as to having a replacement supervisor while she is away. she mentioned that today, and said a few names. none of whom i would hope to get anything much from. but i would fear that they would make me jump through some more hoops. so i'd rather not - she will be available by e-mail and will be in town for a week in february, as things go, i might actually get more out of her in her "away" year than when she was here.

Rosy, my supervisor always mis-spells my name but at least she knows it! That is quite shocking that yours doesn't. Aren't they embarrased?

I think I will do exactly that - take a long weekend off, especially as I am still nursing that fresher's flu. On Monday I will make a list. And then I will start doing things on the list. But until then, I just can't be bothered - I think.

verypoor, well I think I am getting virtually no guidance at all. BUT I must say I wouldn't want to be guided much, as I have always had very clear ideas about what and how I want to do. what i could do with, is, somewhat more frequent external deadlines. and someone who reminds me every day that I actually ENJOY reading and writing and doing research. I do. I just tend to forget.

No, it's my dream topic with my dream supervisor. I gave up everything for the chance of doing this PhD. Just right now, the dream seems more like a nightmare.

So I just got out of that last meeting with my supervisor before she leaves for a year, and I am feeling totally deflated.

I am about to start my third year. She kept going on about the second year being not such a bad time for the supervisor to be away. About how in the second year I should be doing this and concentrating on that. How I shouldn't worry about X and Y because the second year was way to early for that.

I never even corrected her, it would have been too embarrassing.

I know I am way behind schedule, and I know that much of it is due to procrastination. But now I feel like a whole year has passed without me doing anything, at least nothing noteworthy enough for a second year. So I am to start the second year all over. I feel I should have been at the point I am at a year ago. I feel that I have forgotten more about my topic than I currently know. Everybody else in my year is busy writing chapters and I am told by my supervisor I shouldn't be worrying about that yet. I must have made such a non-impression on her for her not even to realise that I am now actually in year three. And I feel that in a way that is the direct effect of my actually having done nothing. (I know I have done stuff. It's just that right now I can only remember the procrastination).

In some sense I am glad she thinks I'm in my second year because otherwise she would realise how little I have achieved...

I am just asking myself now, what's the point of it all? I need to get a lot of work done, but why should I bother? Maybe a PhD is not for me.

Hi all,
I am seeing my supervisor this afternoon (soon), and it is our last meeting before she leaves for a year. That's going to be my third year. I am currently stuck in slow-moving fieldwork and way behind schedule. I have no other supervisors. My current funding will run out end of this academic year, I am hoping to get some new funding for after.

Any suggestions for what I should look out for in that meeting? Such as, should I try to nail her down to a commitment of so-and-so many e-mails per month or something? I find it very hard to imagine the coming year and have been living in a state of denial. Now, I just can't think of anything I should be saying in this meeting. Any ideas very welcome!

Thanks!

Rick,
sorry to hear of your problems.
I wonder if it would be possible to keep going on your own project whilst at the same time getting started on a new project such as they propose? I guess it depends on the expected workload and all. But if this were possible (perhaps prolonging the time for your PhD) you might actually benefit from it. You could decide at a slightly later stage which of the two projects is actually to be your PhD and use the other work for some good publications. Then, when you apply for Post-Doc jobs, you would be particularly competitive, as you would have publications, including such publications that are little related to your PhD; and you would have demonstrated expertise in not only one narrow subject; and you would show plenty of potential, as you would already have proven that you are "more than your PhD".
Obviously, the downside of this plan is: more work, potentially longer until you graduate, and as you are self-funded, a longer time until you actually get paid for what you do.
I guess all I'm really saying is: If you do decide to pick up the suggestions of the new focus, don't throw away all the work you have already done. Make the most of it, even if it does mean some extra work.

From a different angle, you could discuss this with your supervisor from the point of view that: That would be a whole new research project - if they want this done, why don't they employ someone, say for example a research assistant, to do it. For one thing, that should drive the message home that they are really asking a lot of you; and second, perhaps they do actually advertise a post, you could apply for it, do the research they wanted you to do for free, but now get paid for it! Well, you can always dream, but when trying to be assertive, it helps to have an idea in mind of what would be the best outcome, even if unrealistic. Then you can back down to a realistic scenario in negotiation. Rather than starting with a realistic one and then backing down to a quite bad compromise.

