hi LittleOwl
Congratulations!! Excellent response from Ian (Mackem_Beefy) :-)

You become a Dr officially when you get the letter from the uni stating "you may now use the title "Dr" ......"

Everybody already knows that you are a dr when you have passed your viva but officially it has to be after you get that letter (after submitting the revised thesis -final version).

To be very accurate (like 100% dr) you'll have to wait until after July, or after you get the letter from the uni (which ever comes first) then you can put DR in your applications.
What you can do before getting that letter is to state somewhere in your application that you have passed the viva on xx-xx-2014.

hope this helps Dr Little Owl :-)
love satchi

hi 29200,
I struggle too; even for presentations-- I have had to force myself to do them.
Sometimes I don't even like certain things I have to write, I force myself.
Sounds harsh but there's no other way to push myself.

One way that seems to work for me is working under pressure, it seems to bring out the best in me.

Plan week by week, but go day by day. Don't give up. Very best of luck.

love satchi

@Fled and DrJeckyll -- both 5 STAR responses!!! :-)

hi Fled
Welcome to the UK :-) If I had a choice, I would have a study room/desk at home. When I first moved in with my bf, all we had was our dining table and lampshade. I wrote my thesis on this dining table. Space was limited.

Each morning the bf went out to work and my phd would be all over the dining table--computer, mouse, speaker, notes, calculator, coffee mug, sandwich etc. By 5pm everything had to be cleared away so that we could have our meals at the dining table.

Next day, start over.

My other phd-related things (printed papers, notes etc.) were kept in 2 large cardboard boxes UNDER the dining table. Our living space was so small. For example if I were to iron clothes, the ironing board blocked access to the front door.

To be honest, it was chaotic to write my thesis without a proper desk because I had to move everything all the time. There was no feeling of stability.

I would have prefered to have my own desk at home where I can walk away from the thesis--and still come back to the desk and everything is there as it was.

Miraculously I did finish the thesis, so I have survived the dining table write-up :-)

love satchi

hi max
I applied for a suspension due to family bereavement. The process was simple. Someone from admin sent me a form to fill in. Later they sent me a letter saying the suspension was approved and my registration date shifted forward. I had an extra year to work on my thesis. This was very helpful. I actually finished 10 months ahead of the end-date.

First, I made a tentative schedule with my supervisor; and then did things in blocks (I call it blocks). I put dates on certain chapters (of work I was to send my supervisor) and put the calender in the living room where I could see it every single day. It was torture but it served as a reminder.

What I would suggest is to allocate certain days to work on your phd, maybe only Thursday and Friday. This will help you to space out what you need to do and this way, you won't lose touch with your phd.

I had a lot of support from my supervisor and colleagues, this way I did not feel isolated working away from the university environment. Posting on the postgrad forum was helpful too! If I managed to complete what I was supposed to do, I would reward myself with little treats---extra TV to watch, shoes on sale etc.

love satchi

Congratulations!!!

love satchi

hi onegirl
Congratulations on submitting!

I can understand how uncomfortable you feel when people keep asking you if you have found a job. People ask me the same thing ALL THE TIME! My colleagues -- most of them have employment now, I think I am the only one who is still sitting at home!

What I do is reply with the same answer--and this may sound silly almost robotic and mechanical but now I don't feel bad anymore.

Question: Hey, any more news about your job hunt??
My answer: Not yet, I'm still looking. Thanks for asking!

Once you reply like this a few times, a couple more times, it sort of becomes automatic.

And then here comes the annoying bit--when people start recommending--

example of unsolicited advice 1:
I heard NHS is having a recruitment run now. Have you tried it?

example of unsolicited advice 2: How about colleges? Have you tried those?

My answer: Hmmm.. Ok. Thanks for telling me.

I don't speak any further about this because I have found that it basically leads to nothing and its a waste of energy to talk about this and that.

I have found that the best advice I get about job-hunting is the answers from people I actually ask because they are telling me what I need to know.

I think you are lucky, at least your university gave you something to do. I didn't get anything from mine! I emailed them, called them, I was begging too. Nothing.

