I would take this as a positive - if they were just going to outright fail you, then they wouldn't be quibbling over word counts! Therefore, I think they are just deciding on some corrections, and might ask you to chop a few more words out here and there. Keeping my fingers crossed for you, you really deserve good news after all this!

Like the new forum layout and colour scheme, but there is one thing that is bugging me! In the 'posts' column, some threads that have no replies have a '0' in this column, but some have a '1'. I know it's a minor thing, but I take a '1' to mean that there is the original question + 1 reply, and a '0' to mean that there is the original question but no replies. Therefore all the questions with no replies should have a 0, but instead there is a mixture of '0' and '1'.

My PhD was in pharmaceutical science. I knew after about a year of starting my PhD that I wouldn't be staying in academia, mainly because I hate lab work, and so couldn't face doing a postdoc. I love teaching, so would love the lecturing side of an academic career, but the research side is not for me. I started looking for industry jobs this time last year, and made a load of applications in December whilst finishing writing up, which led eventually to a job which I started between submission and my viva.

I sent my chapters to my supervisors one by one as I was writing up, and they sent comments back which I incorporated, and then I compiled the thesis as a whole for the first time in early January I think (wanted it done in December but supervisors were slow with feedback!). I sent it out, hoping they would say 'great, go ahead and submit', but of course that didn't happen! They had quite a few more comments, which were minor in the scheme of things but took quite a while to do, so then I sent the 2nd draft out end of Jan/early Feb. That is when I came across the admin problem I mentioned in my previous post, so I ended up finally submitting towards the end of Feb. In total, the write-up took me just under 7 months from start to finish, but ideally I would have liked to have squeezed it into 6!

Hi Roton,

I was in almost exactly the same position as you this time last year, and my registration at uni ran out Jun 2012. I was aiming to hand my thesis in as soon as I could after Christmas (I was really hoping to get it in before my birthday, which is mid Jan!). I didn't want to wait all the way until June, even though I funded until then, as I just wanted it over and done with.
However, various things caused a hold-up, from supervisors being away, then really slow with feedback, then admin errors, that meant I didn't actually submit until the end of Feb.

If I were you, I would aim for a similar strategy, i.e. pick a specific submission date to aim for and don't wait til June. There are a few reasons for this:

1) If you decide to submit near to June 2013 and something goes wrong with the submission (binding issues/printing problems, stupid admin things for example) then the process could get very stressful if you only have a few weeks left to get everything sorted before your registration runs out. I had a ridiculous admin error crop up on the day before I planned to submit - this took over a week to resolve and was so horribly stressful, even though I had no immediate submission deadline looming. I dread to think how stressed I would have been if I had left my submission until June and then had the same problem! Better to find these things out early when you still have loads of time to deal with them.

2) There is a risk that your thesis will be submission-ready early on, but that you will spend the next few weeks/months endlessly going over it and nitpicking obsessively over every word. If you get to the point where you and your supervisors think it is ready to submit, I would go ahead and submit it asap rather than drive yourself mad going over and over it trying to make it 'perfect'. There is no such thing as the perfect PhD!

3) Graduation - if you submit in early 2013 you could graduate in July and it will all be over and done with, rather than having to wait all the way until December 2013 :-) (assuming your uni has the standard July/Dec graduation ceremonies of course!)

4) Finally, for me it was important to get the PhD out of the way so I could start getting on with my life - I was nearly 30 when I handed in my thesis, so I just wanted it done so I could get a 'real' job and kickstart my career outside of academia. I know not everyone feels like this, but that was most definitely an important driving factor for me!

I guess in conclusion, what I am trying to say is that if you're thesis is ready, and your supervisors are happy, then go ahead and submit, as I can't see any good reason for waiting all the way to June.

Hi Spiderpig and Batfink,

I just wanted to say that I felt exactly how you feel before I handed in my thesis. Everyone had warned me about how stressful the writing process is, and how I might as well put my entire life on hold for the next 6 months, but it wasn't like that for me at all. That's not to say I didn't get stressed out by it, of course I did, but I managed to contain it pretty much Mon-Fri 9-5 without it having too much impact on my social life, hobbies, etc. I constantly worried I wasn't doing enough work, but I figured that if my supervisors were unhappy with my writing then they would have said so, so I just had to trust them and keep ploughing on. Even the day I submitted I was convinced I hadn't done enough and was sure my work would be ripped to shreds in the viva. But hey, I survived, and passed earlier this year with minor corrections, so turned out I was wrong and my supervisors were right!

