I've had a few of this kind of thing happen..... I think you just have to get it into your head that it's impact is potentially more damaging if you don't manage to switch off from it. Easier said than done I know. With time you'll probably still remember it (and cringe!) but it becomes less important to your sense of self esteem....
CBT type techniques work well: -- how bad actually is the thing? -- how often will you think about it in a month, a year, ten years time? -- balance it against good things, -- was there anything you could've done better?

Sorry if this sounds patronising!

S

It depends on a wide range of factors, first of all, how far apart would you have to work?
My husband and I are doing PhDs effectively three hours journey from each other, however we've managed to work it so we live in the midpoint. This is viable because of the nature of our PhDs but if either of us were a scientist then it proabably wouldnt work.

I entirely disagree. It is completely unsuitable for 'everyone to be treated the same'. The supervision process needs to be student-led as much as academic-led. There are a number of highly cogent responses in this thread.
Maybe the key difference is between glass-is-half-empty V glass-is-half-full people.

Interestingly Myostatin, MMU's website says that the building in question is open 7am-9pm on Mon-Thurs, 7am-8pm Fri and 9am-4pm on Saturday and Sunday. Is this not the case? If it is then 81 hours a week of opening seems more than adequate for running experiments, given that presumably you can do admin type stuff/ any necessary reading at home. In fact, my department is only open for 64 hours a week (I haven't got any issue with this whatsoever).

Indeed, I'm not sure I ever espoused overcoming the odds at others' expense....
There are other ways and means; like getting your head down and getting on with it!!

I'm not sure that I agree that self-preservation entails character-loss. I think sometimes when you've had a bad lot then the best thing that you can do is rise above it and carve out a career for yourself....
Setbacks are invariably caused by human errors and character flaws, but often it's just best to deal with this.
If you're thinking of trying to move things forward I'd say that the best thing would be to move forward in your own career first.

I'm afraid that if any of the (many) un(der)funded students on here knew that then they wouldn't be telling you; they'd be applying for it themselves.
There is no magic cheque that appears if you know some secret password. Try the usual spheres: Research Councils, google, etc....

As I agree with you Missspacey; there are plenty of things wrong with PhD programmes -- but sometimes self-preservation is more important than making them public!

I think you need to begin by thinking about how this might affect your future career.
No-one likes a whistle blower. And even if you try to be anonymous this cannot be guaranteed on any continuous basis.

Six months in a realised my filing system (actually piles) were a woefully inadequate way of managing my work. In fact every time i wanted to find a paper it would turn into a stressful experience and I constantly wondered how it managed to get that bad.....
Alot of it, I think, was to do with me getting anxious and depressed, now a few seminal 'things' have happened that have let me sort out some of the issues causing me stress and I feel more motivated!
I'd been convincing myself for the past six months (in fact, my entire university career) that all academics are disorganized....
I wonder how everyone else manages there's?

I'd probably wait to see if you're shortlisted before getting concerned about what they're likely to ask you in the interview.
For the time-being you might want to scan the forum; there are a great many similar (general) questions which have received responses.
In sum:
- why do you want to do a PhD?
- why do you want to come to this University?
- what is your relevant research experience?
etc...

I'm sure you're absolutely fine to take a break.
I'm having my first proper week off! I took some time off over Christmas, but that was more because I had the flu!!
You've written plenty, give yourself a pat on the back and have a little bit of rest (though, in the light of my post below, maybe you'll want to lock your computer away as I'm really struggling!!).
xxx

'He' is actually a she. You might want to start by avoiding using gendered language.
I wasn't annoyed; what you did was just utterly pointless, I don't quite understand why you didn't just add a post to your existing threads explaining that you'd had to change usernames. We get lots of multiple postings on here, and it just stunk of one of those.
What I'm telling you is: no-one can say whether you can mention a technique earlier researchers have used (but you haven't) without understanding the precise nature of the technique. It depends on all sorts of factors. How long will it take you to develop this technique? In my discipline some techniques can be developed in a day, others might take years. As I'm sure you can appreciate, my response to this question in my discipline would entirely depend on which category the technique fell into.

Thanks bug.
I don't believe the CV answered any of my Qs. Touchstone, you must understand it's quite difficult to be helpful in any kind of specific way if you don't provide the right information......
I can give you questions to help you think through the answers yourself...

(1) You need to have the balls to approach other prominent figures in your field if you want to know whether it's viable.
(2) If everyone argued that they were going to 'save' the proposal research until the actual project then how would anyone (ever) be able to judge whether it was viable or not? There's always a certain amount of foundational research that you have to do to get a proposal in. If you're not prepared to do this, then you should probably think about a different career path. Your proposal should position your research within the existing corpus; what new contributions does it make to your field? Methodology? Etc...