Anyway, good luck in sorting this out!

for me it's herbal tea. sage or rosehip, with a little honey and lemon juice, work wonders for a sore throat. linden flower - which is difficult to get in the UK but quite off-the-shelf in supermarkets back "home" - helps for sweating it out.

wrap boiled potatoes in a piece of cloth and wrap it around your throat, helps with anything pulmonary. "granny" says the potatoes "draw the poison out". well i don't know about that but the heat around your throat is quite nice.

also, vinegar socks against fever. tried that on my partner and it seemed to work. simply mix vinegar with water, dunk your socks in it, put the socks on and wrap your feet up with a towel (in order to keep everything else dry)

same here. stuck to bed with fever, headache, runny nose and sore throat. i am 99% sure i picked it up at freshers's fair. should never have volunteered.

it's kind of obvious - all those new students from all over the world, each with their own bugs, to which everyone else yet needs to build up resistance...

i feel so sorry for myself, i hate feeling like this, i wish it would be over with.

sylvester, coastman - get better soon! watch some bbc i-player, for diversion...

Hi Asrelius and Unhappy,
i feel for you. i was in a similar situation about a year ago: i had started my PhD self-funded, and after the first year all my savings were gone, and no funding in sight. the options presented were, a)living of my parents and partner, b)changing to part time, and c)quitting. before i had started i had decided that i would NEVER do part-time anymore, as i have plenty of experience of that, having done part-time studies for about 8 years in the past. i didn't want to live of my parents and partner, especially since it would have meant that my mum had to cancel her own plans of finally starting her studies for a degree. so i was just about to quit, and very unhappy about it, because i had already put so much into the PhD (quit a good job, paid the first year fees and high living costs of london, moved to a different country, and of course, academic work), and it was/is actually my dream PhD that i would have been quitting from.
so, finally i revisited my earlier decisions and principles. and i was very lucky and got some funding from my uni, just enough to cover the fees. i decided to go for a mix: a little work on the side (i taught undergrad classes and apart from that worked for ca. 4h/week), a little help from my parents and partner. i was just to stubborn to give up, really. and then the amazing thing happened: i got funding for the next 16 months. so now, starting my third year, i am behind schedule, because i had to postpone fieldwork, due to having to work; but i'm still going to get my PhD. currently i have funding for nearly all next year. after that, i will just have to see.

so what i'm saying is two things:
one, there is this awful time when you realise that although you would give it your everything, that PhD is simply, unfairly, out of your reach, because you can't afford it. it's not fair, but there is nothing you can do about it. that realisation is devastating, disheartening, and for me, quite existential. upset as i was, i did also become aware, on the other hand, that overall, i was still very priviledged! the world is unfair, i can't have what i want, but, i do have a good life all the same. compared to most people on the world!
two, sometimes, with a bit of luck, if you just don't give up and just stubbornly keep going, it DOES all work out. it did for me. i wouldn't recommend my path to anyone - there is just too much chance it WON'T work. but sometimes it does. there is reason to hope and if you really want to try, go for it!

if you REALLY want that PhD, how can you say "but not if i have to do it part-time"? i totally accept that the "costs" can be too high. i think it is fair to say "i want that PhD but not at that cost". i'm just saying, if that is the case, it sometimes helps to be aware of the real decision you are making. often the decision is not "do i really want that PhD or not?" but rather, "how far am i willing to go/what am i prepared to pay in order to get that PhD?". and yes, it is unfair, because some people get their PhDs for less costs than others, so they don't have to ask themselves these difficult questions. it is unfair, but that's the way it is. there is not much you can do about it except understand the decisions you need to make and make them carefully.

sometimes it actually helps if your PhD is not so close for you. sometimes doing a PhD can be like "being married to" the PhD. it is very intimate and the relevance of the PhD for you becomes enormous. then it is very hard to keep some emotional distance and realistic perspective. it is hard to treat it as a job!
but treating it as a job often helps. maybe consider the same things as you would with a "normal" job. would you take a job contract for 3-4 years knowing already on day one that you will be bored to death by 6 months? probably you wouldn't, unless you were desparate. but would you take such a job, knowing that there will be some awful times, some boring times, but also some phases of satisfaction, and generally speaking, you would feel quite content doing the work? unless you were hoping for a "perfect" job (usually not very realistically), you would probably take it.
so, i would say no, you do not need to be "in love" with your topic in order to do a succesful PhD. with more distance and perspective, it might actually be easier. however, you should consider that you will need a long breath. if it is not going to give you ANY satisfaction, it will be very hard to keep going for 3-4 years!

