I agree with Chickpea's way if you are going to tell them.

My suggestion is to explain what a DBA is. Thanks

Hello and welcome to the forum.

This is a really difficult situation because your supervisor is telling you that your research isn't PhD standard and unless you fully understand what is required to reach the standard by submission, it is possible that your external examiners will agree with your supervisor and will not award you a PhD. If her standards are really too high though, it's possible someone else might think you have sufficient work for a PhD. Can you ask another academic for their opinion? Have you been having annual assessments by an independent academic? Have they given you their thoughts on your progress?

Also, have you told your supervisor that you can't go home without the PhD? You really need to be honest with her.

You need to get detailed instructions of the requirements needed to obtain the PhD and a realistic deadline to achieve them. You need to ensure that your supervisor closely monitors your progress and provides enough feedback for you to stay on the right path.

You are determined to do it, and that is good, but your determination must be met with the required abilities as well, otherwise you are not going to be able to make it. Good luck.

I would just apply and not mention if it was me. You don't want to put them off at this stage. IT's better to know you got an interview but couldn't make it rather than wondering if that was the reason why you didn't get an interview.

The government are idiots over this issue. I took 3 months off and went round the world with my parents when I was 12. Does it look like it affected my education Mr Cameron?

Hazy Jane you are right, there should be rules for those parents that need to have guidelines to follow to ensure their kids get a basic education, but for those other parents that provide more than a basic education, it should be a different set of rules for them. Holidays should go back to being awarded on a case by case basis, as they were when my parents got permission.

As always, spot on Fled. As long as you know what you are letting yourself in for, it's not gonna be too bad and it's not forever. You may not get an academic position at the end of it. Oh well, build up a set of transferable skills in the meantime and find another job.

If it was me I would play it tactically. I would see what they had to say about it. If they seemed like they wanted the corrections I would give it to them. If they just handed me a list of corrections I would just take it and not mention the things I had found.

Yes that is a good idea, many people do that. I think the general advice is to not give the corrections to them unless they ask for it though, because they may not notice them and then you will highlighting additional weaknesses to them.

I concur with bewildered.

Sure, sounds good. I've now been given more lab work to do so I have no hope of writing up by Christmas, more likely going to be March now. I really need to find time to start writing in between experiments. I'm thinking of setting a target of one hour a day at the moment and seeing how far that gets me.

I expect you are worrying over nothing and the change has nothing to do with you. Maybe one internal is being assessed and that's why the other is there? Maybe there has been a change of policy? You know, you can always ask the admin staff or the person that sent the email to explain the reason for the change. Seriously, focus on your viva prep and don't worry :)

Very interesting, but I'm glad I'm an optimist, I'm still going to try for a post doc ;)

I wouldn't want to do it for the reasons stated above, but I do think it's a pretty good option for those who have considered teaching. 10k more than a good postdoc rate and fewer research positions available? I can see a few people buying into that. It's win-win.

I also don't agree with the comments I've seen elsewhere about people with PhDs not be able to teach. Maybe they can't off the bat, but I bet they learn to a lot quicker than other many other teachers do.

Bear in mind though that what the supervisor may say in terms of meetings isn't always what will happen. My supervisors says to all his students there will be meetings every 2 weeks, but I've gone for 4 months with no meeting before...