Well done Dr Dan!! Excellent news! Now go and plan a nice holiday for after your corrections.

I love my subject too. Even though I'm sick to death of writing up and just want this whole thing to be over, I still love my topic. I also worked broadly in the area of my research for years, and generally my career before the PhD was geared around this, so this area comes to me almost naturally and has been a part of my life for a long, long time. It also fed into extra-curricular activities. I don't expect to stay in academia, but will go back to working in this area once I finish studying. I think I'm pretty lucky in this respect. I think a lot of students have a topic that is just a lot like a job, that they don't have passion for, and therefore lack motivation. (robin)

======= Date Modified 08 Dec 2009 09:59:11 =======
Hi Rebel



I worked in the civil service (or public service, as it's called here in Australia) for 15 years, and yep, the pay, prospects and conditions are all good. The civil service is generally a good employer. It won't make you rich - if you're really ambitious then the private sector would probably suit you better - but if you have just a reasonable amount of ambition, then the civil service isn't too bad. But the cliches are true - bureaucracies are slow, monolithic beasts, you need to be able to take direction from many levels, and sometimes the work can be just meaningless. A management/business PhD would be pretty well regarded, I would think.

======= Date Modified 08 Dec 2009 02:59:26 =======
If you're teaching and studying, then that's going to keep you pretty busy! Maybe you need to rethink teaching, if you don't want to be an academic? But another option is to look for internships over semester breaks - my uni advertises these, and I know a lot of the professional management/accounting type orgs take students over the holidays. Your uni should have a careers centre that has details of these types of things.

Hi Rebel

I can fully relate to not wanting to continue in academia and get a job elsewhere - I too have had about enough, with 6 months to go. I don't know about private enterprise, but having come from a background in the public service, you should easily be able to get onto a graduate program - 29 is not old. We had grads in their 40s starting, people wanting a career change, so don't worry about your age. Lack of experience could be a bit more detrimental tho, and you might want to think about taking on a bit of part-time work, or getting some experience in this area, before you're on the job market.

Go Bilbo!! How exciting to see it all coming together! Wow, you're getting really close now! Well done!

Go, do it, and enjoy. If you've been asked to assist, your prof obviously thinks you're good enough. Have faith in yourself. Lots of us here suffer from 'imposter syndrome' - do a search on the forum and you'll come up with lots of posts. We worry people will think we're frauds and will see through us. The way to beat this is to believe in yourself, and also bluff your way through until you really are confident enough. It's important that you grab opportunities as they are given to your thorughout your candidature, so grab this, learn and have fun!

Gosh Cobweb, little bit of an anal fixation? ;-)

All that activity would wear me out. What I'd like to do more than anything else at the moment would be to have an afternoon at the beach. It's summer here, and would just like to lie on the hot sand, before throwing myself into the surf, then come out, lie under a beach umbrella, crack a beer and read a book, before another little nap, listening to the waves. Yep, that's top of my list.

======= Date Modified 05 Dec 2009 19:48:36 =======
Hi Alison



Your library should have a listing of the databases used for each discipline. Have you had a good look at their website? When I did women's studies, I mostly used Women's Studies International, Proquest, PAIS, and Sociological Abstracts.

Glad to hear you're going well Bilbo! That's excellent progress. I was also supposed to be submitting in March, but have an extension till end June. I occasionally have a minor panic about the amount of work to do - I wanted to have a first draft done by the end of the year, but have only gotten 7 of the 11 chapters written, with another two in very draft form. So, am way behind. And am working full-time next mth, to get some funds to keep me going, so that will hold me up too. Am currently writing an article with my supervisor, so that's more time away from the thesis. Just seems neverending...

I'm here too, feeling completely unmotivated on a Fri morning, and just feel like going Xmas shopping. I bought some pressies last night and now the urge is on me...but No!! Have almost finished a really awful zero draft of a paper, so better go and have a look at that. Nice to have company.

Well, today I've had one of those days. Have spent most of the day skiving off on this forum, and registering with HR sites, dreaming of a time when I can look for a job and be done with this thesis.

Lately I've been finding that it's really hard to maintain a high level of productivity. I can work like a demon for a couple of days, then have days like today. I think it's partly because it's the end of the year and I need a break and I'm long-term tired. But next year I have 6 mths to finish the monster and can't afford to have less productive days. Am remembering all those horror stories people tell, of months of 16 hour days, and wonder how I'll be able to do that/whether it'll be necessary.

So, how do people keep their productivity up? I eat well, rest, exercise, do all those things, but still find it difficult to maintain momentum. I'm disciplined and work every day and am normally quite productive, but lately have had trouble sustaining a really good, high level of productivity for long periods. Maybe the sheer fact of the 6 mth countdown will drive me to be more productive...? How have people found that last extra push?

Thoughts? Thanks all.

(...right...might just wander over to this org's website and look at their recruitment pages...dum de dum....)

Hi Jojo

I once had a really really stressful job, and developed a pain in one of my shoulders which constantly ached. I thought it was the way I was sitting, my chair, the keyboard etc etc, and I might've been a bit hunched over my keyboard, but I think the main cause was stress. Once I left the job I didn't need the ergonomic keyboard etc and the pain went - like you. But, you have to write up and can't just leave it. Have you thought about going to a physio to get a massage? And do exercises for your neck?

Exercise also does help - don't overdo it though. I used to have lots of kinks and tight spots in my shoulders, and I've found that the best thing to deal with this is using weights at the gym, in a proper class, which includes stretches. It's amazing - all my muscles are no longer tense and I can move freely. So, think about doing things to help you destress and also to treat the muscles.

And am v. interested in how this could lead to hysteria - sounds bizarre!