good decision making!(up)

======= Date Modified 30 Sep 2008 10:42:33 =======
hi bellaz,
in many ways, you could be me. i've gone through a long phase of "doing nothing" right now, and it has happened in the past, too.
there is some good advice below, but here some more:

first, usually, it helps to realize that although i have indeed done very little, i have not done nothing. remind yourself of the (few) things you did do. hold on to them. don't let yourself devalue them. there might be the tendency of subsuming everything that happened in the last three months under the "done nothing" but in fact that means you are making even those things you did do, invisible and worthless. that just makes you feel worse.

second, to get back into work mood: most people cannot go "from 0 to 100" within a day. having done "nothing" for a while, i tend to think that now i must work really hard in order to catch up. but that doesn't work for me. my mind needs time to get into gears. after a period of "doing nothing" i can't concentrate, i read slowly, i can't write. so i need to go at it slowly. set small, achievable aims. start with one thing on the to do list for day one. maybe i can read just one paper per day in the beginning! gradually increase that as you re-build your routine. you WILL get back to your previous work speed, but it does take some time!
on the other hand, if i try to catch up all at once, often the pressure is simply to high. i realise that i am not achieving as much as wanted/needed for catching up, and despair, and stop altogether. not good!
but think about it. if your aim is to catch up all the work you didn't do in the last three months, within the next three months, that would mean that you need to "work double" for the next three months. is that realistic? wouldn't you be putting too much pressure on yourself? wouldn't this probably mean, that after the next three months you would be so exhausted that you would again crash and do nothing for a long time?
so for myself, i have found out that my aim must always be "to get back to normal working speed, within a reasonable time" rather than "to be at double speed immediately and catch up on everything". as long as i feel i need to catch up, the pressure and anxiety is so high that i often stop altogether. only when i remind myself that it would actually be fantastic if i "just" got back to normal working speed, does it feel do-able and is less scary. and don't forget that even that will take some time - you need to build up to "normal" when it has been "nothing" for a while.

heads up! we will get there. at our own pace. and we will have learned something very important on the way - dealing with our own insecurities and anxieties. good luck!!!!

Last year, I taught two classes for the same lecture, that is, two hours per week but prep work was the same for both classes. Obviously, marking work is still doubled by teaching two classes, even if they are on the same topic!

A friend taught one class each for two different lectures, so she had much more work to do.

In our department, there are all in all about 100 PhD students, and only so many teaching positions available. For this reason, it is rare that someone gets to teach more than one class per term, as they want to give many PhD students the chance to gain some teaching experience.

I agree with the difficulties experienced by the not-quite-staff, not-quite-student situation.

Hi Benm,
It depends a bit on where you want to apply to, and on if you need funding or not.

Some places in the US close applications (for start in Autumn 2009) already in November or December 2008.

In the UK it tends to be more of a direct negotiation with your future supervisor. Often there is no clear-cut closing date for applications for PhD places. For example, I applied late March, and received an acceptance letter early June. A friend who started the same time with the same supervisor applied already in early January. If you have a particular supervisor in mind, it helps to apply early, because once they have accepted other students they will hesitate to take on more. Supervising is work for them and they are not supposed to take on too many students at once.

Early applications are also to be recommended in light of funding issues. In the UK the national Research Councils have closing dates for PhD studentship applications normally around early May. However, in many of those RCs, in order to apply, you need to already be accepted as a student by a recognised institution. Further, in some cases you need to first go through a university/department-internal competition for your future department to even put you forward for RC funding. Such internal competitions might have closing dates in late February. So you need to be accepted for a place in January, then get your future supervisor to endorse you for the internal competition in February, in order for you to be able to get an RC funding application in by May. Thus, if you are interested in RC funding, you'd have to get your application for the PhD place in early, so that you are accepted no later than early February (it often takes about two months to process applications - so apply by December).

There are other funding opportunities. University-internal studentships often have deadlines early June. Many are much earlier, though. My uni has internal deadlines in February for huge three-year studentships, in March for little grants up to one-off payments of £2000, and in June for one-year big grants (up to £8000 I think) but these you have no guarantee that they will be renewed in following years. All of these funds are highly competitive.

