postgrad office at your uni. These things usually tend to be decided at a university-wide level. IE: they'll have general guidelines, then look at individual cases to see if extensions are granted.

Our research registrar is quite flexible: we are supposed to hand in by 1st Oct, but as this is a weekend, they will let us hand in on Monday or Tues if we wish to use this weekend. Bottom line is, they will give afew days - anything extending into weeks needs authorisation. Hope that helps!

Help! I am having some pre-submission panic. I've done a qualitative PhD in chronic illness, I have read through and re-read my thesis countless times, I think it is really tightened up now. I'm submitting this week but I am worried about some things, mainly literature.

I'm very anxious that the external will pick holes in my references, say "why haven't you included this, etc" - I haven't quoted/cited him at all, I didn't know about him until I knew he was going to be my external! (BTW, this concerns a vast area of literature, not something experimental or anything, I wouldn't have been expected to know about him) My focus was trapping articles on the main problem, which was a particular disease, then expanding into other sets of literature as far as I thought necessary to continue the argument. But now I'm very worried that I'll get major re-writes for omitting a load of theoretical stuff.

Sorry for the anxious post, in spite of wanting to get it out of the way, I think I'm finding it very hard to let the thesis go. Anyone else feeling/felt like this?

I'm in my 4th writing up year, have 2 supervisors, and kept to all deadlines throughout. I am not happy at the mo. I'm re-drafting my thesis for the third time. Don't get me wrong, there's no way I expected it to be perfect before. First draft was bad, but the second was better and I was happy with it. However supervisors said it was unacceptable. I was gutted, but agreed to meet weekly with one of them to go through smaller chunks at a time. I find her advice really constructive. The other one is frequently away and does not return chapters to me as quickly. When they do come back they're littered with stylistic alterations that are splitting hairs. If I accepted all the corrections, I feel the work would no longer be my own. I feel that whatever I do is just never going to be right for him. At this stage I'm not finding it helpful to have 2 sets of different corrections back and I'm thinking of just continuing with one supervisor instead, for my own confidence and peace of mind. Anyone else been in a similar position? What did/would do? Any advice appreciated.

Hi Sue, not sure about lab based work - I'm a social psychology PhD student. However my uni has recently changed its position to those who go over the 3 year period. One day we received an email from the research office saying that we were registered as full time students for a 4th year. Some of us had already paid a writing up fee (for acess to library, supervision, facilities etc) but this was refunded to us. Our respective departments paid the university full time fees for a year. As you can imagine, we all thought it was some kind of elaborate hoax, but further confirmation revealed that it was a number crunching excercise. It increases the number of research students. I'm not sure what happens after 4 years though - I think it's 4 years then you're out. However I think the uni may have shot itself in the foot, as already people are talking about a PhD in terms of having 4 years instead of 3.