I can smell a research study here... if any of you are educational researchers ;-)

Umm, I don't know. I loved primary school and was always one of the top performing girls, but that changed when I went to secondary school. I got bullied, my parents split up, I missed three months of my GCSEs because I pretty badly injured myself and I didn't really try hard enough in sixth form. I loved my A-Level Psychology and my BSc Psychology though and I really enjoyed learning about everything and anything in that field. I love learning in general, but like some of the other posters I love learning on my own terms, through my own research. I will spend hours reading about something that interests me, but I can just as easily be turned off if it's something I find boring. I guess that's what makes us all great PhD students! As for a pivotal moment, I think it was two things - a teacher and a wrong decision.
We were taught the wrong syllabus for AS level (I was in the first year to go through it) Psychology, and had to re-sit the whole thing in Year 13 of school. Our teacher was sacked, understandably, and replaced by a younger, far more interesting teacher who made the subject come alive. I loved it, but I'd already committed to read another subject at University as I had been pushed in that direction in Year 12. I got 3 months in and then decided it wasn't for me, dropped out and re-applied to a friend's institution to do Psychology. And never looked back!

Hi,

I've been trying to download papers on my new Windows 7 laptop this afternoon, and save them to my laptop so I can read them and then go back to them if I need to. The only problem is, I'm trying to save but there's this little bar saying the .pdf file has been opened as read-only to stop it being modified. I never had this problem with my Vista laptop, so I don't know if it's Windows 7 specific or if they've just changed the ability to save .pdfs. Help! Am I just being really stupid? Is there some way I can by-pass this? I don't want to have to print everything (I've also run out of paper so I can't see if that works)

Thanks in advance,

Lindalou

Congratulations, it must have been a scary experience! Good prep for the end of degree viva! (up)

(up) well done Button! It's a great feeling isn't it! Good on you! I'm personally having a really rubbish day today so I'll be glad to get some, any, words out today before I retreat into daytime TV and feeling sorry for myself until my other half gets home!

Good morning Button and anyone else who is around today, I've had a head cold simmering for a few days but today is the day it has fully announced itself, so I'm feeling major (turkey) today!

The only reason I'm writing so much at the moment is that I'm doing brain dump, just getting ideas out of my head and onto the page. It's not very structured at all... I'll go back and refine it once I have the bare bones on the page. As for planning, I kind of know what I want to say, but I need to have my ideas down on paper before I can really start to formulate them into an argument. It's different strokes for different folks, everyone writes differently!

I had a look at the Thesis Whisperer link that Lughna recommended in your other post, and it's really helpful... to be honest it kind of covers most of the same info as Bolker's Write your Thesis in 15 minutes a day.

Anyway, my sole goal today is to try and write at least 500 words myself. I'm going through policy documents (and trying to see through the propoganda) and do some documentary analysis whilst writing about it! So here goes....

Hi, hope everyone is doing ok today. I'm still here, ploughing through the chapter. I'm almost two thirds of the way through this one thankfully, I have 1 more to write from scratch, and 1 to carry on with after getting half way through and giving up! I have until the end of March to do these, then I will have two more to write (1 I have a poor draft for, and 1 is the conclusion so that'll be from scratch too) between April and the end of June. So I'm getting there, although progress seems slow and I feel like I'm pushing a big rock up a very steep slope most days!

Onwards and upwards though!

Hello,

Ah don't worry Batfink, I've not been doing massively well in terms of getting up this week! I made a new year's resolution that I was going to get up at the same time of my fiance but as he gets up whilst it's still dark (how?!) that hasn't really happened... :$

Anyway, I've done ok in terms of writing today but I am worried that when I come back to it next week I'm going to think it's rubbish and be all like :-(

But hey ho! Hope everyone's having a good day and has a great weekend, I'm still crossing my fingers for snow!

Hello all,

Sitting down to work again now after doing admin this morning, just getting on from where I left off yesterday really. Fingers crossed I have another productive day like yesterday again, but it's Friday and I've got that Friday feeling!