If your supervisors are telling you the work is good enough for submission, then you have to believe them. Yes, some people find the writing up process really hard, but others (like me) find it a relatively smooth and easy process (I found actually doing the work was the hardest bit for me, and so the writing part came as a relief that it was almost all over!). I think it's difficult to compare yourself to others in the PhD process, as everyone's experience is very different, so don't worry if others seem to be 'working harder'. Just be grateful you're finding this bit fairly easy and be glad you're almost at the finishing line :-)

If it was happening to me, I guess my reaction would depend on who the supervisor was sending stuff to, and why. For example, my supervisor occasionally used to send my stuff to another professor who used to work at my uni, to ask for his opinion on things. He never told me he was going to do it, I just got an email afterwards saying 'I showed Prof X your work and he thinks you should do this next....' In this situation, I didn't mind at all as it was useful to have someone else look over my work and comment on it. I know my supervisor also sent stuff to other students as they would mention stuff to me that I had never told them about, but again it didn't bother me as it helped to bounce ideas around with other people.
Has your supervisor given you any idea why they might have done this? Perhaps they thought they were being helpful? Were they claiming the work as their own, or did they make it clear it was your work? I think how you handle it depends on the answers to these sorts of questions, really.

Generally when they say 'teaching' the vast majority if universities actually mean 'demonstrating' (or at least in my experience anyway, somebody may correct me!). For example, in the sciences, it is common for the PhD students to supervise the practical sessions, rather than do any actual teaching, i.e. they do not give lectures. In addition, PhD students may also run seminars with small groups of students. You will not need any formal qualifications for this, although your uni may run a few training sessions to get you started.

As I say, other people may have different experiences, but I have never heard of a PhD student taking lectures as such.

Was it worth it? For me, yes. More for the personal sense of satisfaction and achievement it gave me than for my career though, I have to say. Although I am now in a job I love, that I managed to get as soon as I had finished my PhD, I didn't need a PhD to work in this industry. If I had just started working instead of doing a PhD, I would probably be at a higher level than I am now and being better paid for it! However, I am more than satisfied with the choices I made and am very happy with where I have ended up (a pay rise wouldn't go amiss of course... ;-) )

Hi Holly,

I can't give any advice regarding a proposal as I didn't do one myself (project was already decided upon for me!). However, I can comment on your grades and chances of success.

Like you, I got a 2:1 at undergrad and a distinction at Masters (in a different field to you though - I was in Biochemistry). The work I did for my Masters dissertation was published, and I then worked for a year as a research assistant (in a totally different field again - this was for a veterinary department!) After that, I decided I wanted to do a PhD, so applied for, and got, a place fully-funded by the BBSRC.

If you want to do a PhD straight away, then I would say go for it and apply as soon as you like. I really don't think your results will hold you back, particularly if backed up by good references (that made it sound like I think a 2:1 is a poor result - obviously I don't think that but I hope you know what I mean!). Having said that, for me personally, I feel that my extra work experience and publication gave me that extra edge over the other candidates that I wouldn't have had if I had applied straight after my Masters. I also feel that I wouldn't hae been confident enough to go from masters to PhD with no break, so maybe it was just that I had changed personally and had grown in confidence so came across better at interview.

If I were you, I would apply now, and then if unsuccessful I would look at working for a year and then trying again. Either way, I don't think you will harm your chances of getting a funded place. Good luck!!

Huge congratulations Dr Swetcha, enjoy the celebrations :-)

Hi Cleancotton,

No specific advice really, I just wanted to say that you are definitely not alone in feeling this way! I had a very similar experience in my first year (also had a bout of depression/anxiety), and I think you'd be surprised at how common this is. I mention it a lot on here but there is a thing called 'imposter syndrome' that I think a lot of PhD students suffer from - it is basically the feeling that you are not good enough to do a PhD and you are just waiting for someone to find you out. I felt this way through the majority of my PhD, but guess what, I made it to the end and passed earlier this year with minor corrections. I had ZERO self-belief and was genuinely surprised when my examiners didn't rip my thesis to shreds. Do some searching on this forum and you'll find plenty of similar stories.

