Sorry, no luck. :-( It look like it's a book (of conference proceedings), but I have no idea how you would get hold of it. Maybe interlibrary loan?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Workshop-Adaptive-Systems-Control-Processing/dp/B0000EHGRK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308289273&sr=8-1
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3tMWcgAACAAJ&dq=%222nd+ifac+workshop+on+adaptive+systems+in+control+and+signal+processing%22&hl=en&ei=pej6TduPEMzYsgbundzaDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA

I had seen this before but have forgotten about it :$, so thanks for reminding me! :-)

I have really enjoyed my first year. :-) Not very much pain, to be honest. ;-) (Though I expect that might come yet. :$)

It is really difficult to say what the first year of a PhD is like because it varies so widely. I did a lot of reading and thinking around my subject area and have written most of my literature review. I expect it might be quite different though if you are doing a lab-based PhD though.

I'm not sure if you need to do that much to prepare for your meeting with the supervisor, after all you haven't even started your PhD yet! Maybe do some reading on your topic and have a list of questions and some ideas on how to approach the research? Same for preparing for the PhD - do some preliminary reading, familiarise yourself with some of the key texts (if possible) etc. It might also be useful to keep up-to-date with recent journals (if you have access) and have a look at what conferences are coming up in your research area (I went to a major conference just before I started my PhD and it was a great way of starting the PhD :-)). You can also think about more practical preparations, e.g. what reference manager to use etc.

Good luck and enjoy your PhD! :-)

PM me your email and I'll send it to you. :-)

Hi Rummy, I'm afraid I can't help you with most of your queries, e.g. regarding grades etc. Just to say that my first degree and masters were in an area unrelated to my PhD (they were in Development Studies, incidentally :-)), but work experience and further study helped me to get the PhD scholarship. Your work experience will definitely count in your favour. :-) Once you have worked for a few years the subject (and grades) of your first degrees become less relevant.

I'm not sure about doing a PhD at a 'less reputable' university - I think in the end it comes down to how well-known and respected the department itself and especially your supervisor are. I think the reputation of the university is less important when it comes to PhDs, at least in the UK.

As regards the chances of a PhD opening doors and furthering your career, that really depends. There has been a lot of discussion about this on here recently, and in the UK at least the situation isn't great. A lot of people seem to be more reluctant to leave good jobs/careers for a PhD because there are no guarantees of a good job at the end of it. But it might be very different in India (assuming that's where you are planning to work?).

Good luck with whatever you decide. :-)

I can get it. PM me your email and I'll send it to you. :-)

My PhD topic was fairly well defined but there still a lot of background literature. My approach just helped me to bring some order into it. Early on I probably spent a lot of time reading stuff I didn't really need, or a least didn't need till later on. Having a better overview helped me to be more focus and concentrate on one area at a time. To begin with I didn't really write while reading (apart from some note taking), but then I wrote it section by section (and am still doing so!). Also, I keep adding to it as I'm coming across new material.

I'm sure there are lots of different ways of doing in and it probably partly depends on your subject area, but also on what works for you. What really helped me was to have a visual overview of the topic. :-)

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I found all the literature really overwhelming when I first started my PhD, there was just so much of it! What I found useful (and I think I sort of got this idea from Chris Hart's 'How to do a literature review') was to organise it all in a visual way. (I'm very much a visual learner.) I put the most relevant references in a table so that I had a small cell for each study with just the most important info: author, year, and whether it was qualitiative research, quantitative research, a literature review, an opinion etc. I printed all this out on sticky labels and sorted it into different topic areas and quant/qual research. I then did a big mind map on a piece of flipchart paper and stuck the labels (one for each reference) in the relevant place. I'm not sure if that makes sense! It worked very well for me because it provided a visual overview of the research area. I'm not sure if I've explained it very well though. :-) It was just an attempt to bring some order into the literature I found.

Good luck with your PhD. :-)

Congratulations to you too, Sozaboy! Well done. :-)

Yay, well done! Congratulations! You must be so pleased. :-)

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Yes, good luck with the viva today, Pineapple and Sozaboy! (up)

Maybe somebody should do some research into the foibles of supervisors. There might even be a PhD study in it! :-) Maybe there is a link to how they themselves were supervised? I can see a nice longitudinal study coming up.

I have to say, so far my two supervisors have been lovely. :-)

Our garden is a veritable jungle at the moment, unfortunately it's mostly weeds. :$ I have found that chicken are excellent at wiping out any plants that you might actually want. :-( As well as waking you up at 4am during the summer. (robin)

Thanks, it's such a relief! I had convinced myself that I would have to change everything.

Still very concerned about recruitment though ... Gah, working with plants (in a previous academic life) was so much easier. No need to worry about ethics committees or recruitment. Though I did have one year's work destroyed by flies once. (sprout)