Yes, just apply for a masters in whatever you like, and explain that the Indiana Jones thing didn't work out, and now you want to try your hand at something new, like philosophizing on something or other, understanding the workings of the human mind and/or having a dabble in a science lab.

Well porgand it's useful to know before you start a PhD if (1) the supervisor has a good track record of successfully supervising other students through a PhD, and (2) if the supervisor has a good publication record--a good indication that they know what they're doing. Obviously it's a little late for that now. You need to make a decision, ASAP, to either give it your all and make something of it despite your concerns over supervision, or alternatively, curtail a process which you consider will ultimately prove fruitless.

Maybe you just need to use a lot more initiative than other students to get something out of this. I'd say a smart, helpful supervisor is a bonus rather than a necessity. Try to discuss your concerns with your supervisor and set a schedule for the project together. Where do you want the project to be in x weeks? What needs to be done to get the work published? Having a schedule should help you realize if the project/environment is workable.

If this is the second time, then the problem may be you. A PhD is about developing the capacity to independently conduct meaningful research of a standard worthy of publication. It's helpful to have a bright and helpful supervisor, but a work week is generally 40-60 hours, of which perhaps 1 hour is spent with that supervisor. Therefore, it's unreasonable to allege that the supervisor is to blame if the project is missing controls / failing to produce reasonable data. That's the job of the PhD student, who needs to read more literature, talk to others with more experience (other students/postdocs) and drop the unhelpful intellectual superiority complex.

Bravo Dr Rubyw!

I like to work on two pages too: at home I use a 22" widescreen, which has a resolution of 1680x1050, and can display two pages in word. They often have deals on monitors at scan.co.uk and hotukdeals.com.

I've also linked up a second monitor (15") which is really valuable for writing about figures, journal articles, etc.

Well done! Remember to check back here in around 1 years time to let us know how badly you want to kick your supervisor(s) butt.

I'd second the advice on learning LaTeX. I never heard of it until I was midway through writing my thesis--frustrated at Word's inability to float figures. LyX combined with JabRef is very powerful, yet easy to learn, and the typesetting, figure handling, and math is MUCH better than Word.

For my field, there's built-for-purpose graphing software like Prism, so I wouldn't use Matlab/Octave/R for graphs personally. For most, they're too technical anyway.

The internet is full of high-quality, free documents on every topic conceivable, including Comp Sci. Has it been reviewed, professionally edited and typeset? If you really think there are people who would pay for your documents, then approach an e-book publisher, or create your own e-book, and try to sell. IMHO - If you're good at Comp Sci then you're going to make a lot more money, a lot more quickly, by actually doing Comp Sci instead of selling technical documents. You can even do all kinds of Comp Sci projects on the internet with oDesk, etc. and get paid well.

For your 1st year report, going from excel->paint->word (you can even copy and paste from paint to word instead of saving) will work fine. Don't ever paste directly from excel into an office file: not only will it embed the whole excel file and make your file huge (as you noticed), it will also mean people can go snooping around your data. I once gave a powerpoint poster to a postdoc to check before a conference, then later walked into her office and found her looking at all kinds of other data that were inside the graph's associated excel file on different sheets.

Later on (i.e. for your thesis and for publications), it will really be worth investing time into learning some proper scientific graphing software like Graphpad Prism (my preference) or SigmaPlot. I tend to export graphs from these programs into Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign to label the axes, align everything and generally make it look professional. Then I save it as a high quality .PNG and import into Word or LaTeX.

Hi Sowji, my better half was recently accepted for a PhD in the USA with a full scholarship. You definitely need to pass a GRE or TOEFL English proficiency exam with a good score (see specific university websites for their exact requirements). The basic process she went through was (1) identify uni's with academics who have similar research interests, contact them and ask if they or their department can fund a PhD (2) if the supervisor says they have funding, or may have funding later, they'll recommend you to apply to the university and pay the fee (approximately ~$100 per uni) -- you won't be accepted without GRE/TOEFL, (3) e-mail the supervisor and let him/her know that you've been admitted, (4) wait until the supervisor confirms if s/he can make you a funding offer.

On average there's about a 20% chance your submission will be accepted, and few journals have acceptance rates above 50%. Aiming low to avoid rejection is futile as you're likely to get rejected anyway. Just choose a journal which publishes work similar to your own, submit your article when it's as perfect as you can make it, and hope for the best. Getting rejected is part of the process, and it even happens to professors with excellent publication records.

Remarkable story... it's good to see that it's all over now. Hopefully 'Katy' has learned from all this too, has accepted the consequences of her actions, and won't do anything like that again.

Well 'hypothesis', a lot of PhD students come here with all kinds of grievances. The poster will tend to have one perspective on what their perceived problems are, and others reading them may have another perspective. I'm not being deliberately harsh, just honest. I know what hostility and bullying in the workplace is because I've experienced it, and it's just my honest opinion that being called a 'student' doesn't register on the hostility-scale. I'm sure a lot of us will, in a few years time, call students in the department 'students', and will hope no offense is caused and that it's not perceived as hostility. It will also be a part of our jobs to criticise others work, and we'll hope it's not perceived as 'undermining' their work 'in front of others'. And so on. My best advice for most students is to just grow a thick skin.

You don't have an athens or similar login from your undergrad days? Try asking and maybe someone will share theirs. Google may help you find logins too.

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Sounds to me like you're insecure about the label student and are being oversensitive. I was called the 'young one' (and variations thereof) by both my supervisors and postdocs. Even if you think the term 'student' is being applied in a derogatory fashion, the fact is that you ARE a student. So.. get over it!