Obviously you should be proud of yourself, no-one can take that away from you, but remember two things: firstly, other PhDers may not have been so lucky and the competitive nature of academia may mean that they are not as enthusiastic about it as you are. Secondly, as mentioned, you are expected to do this, so yes be proud but make sure you use the opportunity fully!(up)

Well the first question is whether or not you can fund a PhD yourself, if not there are two options:
1) look for a funded project you feel you are able to do
2) decide on what you would like to do a PhD in (formulate your own research project) then apply to universities with appropriate supervisors and seek funding through a research council.
If you don't know what you want to do at all, then you may be better off considering a Masters first to give you a clearer idea!

Hi Pamw!
First of all - you certainly aren't the only one in this position so please don't feel guilty! Yes we lucky recipients of funding are the fortunate ones, but that doesn't mean you don't have the right to worry about money! I don't know a single person (with partner or otherwise) that has been able to survive without another job on the side - especially when for example, they still have debts from undergrad degrees/masters.
I know its hard given that you live with a partner, but my route has always been to haggle madly with utility companies (ALWAYS make sure you have meter readings - we never used to and at one point were £250 in credit with the electric!), go for cheaper internet options (we switched from AOL to O2 and saved £100 a year, not much, but pays for some treats!). I have a habit of buying books (because our library is pants!) but I will have to cut this down!
Could you save on your car insurance etc? I mean, its normally cheaper if your partner is on there too - even if they don't have a perfect record - apparently you're more trustworthy with a man!!! (How rude!)
I guess my tip is little savings do add up. They aren't much, but do help... and how about a part-time office job? I find doing that is far less effort than teaching (although I love to teach and it is part of my funding that I have to) - sometimes you do have to compromise...

Good luck:-)

My (3 year) funding runs out in Sept too and like the other posters have said, the final few months of the PhD are a mess! I can't believe how much time job applications and funding requests take (I've applied for 5 jobs in the past two weeks, don't actually think I have a chance at any, but you have to apply).
I know that I'll have to go into my fourth year, although I've never heard it called an extension year before, I thought it was normal for people to at least use a few months of their fourth year?! I have a million excuses as to why my PhD is delayed (First year: mum had breast cancer; Second year: brother became deaf, grandmother died, major international conference, dad made redundant - still unemployed a year later, change of supervisor; Third year: cancer scare - I have to have a biopsy next week) but the fact is that I just haven't put the effort in. Is it me or does everyone feel that they could have done more, however tired they have been?

Um, no, Hairui, I did not mean that you were combative/non-conciliatory at all. I thought of moving Uni a year or so ago, and instead changed supervisor. One difficulty I found was in explaining precisely why I was giving up a funded position to move elsewhere (when the reason was "my supervisor is sh*te and makes weird moaning noises as a form of critique because she has no idea what I am talking about; and the rest of the staff - with the odd exception - are narrow-minded bigots who wear bowties and treat female academics like their admin assistants").
I was just curious how you navigated this when I know the reasons for your move were less than pleasant, that's all.

Hey Hairui
I'm sure we're all really happy for you that you have found a way out of the horrendous mess you were in at your previous place. Can I just ask - were you totally honest with your new institution, I mean to the point where you had to criticise the staff where you were?

I know Bakuvia. Sometimes I feel like I'm the geeky girl at school and my supervisor is the really cool boy that everyone likes - I'm so desperate to impress him, try to sound cool and like I know what I'm talking about but most often turn into a bumbling idiot.
Obviously, I would never tell him that I think like this, that would just be weird.

Oh God, I have my first (rough) draft due in ooooh 19 days. I have one half-written chapter left to go and then big scary meeting with big scary supervisor. He's not really big and scary but he's my second supervisor and if I annoy him there's no-one left to supervise me...
And straight after that I have an internal evaluation with the head of my research institute (who loves me, but has never actually seen my research)... why does the world hate me? I've just got to the point where right now and for the next couple of months I'm going to feel like a performing monkey rather than a PhD student.

Personal trainer!!! What kind of funding have you got H? My personal trainer is my cat that makes me get up to feed him or he sits on my head clawing at my eyes (can't type quite so quickly if I can't see).

