(((((((((Looie)))))))) there is very little in life that is more painful than unrequainted love! Artists, musicians, film-makers, writers etc have made their fortune out of tuning into that pain, and I think that most of us have experienced it at some point in our lives - it hurts like hell, but so long as you do what you're doing - getting out, trying new things, working, living really, then it ends and in time you realise that that person wasn't all that anyway ;-) You sound a lot more positive now, just remember that you have so much more in life to look forward to and enjoy and that special girl is out there for you :-)

MH, I can assure you my friend that not all girls are like that, I hope that you find that out soon :-)

I'm really quite shocked by this - naive aren't I! A) I wouldn't trust someone with this writing style to write my shopping list let alone something I put forward for publishing in my name, and B) this is so very very sad that people may respond to this (not on this forum - but other places) and have their potential career destroyed by awful presentation, pay money for it, and not be able to do the job if they do get through!

I'm looking forward to this thread being wiped, or at least heavily flagged as a rip off by the mods. I couldn't help but laugh at some of the responses, it cheered me up no end after seeing this and just feeling quite gutted.

Lol, I'm like you! My MA and BA acknowledgements resembled an oscar acceptance speech and made me well up! There were a lot of people who had helped me though and I genuinely did mean it all lol - I think it must be far harder to write when you haven't had that much support!

Weird!! I'm also baffled by an academic not having a printer - why????? Maybe you should buy him one for £20 and problem solved! Sounds like he has issues and this is nothing to do with you, its him being ridiculous. The most important thing mousse is your health - he obviously wouldn't have time to mark it anyway as even if you post it its not good enough. Do you not have a set of formal agreements written into the code of conduct? i can't remember the exact wording of mine as its in a safe place somewhere, but its something like they agree to mark within a reasonable time - I think 3 weeks is the max - and to provide full and detailed feedback and we agree to attempt to meet deadlines, but if we don't, well, provided we have a good excuse then that's fine - mine got moved several times last time! He felt it better we got it right than 'on time'!

Been there, done that, have the tshirt in assorted colours :-) You're 10 weeks in, the shiny newness has worn off and the reality of the grind kicks in!

To combat the lazy aspect then make yourself do some work every day - turn off the tv if you're at home, disconnect the internet, go off somewhere else to work if necessary and just grind through an hour promising yourself a break at the end of it. You do have to be very self disciplined (something I'm hopeless at) and understand that this is not a sprint like the BA, going from course to course, essay to essay, exam to exam, but that this is a marathon and you pace yourself and work steadily. You'll feel you're getting nowhere, you'll get down, you'll get annoyed, you'll threaten to chuck it in frequently if my experience is anything to go by, but so long as you're working away you will get there - the pace just feels very very different to UG study and even to MA study and its hard to adjust to. I'm sure you're doing just fine - just pace yourself and make sure you do something constructive each day even if it means taking extreme measures like disconnecting the hub lol :-) (says she online when she should be reading - although the stuff I'm reading is online.... must close this tab :-p)

Hi, I've been much where you are the last few months, very demotivated, very down actually and wondering if I'm doing the right thing (I'm in my first year). I got nothing done for ages, but then in a meeting with my supervisor, although I didn't say that I'd not done anything I did admit that I'd hit a wall and he suggested doing something totally different and leaving what I was doing at the time (or supposed to be doing) and do something totally different and come back to it later. It seems to have worked, I feel totally driven again searching for sources and getting lost in the research.
From what I understand the 2nd year blues are hell (and the first, third and fourth year) but its worth just pushing through this. Have you any different type of research you can do, a different area, where you just promise yourself you'll sit down, just for an hour, and work at, and then take it from there? A change is as good as a rest at times and that one hour will develop into two, into three and so on. There is nothing worse than sitting procrastinating for hours and worrying that you're behind.
I hope you feel better soon, just think how good it will feel when this is done and you got through it :-) Wearing the silly hat and the coloured gown is all that gets me through this some days, then others I feel great, am very productive and enjoy myself.

We always said that if we had another (which we won't lol) we'd have it during the phd - I started my UG degree when my youngest was 11 months old and it was HARD, but good :-) Much better than trying to hold down a ft job and have a baby - they throw multiple spanners in the works at every stage lol - but if you can get a form of mat pay through funding bodies and then carry on while caring for baby then it'd be great.