On the other hand, there are sometimes funded PhD places advertised, for example on this website. When you apply for these, you apply both for the place AND the funding at the same time - and/but it goes with a defined project, so you don't have to/can't choose your own. Such funded places are often advertised from about February onward, and some appear as late as July or August.

If you have certain potential supervisors in mind, I would advise you to contact them soon. If they know you already, just let them know that you would like to go on to a PhD and perhaps they will be able to inform you when an opportunity comes up. If they don't know you already, just send them an e-mail where you describe your research interests in a few words and ask them if they would consider taking you on as their student. It can't hurt and some great opportunities might come up!

Good luck!

in many countries around the world, a person who completes a PhD would be expected to have a good number of solid publications under their belt. say 5-10 (several of them as or with co-authors). after all, doing a PhD is considered as doing research work, and a PhD often takes significantly more than three years (more like 6), and PhD students are often involved with a number of other projects beside their PhD. and if you have been doing research work for 6 years, and are any good at it, you'd better have a few publications.
however, in the UK a PhD is seen more as "learning to do research" than as actually doing research (although it is, obviously, learning by doing, so that sort of makes the distinction difficult to uphold...). thus, in the UK, it is quite normal (though not the rule) to get a PhD with no or very few publications, and no experience with any other research apart from your own PhD. you can then get post-doc funding with the explicit aim to start publishing and to develop new project ideas. but if you are applying for lecturer positions, you might be competing with recent PhDs from abroad who have more to offer. you'd be competitive with them only after a few years of post-doc-ing.
of course it is entirely possible to do a fast PhD, and get a few good publications (quality is worth more than quantity), and work on other research projects on the side. many people do. but it is definitely not easy! overall i would say that there are two "average" paths to success: a) fast PhD with few to no publications, then a few years as post-doc where you publish as much as you can and develop new research interests, then apply for permanent positions. b) take much longer for your PhD, but publish succesfully while you are at it, and get broader research experience under your belt in that time too, and teaching experience wouldn't do any harm either. then when you graduate, you'd be extremely competitive for post-doc grants and quite competitive for going directly to a permanent position.

so i'd say there is really no straightforward answer to how many publications you need to get during your PhD to be a great job market candidate when you finish. personally, i think it is a good strategy to focus on one only, but as top-notch as possible.

i'm in sociology. we were told, in regards to lecturers rather than post-docs, that a key issue is that you demonstrate potential. so you've written a thesis on X, will you now spend the rest of your life on this narrow topic, re-writing chapters of it for publication? or are you going places from here? so it helps to have a new project in mind, and ideas for several other follow-up projects. you can write about these things in your CV. similarly, it helps if you have done other things than "just" your PhD. shows that you have broad interests and are capable of pursuing multiple things at the same time. less risk that you are nothing except your PhD.

where my partner now works, they are constantly recruiting. this is in economics. for them, they prefer ONE publication in a big-name journal to 10 publications in less important journals. the reason being: if you have 10 publications, and none of them made it into a big journal, then probably none of your future publications will, either. it seems like you have reached your highest achievable level. probably, for the rest of your academic life, you will just keep publishing sort of unimportant papers in sort of unimportant journals. it doesn't seem you are going places. on the other hand, if you have only one publication, but it is in a top journal, you have already proved that you can work to the level necessary for such journals. maybe you can do it again. you have potential.

next important is probably your ability to find funding.

i believe that a glowing reference letter from a top-notch scientist (such as, someone who is a serious candidate for a nobel prize or such) can make a huge difference. else, references probably don't matter very much.

in sociology, new staff are often made to teach methods courses. being solid in methods (you don't have to be brilliant) and perhaps experience in teaching methods will always help.

i think that networks are mainly useful a) to hear about opportunities that aren't advertised (yet), and b) to find collaborators for joint projects. only if you are really lucky will you know someone who will actually champion you in that department where you are applying.

admin, like teaching methods, is one of the things academics generally don't like doing, and so it gets dumped on the most junior colleagues. having admin experience will not hurt. but nobody is going to employ you for your admin skills (except perhaps as an administrator)

in certain cases, languages or special skills might be a plus. say if the department is trying to build connections with a russian research institute and you are fluent in russian. or if they are just setting up a global virtual seminar series with video conferences and you are a tech wizz.