Can you afford to quit your job? Even if you get a funded PhD the bursary isn't great and might cause significant financial hardship. It might be better to do it in 3-4 years instead of 6-8 but having money is really nice.

I wouldn't worry about publishing in your first year too much, it is better to build a good foundation of knowledge that can help you later in your PhD. I would focus on learning as much as you can and figuring out what you need to learn in order to complete your PhD.

I think that makes sense. For anova's, a p value of less than 0.5 usually indicates no correlation, 0.5-0.7 is moderate correlation and above 0.7 is strong correlation. So there is no strong interaction however I do not know what an EG test is.

It is Christmas break so don't be offended if they are putting of all work until after the holidays. Even lecturers deserve a break sometimes! I would follow up in a few weeks time if you haven't heard anything more.

I don't think you will have an issue as you didn't directly or intentionally contact your external examiner. Only the person who replied to you talked with your external and even then you mentioned your conflict so I don't see any issues, it is just a bit awkward.

Goodluck!

If you post some more details, someone might be able to help

abababa is right. The most common funded PhD route is applying to an already funded PhD with a fixed topic/supervisor. If you are limited to your current university a research masters might be useful as a stop gap.

I don't think it will disadvantage you that much if you are willing to learn. The fact that you have identified what skills you need to learn for your PhD will look good if you have a plan. No PhD applicant has every relevant skill and most supervisors will expect you to learn a few important skills, so I wouldn't worry to much.

I know several engineering PhD students using FEA for various applications including in automotive. Although a pure FEA PhD is rare and it usually done in conjunction with experimental validation for a specific project on topic such as sports engineering, skin modelling or implosion modelling. I would be patient and see if anything comes up in the new year, as a lot of funded PhDs come up in the January- March period.

Goodluck!

lucedan I admire your determination but if you want honest opinions. My opinion is your Dean only gave advice on whether to submit and he didn't force you to do anything. I think that you should have asked about your options more than 10 days beforehand and you would have to extend regardless of what advice the Dean gave you because of your viva issue. The debacle with your written section not even being considered and how it even got to that stage was a far bigger determining factor than what your Dean said. If your examiners accepted the written dissertation and you passed first time your Dean's advice would have been mostly correct. With hindsight we know you got R&R from your viva and knowing that you wish took an extension so you could have filed a complaint. However that wouldn't change your R&R or how your supervisor so badly supervised you. With hindsight your Dean might have done things differently too but it was probably not his intention at the time to cause you distress, and he can always say that he thought you would have passed with majors. Also, you are saying that you were under so much stress that you couldn't make a rational decision so asked an "expert" what he would do and now you are now criticising that advice with hindsight. To be honest, having heard all of your issues with your Dean, viva and complete lack of supervision, the decision to submit was probably the least negligent issue.

Saying that you should still talk with a lawyer because your supervisor and examiners definitely caused you undue stress.

Whatever software you find easiest to use.
I use Inkscape because it is free but the UI is awful. Adobe photoshop is also good if you have access to a license.

Hi MALVOR,

Sorry about the delay.
I think that most PhD projects change in some way through the 3 years because research always evolves. There is no harm in changing your project as you learn about the topic and figure out what is actually achievable. Saying that, I wouldn't change your project too much, as you will essentially being doing a PhD in two years, which isn't easy. You mentioned before that there are two aspects to your PhD and you are more comfortable in that area. You could possibly ditch the technology aspect and focus on what you enjoy, so that you don't have to start from scratch.

Hi lucedan,

It sounds like the Dean screwed you over. He got you to submit and completely negated the complaints procedure in one move. Alpha Academic Appeals advertised on here a while back and specialize in this stuff you want legal advice. I am not a legal expert but it sounds like your Dean and your supervisor was at fault by misinforming you and not supervising you properly.

Can I ask what is the state of your relationships with your supervisors? The sad thing is that you will still need to resubmit your thesis to get your PhD. I have never heard of anyone overturning a viva on a technicality, so you have the choice of leaving or resubmitting. Your second supervisor sounds more useful, so it might be worthwhile talking with him about a plan on how to do update the thesis.