Well, I do think it's quite exciting actually! The atmosphere is really weird at my uni in certain depts, gloomy predictions, stressed faces and illness. It's been good being a research student and not being in a position to have work submitted for this RAE, so it's extremely interesting to watch and learn. I have heard that certain privileged people get special logins to see the results a bit earlier, so things may leak out unofficially in a limited manner for some the day before.

All sounds quite familiar to me too at the moment. I've just had feedback from my first supervisor on my final draft and I've been veering between calm confidence of it all being do-able for a Feb submission, and that sinking sick feeling of sheer panic when it all seems hugely overwhelming. I went through all 10 chapters of feedback last night and didn't understand all of the comments. Maybe today it'll make more sense, though am still floundering a bit with the methodology, it's getting longer and longer, not sure what I am expected to do with it next. Sometimes the multidisciplinary approach seems overambitious and quite hellish in practice. I'll have to speak to her and it will probably become clearer if we talk it through. Hopefully!! It's annoying, because sometimes I think, yes, this looks like an almost finished PhD thesis, then a bit of paranoia sets in and I think I'm imagining the almost-completeness and it's really all flimsy crap. I must try harder to keep a happy middle ground or will lose the plot and get nothing done if I carry on like that.

pile

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Well done Stressed AND Phdbug - good news!

PS Stressed, can I just ask you as you're there (!)... does your username act like a self-fulfilling prophecy sometimes, and remind you to feel stressed even when you're having an ultra-serene day? I sometimes wonder about people's usernames on here, and that's what yours conjured up. (And yes, I should have better things to think about.... :$)

lute

plums

cake

fluke

hake

I think it's a fish

flame

I'm doing my PhD at the same place I did my MA and I can't see any problems with it. My PhD was a natural progression of my MA research, I had keen and very good supervisors, I know the college so there were no nasty unforeseen surprises in store! Also, it is one of the best colleges to do my subject at, so if I had the choice of universities across the whole country, I would still do it here as it's best for my research and has a really good reputation, which ultimately seem to be the best reasons for staying on at the same college.

I've been like that too, but minus the headaches luckily. It's really stressful this writing up phase. I handed in my big draft this week, and I'm amazed at how much better I feel mentally, I'm still physically exhausted, but it honestly feels like the first time I'd actually got a grip on the whole thesis and it started looking like a thing with an end in sight. It's different to handing in chapters, as they're all parts of one whole rather than giving you an idea of the entire thesis, but to put them all together is very satisfying. Just do what you're doing anyway, look after yourself and keep on plodding. Like Lara said once, everything you do is going towards the final thesis and makes a difference, so even on not so productive days, that's better than nothing. It is nice to be able to rest for a week or so though, and catch up with normal domestic stuff and friends and family. Until the feedback comes in and then it's back on the case again for me, sleepless nights and all.

Brits

joke

Yes, I think it must be partly that, what you think of yourself as. I never felt like a lecturer until I'd actually been doing it for a few years, I always felt like I was just pretending or an imposter, as people have said on some other threads, whereas all the lecturers were 'real' ones because they'd been doing it for at least a decade or longer. I realised a couple of years ago when I was redoing my cv that I felt like a 'proper' academic now, so presumably I'd changed my points of reference for what I regarded my primary occupation as. And about time too! And yes, I also think academia is weird, perhaps my college more than others sometimes, but it's definitely not dull.