Its a very difficult one - I've done it the other way around, I already have 3 children, and yes it is tough and no, there is no 'good time' for a baby. Even if you are in a top job you'll only get so many weeks mat pay, then half wages, then nothing but job left open and it is so so hard to leave your baby. I'm now starting my career (hopefully) and so I already have done the baby bit, but they still get sick, have school holidays etc and its never easy, not til they are well into their teens really (then they want lifts everywhere). Having said all that I gave up my job and would do it all again, nothing (imo) beats having children - I won't have the career I may have had without them, but I'd have lost so much, you work to live and hope that you enjoy your job and finding it fulfilling, but your children are quite literally your life and the thought of it without them is just too horrendous to even begin to contemplate whereas the thought of life without a job is more a financial thing than anything else!
I'd look into things - maybe you can get a RA position or something - if its 1 or 2 years or more certainly in my uni you are still entitled to mat pay so long as the baby is due 12 months after the date you start (so make sure you don't get pg in those first 3 months!)
Sorry I can't be more help, but there are ways around things, you just have to accept that to a certain extent there are sacrifices, but what you gain outweighs anything that even the most perfect career can ever give you - lets face it your boss won't draw you pictures and fling their arms around your legs and tell you they love you a thousand times a day (probably!)

I'd agree, its possible to do a Phd straight off, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it - the leap from BA to Phd would be absolutely mindblowing imo. I'm finding it a hard enough transition from MA to Phd but the MA gives you valuable experience and training - my sup said to view it as an apprenticeship for the Phd. It's kind of a halfway house, but gives you a taster of what a Phd might be like. I know of several of my peers who did the MA and decided that there was no way that they were ready for or committed enough to do the Phd. Had they not have done the MA it may well have been that they'd have got a few months in a dropped out anyway, so at least they have their MAs and can move onto Phd when they are ready to go for it.

Thanks Bug :-) It was fine in the end - I have to rewrite the chapter now including a lot of other stuff but no major deadline and most of it is just explanatory stuff so that's ok. They were happy with it and the thought is now to remove the pilot study which they wanted in this bit initially for the purposes of the board and go for publication with a bit more work - yay!

Wonderful news, congrats Dr Aloha :-D

Lol, I 'think' although not sure, that OP is talking technical stuff here - but I did wonder why she'd left her bath on and how it'd keep hot - its been a hard day though lol lol lol

Ouch, I know NOTHING about lab stuff -history girl - but could it really catch fire?? Ooooohhhhhhhhh, that'd not be a good one to explain to the sup tomorrow

I have been at the same uni for my BA, MA and Phd and had the same supervisor for both the MA and the Phd - but then he is the expert in the field - he wrote the seminal works, he is world renowned for what he does - so to go elsewhere would be madness lol - it would be being taught by the student and not the expert.

I'd also say to you, never go with a Phd and supervisor blind if you can help it. Your relationship with your supervisor is of paramount importance - if you don't gel then you can look forward at best to 3-4 years of hell, at worst bye bye Phd. You work so closely I think(and it is just my opinion) that it is better to go with someone you know you can work with - and you've proved that already.
Go to the best place for you, the place where you'll have the best chance of doing well and the fact that you've been there before is of little importance.

Yes, I'm carrying on in the same vein for my Phd as for my MA but it will still take me the same amount of time. As has been said, you can't recycle MA work for Phd work, it has, by definition, to be an original piece of research and the depth with which you go into things at Phd is so much greater. I've done a lot of the reading already of course, but again, its just deeper and deeper

Hi everyone

I have my first supervisory board in the morning and I have no idea what to expect. I submitted a paper last week and all I know is that tomorrow I go along and meet with my supervisor and the rest of my board and they 'help' me. I'm constantly told 'we're not here to trip you up, just to help you'. Which I believe, but I was also told 'If I rip you to shreds its nothing personal, just trying to be constructive'.

What goes on in these meetings? I have no idea really quite how these things work - is it like being marked on an essay and talking about it rather than just venting your frustration in the SU bar at yet more comments relating to the great word count tardis (yes, you're over wordcount, yes, you cut 2K words, but maybe you should ALSO have considered this and this and that, and that was too brief, would have liked that expanded blah blah blah)

I just thought I'd ask as I'm sure most of you have had to do this and I'm getting a bit nervous now and not sure how to prepare (or if I need to even) and what will happen.

Thanks