I agree that the government has to do something about graduate employment, but offering a low-paid internship is ignoring the fact that students will often leave university with 'hard' debt (not just student loans) like credit cards, overdrafts etc that need to be paid back sooner rather than later. Graduates need proper jobs, although skill-based training is better than nothing, putting off starting a career will benefit no-one (including the government's tax and national insurance revenue).
In light of this, doing a PhD, or any PG qualification does seem like an effective career step, but only if there's a career at the end of it, which lets face it is becoming less and less likely. And for those of us in our final year its pretty scary out there. Seems like the plan of marrying a footballer and never having to think or work again is becoming more appealing (although scruffiness may prevent that). Oh, and this week I joined a Facebook group called "F*ck the PhD, I'm joining a girlband" - with the headline of
"Cheryl Tweedy/Cole of Girls Aloud fame reported as saying that she was given diamond-encrusted GHD's as a freebie...the only perk i ever got in academia was a signed copy of Ed Harris' article on rape in classical Athens. hmmm...tricky career decision..."

Wise words for us all...

I am wearing a lovely extra large "Australian Workers Union" polo shirt - given to me by one of my students, over a blouse and a jumper, and a pair of jeans that - when I wore them round Sainsburys last week - fell down whilst I was looking for cinnamon sticks.
Saying that, having coffee with my ex yesterday, he looked incredulous when I turned up strolling down the ice-covered high street, in brand new 5-inch suede peep-toes, under the pretence that "they needed breaking in" rather than "I really miss you and want to remind you how hot I am - these shoes make my bum look great".
Put a jumper and socks on as soon as I got home though!

Hello all!
I'm hurtling through my third year now (in Politics, but with urban studies, human geography, and philosophy in there) and am thinking about next year. Of course I am applying for academic jobs, but have a strong suspicion that it might not happen smoothly. My funding runs out this summer, so was considering applying to the two funding schemes of the British Federation of Women Graduates. I know they do grants based on both academic excellence (Bfwg) and financial need (ffwg).
Has anyone here ever applied, and more importantly has anyone ever been successful!? Tips would, of course, be appreciated!

I think its a two-way system. Departments believe that having a range of international staff makes them seem more dynamic (especially within a subject area that has an international focus), and international staff enjoy the way in which the UK system has relatively easier access to secure jobs. A new member of staff in our dept from a European country explained that he wanted to move here because now he had a family he wanted a permanent job.
The system is not working, that's clear. It is in universities' interests to produce high numbers of PhDs, but there are no incentives to then employ them. I don't know if a moratorium is a good idea - its hardly fair on those wishing to do a PhD, but there needs to be something put in place - I would argue extra funding for those depts that take on new UK researchers especially ones that have been government funded through research councils, but that's unlikely.

Were the staff employed very experienced, or senior well-regarded international academics, then of course it would be an excellent addition to the department. However, the staff they have employed are junior, first-job staff; and having sat in on the interviews, I find it difficult to believe that they were the best candidates. Furthermore, the Dept has not employed *any* of its own PhD students in the past few years despite expanding rapidly (this is not bitterness, I don't want a job there).
My students regularly complain about the lack of engagement and dedication these staff show to teaching, most often they simply read from powerpoint in lectures, and are rarely in their offices during office hours. The Head of Dept, who is my supervisor, agrees. He believes, that partly due to their ambition in gaining research reputations, teaching is of little relevance. From personal experience, there *is* a difference between the approach of staff who have been through the UK HE system and those who have not. For example, those staff who have not, seem to have a more lax approach to investigated plagiarism (they refused to investigate essays I knew to be plagiarised and told me that I should just find a reason to fail them - as a non-permanent member of staff I am not allowed to investigate academic misconduct).

Wow, that is a really tough experience. Yes, IR is a very competitive field (which is why I'm looking for non-IR jobs even though that is where my teaching experience is!). When I think about it, most of our department are non-UK nationals, which is pretty rubbish really.
Nottingham Uni have a very good rep with Neo-Gramscian approaches to globalisation, and Salford (as far as I can tell) is building a rep for it too, if you ever consider going back to academia... I too have done a pol theory-philosophy-sociology approach, although not crit theory/globalisation, I think most people now are adopting a more radical methodology given the limitations of IR as a field.
I had a close friend who was doing a neo-Realist analysis of nuclear proliferation and she couldn't get a job, so, I wouldn't say there's a problem with your research, just a growing sentiment against employing junior staff (especially in the last 18 months with the RAE).