Hope you had a safe journey back Emmaki, and you had a relaxing evening Batfink, I succumbed and had a glass of wine last night with a Chinese takeaway (so much for pre-wedding diet but I'm back on the diet train today!)

See you all later, have a good day!

CONGRATULATIONS! We all knew you'd be grand, looking forward to hearing about your experiences! (up)

Hi Emmaki and Batfink, hope you're both having good days!

I have reached 6,000 words! HURRAY! (I hasten to add that I don't know if any of them are any good but at least there's something to work with). I'm quite pleased with myself today because the day started quite badly with some bad news and I really didn't think I was going to be able to get on with anything so (up)

Safe journey Emmaki, and it's mild today in the UK (I do live about 100+ miles from London) but I've heard that it's going to get much colder over the next couple of days so pack warm clothing! And Batfink, hope your work has gone well today!

Well done Button, and well done for going to the gym too! (up) Aaah I want a puppy! Not allowed though :-( I know I've missed you now but I hope you have a good weekend anyway!

I'm halfway through my allotted word count for today but I've had to pop out to buy milk which has held me back a bit (I can't work without tea, it's not possible!)

Right, I'm going off to get some more words written now!

I know, I'm only messing, I probably will be too embarrassed to tell people to be honest. The majority of people I come across don't even really understand what a PhD is or what it means! There's nothing more embarrassing than being introduced to someone at a party or something and they say, "so what do you do?" and when I say I'm studying for a PhD they reply, "oh... what's that?"

It really is more about what it means to my work life that I'm interested in, but bearing in mind the issues I've had so far at work (young, female, educated) I'll probably keep it quiet there too. I'm very pessimistic about getting a job in the current climate - I anticipate the first job I get after finishing won't require a PhD anyway so I'll probably hide it on my CV so no-one will know.

Hi Dan,

It is my understanding that it is possible to have multiple outputs from your PhD, it all depends on how much work you do! If you look through the archives on this site you'll see people who have had "too much" material to go into their thesis. These people (and I might end up one of them) are encouraged to publish this work. My subject area is huge and as a result I have collected a huge amount of data. It might well be possible to convert this surplus output into some other qualification or save it up for postdoc work.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the outputs at the beginning though. It's also well worth you discussing this with a potential supervisor. Don't be fooled however, a PhD is a substantial piece of work and I'm not sure how common it is to have surplus output. I will have to look to my forum colleagues here!

Well done for your work yesterday Button! I loved your post about going to the gym, hehe! I managed to get substanitally more done yesterday than I intended to (I'm now at 5,000 words woohoo!) so just carrying on really. It must be something to do with this forum!

To get to 6,000 today would be great but realistically I think it's going to be more like a 500-600 word day today as I have a number of other things on the backburner including some massive stresses in my personal life (rented house, I'm looking at you!).

Have a good day 8-)

Hi,

The first time I can remember thinking I wanted to do a PhD was about year 2 of my BSc. We had some very glamorous PhD students who used to walk around in a pack, they used to teach our stats classes and lead seminars etc. One of them was very cool and used to DJ at one of my favourite bars! I remember thinking what a great job, getting paid to research something you're interested in and teach at the same time, as well as have time to have a social life (how wrong was I!)

However, I gave up after applying a few times and getting interviews but not offers because I have no MSc and I didn't have relevant work experience at the time, so I went off and pursued a career elsewhere. I think it was during this time it really cemented my wish to do a PhD, I wanted to elevate myself above the jobs I was doing, especially as I was unlucky enough to work for people who had a chip on their shoulder from their own life experiences. But I've definitely changed from my original career plan. I don't intend to stay in academia once I finish.

I've given you a life story rather than the things I'm excited about! I was excited about applying for the level of job that you need a PhD for but there seems to be a definite lack of those at the moment! So I'm just excited about telling people I'm a doctor, like Ross off've friends!