So, I passed my grueling 5hr viva back in mid-March 2023 with major corrections, with the deadline being 3rd October. My PhD was on semiconductor technology. One of the examiners, he gave me my corrections by printing out the whole thesis and then correcting almost every few pages. Nearly 3 months ago, I had handed in my corrections.
3.5 weeks later, I hear that the examiner had rejected my corrections for 2 reasons:
1) The formatting was apparently too confusing for him to follow even though other academics agreed with me and stated that the corrections were formatted correctly and should not have caused confusion. Additionally, apparently (which I heard from my supervisor, which I will get to) the examiner exclaimed that he wanted the corrections to have been highlighted or in colour. Every PhD student who I had talked to had told me that they never had to do that.
2) He claimed that I had not answered his corrections, with him even giving an example of a correction that I hadn't done which in reality he had never even asked me to do.
What's interesting is that my supervisor actually knew that the examiner was very pedantic and really strict, so he must've predicted that this would have happened...
Fast forward nearly 7 weeks later, after rejecting my corrections and 8.5 weeks left until my deadline, I have still not received my new corrections. After approaching my supervisor, he was not supportive in the slightest... He then claimed that it was my fault that the corrections were not clear (even though they were) and all that he says is to "be patient" and I have been for the past several months now.
My supervisor is one of the heads of a new semiconductor department that had just came out, and my examiner is actually a "prestigious professor" (supervisor's words) from another university on semiconductor technology. Funnily enough, shortly after my viva, the examiner signs up a project with my supervisor as well as having the examiner's colleague visit our new semiconductor department. I really don't think that it's a coincidence and my supervisor is really trying to not step on any toes, whilst also picking a harsh examiner all for the benefit of his new department
What do I do here? Who do I even go to? This is eating me up so much that it's making me want to quit on my the PhD, despite being at the end...
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