I have no idea how to stop feeling this way as I never managed it, but it is completely normal to suffer from self-doubt and I just wanted to say that it will get better (I never felt super confident about my work but I did gradually feel less inadequate as time went on and nobody kicked me off the PhD!!). Can you speak to your supervisor about your worries? I know you say they are pretty incommunicative but could you ask them how they see your progress? At my uni I had to do a report in order to pass my 1st year - did you do this? If so, then I presume you passed so this should help to give you more confidence! There is lots of time for you to increase your knowledge so please try not to panic about lack of progress. My first year I didn't seem to learn anything but I made a huge amount of progress in my 2nd year. I tried to set myself goals, e.g. read 3 new papers per week, just so that I could prove to myself that I had achieved something each week. Write a list of what you need to do each day/week/month - ticking things off a list feels really satisfying!

Good luck with it all, and please post on here again if you are struggling - everyone on here is really helpful and full of good advice.

Hi Pineapple,

I'm not sure if I have ever replied to any of your other threads, but I have read them all and am keeping my fingers crossed for your R&R result!!

Well done on getting the post-doc interview too. I've never had one myself but I've sat through a LOT of rubbish presentations!! I agree with all of Snelison's advice - definitely keep the slides as minimalist as possible, there's nothing more annoying than trying to read a really busy slide and listen to a presentation at the same time. The rule is to never put onto a slide something you are going to say out loud. The slides should only contain essential diagrams/figures to illustrate what you are saying. It really helps if you can present as fluently as possible without referring to the slides/notes too much; this makes the presentation much more natural, and more like a flowing conversation. The worst presentations are when people change to a new slide and then announce: 'this slide shows..' then flick to the next '..and this slide shows...' etc etc. It's so much better to have a flowing presentation with the slides just changing seamlelssly in the background to back up what you are saying.

I know it's hard, but really try to use only a few slides - I think it's so much more impressive when people can talk about a topic without relying on slides to prompt them. Only include a slide if it's essential. It takes quite a bit of confidence to do this but I think you will come across much better. They won't be impressed by hundreds of beautifully formatted fancy slides - they want to learn about you and your personality.

Best of luck, and please let us know how everything goes!! We're all rooting for you :-)

I agree with Clementine about (1) and (2), it is better to not have to keep going back to your notes, as it might make it seem like you don't know your thesis/work well enough. However, if you need to occasionally refer to your notes then don't be afraid to do so. Don't feel the need to mention your thesis in every answer either, but if you feel it's necessary for a particular question, e.g. you want to refer to a specific graph/table, then go ahead and say 'this is covered on page xxxx' etc. In my viva, the examiners started each question with something like 'on page xxx you said...' so I could turn straight to that page in the thesis and refer to it if needed.

For (3), I would try and prepare an answer that covers why you were drawn to a particular topic over others. This may be because of the topic itself, or because you wanted to work in that specific department, or because you wanted to work with certain supervisors, etc. I was a fully funded student who had a topic given to me - when I was asked a similar question in my viva, I explained why the qualifications I had already were relevant to the topic and therefore why I was interested in it. Also, the final thesis was very different from the proposal my supervisors originally developed, so I took the opportunity to explain to the examiners how I had developed the ideas myself, and how I had ended up taking the project in a different direction as my work progressed.

When it comes to question 4, I would say it is very unlikely that this exact question will come up in your viva so try not to worry too much about what it means! I think it means how is your work applicable to the general population (although I may be wrong; the question isn't very clear!). If a question comes up in the viva and you don't fully understand what is being asked, feel free to ask the examiners to explain it a bit better.

Hope this helps. The most important thing to remember is that no one knows your thesis better than you do. The examiners aren't there to trip you up; they are there to discuss your work with you and to give you a chance to clarify anything that was unclear in your thesis. Keep calm, make sure you know your work inside out, and it'll all be fine ;-)