Given that the average human uses less than half their brain capacity at the best of times, it would be a very odd country indeed which considered that 22 year olds were intellectually superior to 46 year olds simply because of age but nothing surprises me anymore :-)
If the US really is that backward thinking, is moving to another country with a more enlightened attitude an option for you?

There is no such thing as a "very strong" 2:2. It's a 2:2 and if you want to improve your chances of getting onto a PhD you might need to improve on that by gaining a distinction at masters level.

You might be lucky with the 2:2 and get funding but I personally can't in all honesty recommend you try that approach until you achieve better grades. I think people who do this are just asking for trouble.

Your MSc distinction will trump your BSc 2:2 so I don't see any issues wth applying for PhD positions. Your ability to find funding will depend on your discipline.

You have confused me by talking about distinctions for individual modules. Whenever I see someone do that I know their overall score was low.

You did a Masters degree. The only thing which matters is your classification at graduation for the entire thing.
Did you get a pass, merit or a distinction for that? Forget gradehub and just go to your certificate.

I know supervisors who write papers for their students to keep them in the lab but in my opinion this is very bad practice.
Don't worry about feeling a fraud. We have all been there.

I didn't mean that you were confrontational on here (which you are not). I meant that it sounds like you are confrontational at work. You remind me so much of myself that it is eery :-D

Yes, I thought you meant other students. Their opinions are irrelevant and you should ignore them. This is not their problem, their supervisor or their project. Listening to them telling you that what you are doing is unnecessary is fuelling your frustration. Your calculations are £40 per year but presumably your supervisor has other costs to consider and a strict budget to adhere to. Have you considered that he may not have £40 left in his budget or that he wants to leave a slush fund for emergencies?

I understand your desire to try your own protocols and I wouldn't stand for anyone standing on my shoulder either. You should definitely try and find someone better but this time remember to interview any potential supervisor thoroughly to avoid this happening to you again.

On first reading I have to say that I am on your supervisor's side here for the most part. There are health and safety concerns involved in working in a lab totally alone and at night. You just should not be doing that.
I am more concerned about your attitude towards analysing data. This is not a good attitude to have. Most great research results from analysing things which did not work. Simply looking for the results you want and ditching the rest is not a good research mindset, it is a technician mindset. That is fine if being a lab technician is what you want as a career.

I have to say though, that if my supervisor lectured me for turning up at half nine in the morning it would be a pretty short conversation.

You probably need to do two things. Firstly look for a new supervisor who will give yo the relationship you want. Make sure you interview THEM properly next time. You should know their working hours practices before you start. Ask them directly.
Secondly and most importantly, you need to review your attitude towards your PhD. You give the impression that you are quite confrontational. I recognise it because I am the same.

I would be interested to see an example of this negligible price difference. Also when you mention other "chemists" in the department commenting on this being unnecessary or unusual do you really mean other students?

omt271, it sounds like you have reached the end of the road on your PhD. You have lost interest, you don't enjoy it and it is clearly affecting your mental health. Under those circumstances I can't in all conscience recommend anything other than taking a short break to give yourself time and space to think and then moving on if you can't change the way you feel. Life is too short to be doing this to yourself.

Please post your request once on this forum. Don't spam.
I would be very surprised if anyone was desperate enough to work for this amount of money. To properly consider a full research proposal would require a minimum of a few hours. For the equivalent of £37 ?

It would be interesting to see statistics on drop out rates of the various ways of doing a PhD.
Not sure if any are published though.

Nad75 and laebae, you can attempt to "white knight" teachers all you like but the evidence is against you.
Pupils arrive in High school routinely unable to perform simple maths such as fractions or write properly.
In high school the pressure put on pupils to pass exams and go to university is intolerable and teaching to the test is widespread.
If not teachers, who exactly should we blame for this?

It is almost impossible to lose your job as a teacher and the profession is therefore awash with incompetent and lazy staff.

None of this is new and it is truly depressing to see teachers more keen to defend their profession than to defend the pupils who are at the receiving end of this.

Teaching certainly is not the most tiring job there is.
Why on earth would you think that?

There are countless jobs where you are on your feet all day.
Cleaning jobs are in a different league for this sort of thing as are most other manual jobs.
If it's stress you want, don't look much further than air traffic control or call centre help desk jobs for example.

Having put 3 kids through our education system and witnessed what and how they are being taught, it's pretty clear the teaching profession is stuffed to the rafters with people who should be nowhere near a classroom. At least two people on my course who ended up with ordinary degrees were allowed to become teachers. There are clearly some great teachers out there but I don't believe they are in the majority. There are still too many going into teaching because they are not able to do anything else and they are seeking an easy life.