It's difficult to say what to suggest here. You could quit, but what would you do? And how much money would you lose?

Or can you stop now and rejoin at a different time that makes more sense with the rest of the cohort?

I expect a MSc my give you the edge over other applicants but it's difficult to say.

Personally, I wouldn't do it. I understand about the need to pay the bills, and I've taken other jobs to do so, but a PhD is not required for a technician position and it feels like a step in the wrong direction for me. I would find it hard doing the crappy repetitive stuff which no one else wants to do, which is basically what I have seen technicians doing. I know I wouldn't enjoy a tech position, because doing bench work all day is not fun for me.

I think it's ok to do whilst looking for something else but I wouldn't do it for long if a research career is what you are ultimately looking for.

I do know two people who did short term technician jobs after their PhDs and both have now gone on to do post docs so it definitely can be a short term stop gap.

Many PhD students in the UK are fresh out of their undergrad or masters degrees so it's fairly unusual to have publications. If they have them they tend to be something from an undergrad project where they made a small contribution so they don't really mean much anyway,

That's just people I know and what I see happening in my department. My field is molecular biology, but I see this with behavioural biologists and ecologists too - it takes a while to design studies and then get results. For ecology you may need results over several field seasons. For molecular biology you may spend years getting something to work.

pm133 is correct about this, this is very important too, but not always something you have control over if you get to viva stage with no papers.

Having said that, I do think that already having a paper published was one of the things that swung my result from major corrections to minor. My examiner did not appear impressed with me at all in any aspect but I had published something so obviously other people must have thought my work was worth something, which made it difficult for him to argue too much. That didn't stop him criticising my paper as well though of course.

I'd say most people in my area go into the viva with 0-1 papers. Very rarely will people have more than this, although they may have others in the pipeline as I did.

You can learn research skills as you start your PhD. Most people do this in their first year with the literature review and thinking about experimental design. Most university departments offer training sessions to first year students, but the value of these varies.

Can you take a break for 6 months or so? This might help you get some focus and decide whether you want to continue.

I'm going to guess here that your supervisor is inexperienced, otherwise it seems a bit mad to leave a student without supervision and expect them to just put up with it.

I think Skype supervision should be fine though to be honest. I worked away from my lab for a year and I just had Skype meetings twice during that time and the rest of it was through email every 2-3 weeks. This worked fine for me, but I was in my third year, so I was more checking in than asking for guidance. Of course if you want to use this as a reason to move supervisors because you think this will be beneficial, then you should do so.

Oh I see, scholarships might be a bit different then. But there's still no right answer - it depends on your competition. There's the government Masters loans as well if you wanted to go down that route.

I was looking for experience (but again this isn't essential), enthusiasm with evidence (ie examples of previous work in the area, even if just undergraduate units or dissertations, not just sounding enthusiastic), reasons for wanting to a do a PhD in this area and then how they would fit into the research group. Also my interpretations of what they wanted from a PhD and whether this PhD would meet their expectations.

It's a difficult situation though, because I wouldn't mind betting other academics already know about to and are keeping it quiet as their hands are tied. I don't see how they couldn't - undergraduates talk. I would take it to your supervisor, see what their response is, and then think about what action you can take if they don't do anything about it.

@chickpea You've kept this quiet on here I think? I don't remember seeing you post about your viva before.

Congrats for passing anyway - so nearly there now!

I had exactly this experience. Mentally, it was one of the most disturbing things I have encountered for a while and it takes a lot to shake me. I got minor corrections, but there was no positivity at all and I felt I was totally worthless, inadequate and that I should quit academia asap. I felt all my years of work were for nothing and that all the good things my supervisors said about me were wrong. This was even though I already had a paper published and had started a postdoc. No one should have a viva experience like this and I don't know what these examiners are thinking conducting themselves like this.

Anyway, it took me a while after the viva to realise that the examiner was an idiot, didn't know anything about my field and this was just his 'style' of dealing with people.

Since my viva, I have had 5 papers published, started an academic teaching job and today, I just got my first grant! It's only for £2k for consumables, but still!

Those examiners don't know what they're talking about - you're already a lecturer - just make the corrections, and move on.

Yes my uni gives free access to Office 365 2016 packages, online and for download. I've never had anything but a Windows laptop so I've no idea if this package is functional on other platforms..

Personally I wouldn't be without Office as it's easy and familiar and the majority of people I work with use it.

Regarding nerves, I just don't think about things that make me nervous, that's all I can do.

Viva prep, you need to make sure you know the thesis inside out, go through a list of potential questions, be sure you can draw complicated things if they ask you to, think of how the examiner's research is going to be informing the direction of the viva, be prepared to stand your ground when you are right otherwise they will tell you to change something to their way of thinking when it may be wrong, if they ask you what you thesis is about make sure you can answer in one or two sentences and then expand on this for a few minutes, know the ares in which your research has made a contribution to the literature, know where you are going to take the research next, know what the big developments in your field are going to be.

I wouldn't know since I've never been near Oxbridge, but I'm guessing grades aren't that important as long as you reach the minimum. Since you generally pay for Masters yourself they generally let you in.

No one cares about the percentage of a first. Maybe people look at the consistency of your unit marks on a transcript and how relevant the units you took are to the Masters, but you're not going to lose out on a place because you got a 71% overall and someone else got a 73%.

I just interviewed students for a PhD and the position didn't go to the 'best' candidate in terms of academic achievement. Postgrad stuff is about more than that.