Try not to worry because worrying is not going to help you. And don't feel guilty about not having a job at this point. You have to just live day by day for now -- but keep looking for job advertisements etc and try to be positive :-)

love satchi

hi SimonG and Ian (mackem_beefy)
Thanks very much for your responses! I have looked--yes it is my intellectual property :-) I am supposed to have first authorship.

Another question though--the affiliation. What if I have already left the university and am still unemployed after receiving the letter of award (sitting at home!) and I write another paper based on my phd but by using the data in another way, am I still affiliated with my university then? How long (how much time) do I have where I can say I am still with my university? I am submitting another paper to a journal but I don't know what "position" to write, I am neither phd student nor research assistant/associate, I don't have an identity in that sense. At this moment I am just a housewife with a PhD.

Thanks in advance

love satchi

hi Ian
thanks for your reply! I honestly don't remember this part about signing away the intellectual property rights, would this be in my offer of scholarship letter? Sounds really dumb but here goes anyway--how can I verify this information at this point?

love satchi

Hi everyone
there may have been a thread on this that I've missed -- could someone kindly enlighten me on authorship of papers.

Once we have been awarded the PHD, the work becomes ours?
So if I write a paper and include a co-author who has not been affiliated with my phd, is this within my right to make the decision (to include so-and-so)?

Another question is that if I had 2 supervisors but now I write a paper based on my phd results and do not include them as co-authors, am I ok to do this?

thanks

love satchi

hi ieee2
welcome to the Forum :-)
If it were me, I would not apply to this university
I would look somewhere else and move on.

love satchi

Congratulations loobieloo!!!!
welcome to the drs club

love satchi

hi Daniel, I can understand what it is like to be in an environment where titles are so important, I have been there before and what I see very often is just EGOS flying around and bouncing off each other. It is really meaningless in this sense. Having a PhD is desirable but its definitely not the greatest thing in the world.

I would like to add this though--it is NOT easy to write a phd thesis. It's not about having a narrow defined research objective and less literature about, rather-- it is the PROCESS of doing a phd that is very very difficult and writing up is part of that process.

I can give you one true life example of a speedy PhD thesis. This was the 2nd PhD of Art Ong JumSai. Years ago I attended a talk that he gave. He already had a PhD but it was in Physics. But he wanted to introduce Human Values into schools in Thailand and was told that he was not qualified because he did not have any certificate in Education. So he did a PhD in Education and he finished writing his thesis in only one year. But this is what happened for him, and PhDs are different for everyone.

I can give you another true life example of a speedy ONLINE phd thesis. I know a person who claim to have studied music in Berkeley USA but was only there for 3 months. Obviously the PhD initials look good after his name. He obtained an online PhD using his life work (and discography), I don't know how much he paid but he did get some kind of PhD certificate. Now he has those initials on his business card. When customers see him, almost everybody is impressed. But these are people who have not even gone to university and don't know what a PhD is like. This person is now doing extremely well in his business! It looks like his online buy-a-phd works very well for him.

I personally think that reasons for doing a PhD are very important, choose which PhD you want to do, choose carefully and when you do your phd for the right reasons, chances are that you will make the accomplishment.

love satchi

Take one :-) pick the one that you are likely to do best!
good luck

love satchi

hi Incognito
hey thanks for sharing :-) I'm sure that things will get better for you on your personal side -- if you've hit rock bottom the only way to go is UP :-)

best of luck with the new job :-)

love satchi

hi daniel
that's an interesting topic! While I'm not able to tell you which university to apply to, I would suggest contacting prospective universities/supervisors/research centres about it.

I have a friend who has no background in molecular biology but her phd project has genomic work.

It is possible that you may find yourself under pressure having to learn up a lot of biology/biotech principles, terms and reactions BUT if you are very enthusiastic about this topic and are willing to put your heart and soul in it, you may surprise yourself -- you may end up learning even faster than you expected!

I would try to look for people in this "mouse" research area, email/call/ask them.

good luck

love satchi