Thanks for your post, really nice, and congrats on passing your viva!!

I would say that despite doing all the same things that you did and you have suggested, my viva was still terrible. This was due to my external examiner (who, even though I passed with minor corrections, didn't say one positive thing about my work or my thesis, or even congratulations at the end), so another piece of advice is choose your external wisely and don't let your supervisors just pluck someone out of thin air!

I'm not advocating that you don't do the presentation training, but no, you probably don't have to.

I know many students that didn't bother to go to the 'compulsory' training courses and no-one knew or cared. If there's a sign in list occasionally, someone else could sign them in. Check with other students whether this was ever monitored properly.

If you are on a kind of DTP PhD though, attendance can count towards you passing or failing your first year and being able to continue with your PhD, so check this before you stop going.

Is this an MSc thesis? I wouldn't get too hung up on structure, even if you think it's a good structure, the examiner might not. Look at other theses and follow that, but only if it's logical for your work. Also check whether there is a defined structure in your course handbook. If not, then it won't matter too much.

You're right, it is pretty much a breeze working part-time whilst an undergrad, especially if it's a non-science course where you may only have 6 hours of lectures a week. I worked 15-20 hours a week during time term when I had 25 contact hours and worked full-time during holidays - no problem.

A PhD is a different matter. It's rare to find someone that can work a PhD like a 9-5. Many students, particularly international ones, work well into the evening and every weekend. It doesn't leave much time for a job. Even if you did work 6-11 every day, which you will struggle to maintain for any length of time, you will likely find yourself rushed, stressed and underachieving. A PhD is about more than putting in the hours 9-5. You need time to stop, think and reassess. You also need time to relax and to connect with other students.

You are also likely to struggle to get scholarships because you are not EU, recommendations or not. It's very rare to get a scholarship outside of the ones that are advertised as funded. I don't know a single non-EU student that isn't self-funded (and I only know 2 of these) or funded by their government. Pretty much all UK and EU students I know got their funding through applying to advertised positions with funding. Even with a UK MSc you are going to struggle to get UK funding. I think you should look into your government scholarships.

P.S. the minimum wage for under 21's is £5.30 an hour, so undergrads generally don't earn £6.80 p/h.

The UK is expensive to live and it will be difficult to earn enough money (ie you will need a good job or to work many hours a week) in order to work part-time and study full-time. This will also increase stress and decrease the likelihood of your enjoying your course. Think carefully before you choose to self fund.

You can self-fund for a PhD, but it's not recommended, and certainly very few Chemistry students will be self-funding.

If you are self-funding though, you can probably get on a PhD at some unis (not very good ones) with just a 2.2 and no MSc.

I don't know about specifically for the clergy, but for others, yes the university does matter for careers within academia. Outside of academia, probably not so much because people are not as aware of which unis/supervisors/departments are highly regarded, although in industry and medicinal occupations they would still matter.

Reputation is important in getting a job. The quality of education is appears better from certain unis, though it's probably debatable whether it is actually better.

However, there are many other things required for getting jobs inside and outside of academia such as experience, publications, notoriety, good references, ability to interview and so forth that are equally as important.

You will probably find it difficult to get a PhD scholarship with a 2.2. A masters will help you. Can you get any funding from your government?

It just means a MSc. You have a pass at MSc, that means a pass, that means you have an MSc, that means you can apply when the requirement states MSc.

Congratulations Dr! Now go celebrate!

I agree, in the UK, I've never heard of someone having to pay it back.

It's common for that to be stipulated to international students, but even then, I'm yet to hear of a case where it was enforced.

Have you checked out CVs or profiles on researchgate/linkedin of academics at the same stage as you, awsoci? Maybe you're not as far behind others as you think?

I reread my thesis and made a list of corrections, made sure I understood the key literature and kept up date, read recent papers by both examiners and practised answers to typical questions such as 'summarise your thesis, what are the key achievements etc and why did you choose this technique etc'. I felt like they didn't really ask me these obvious questions though.

Any time they thought I knew something they just moved on. When it was clear I didn't know something or I had answered it incorrectly (or they thought I had), they kept on prodding me like I was going to pick the answer out of thin air. I think that was partly the point - I've often heard it said that examiners keeping questioning until the student says they don't know the answer.

I guess the prep helped then, because otherwise they would have hassled me with every answer I gave, so maybe I could have prepped even more in that case, but it's hard to have an answer off the top of your head for every possible question.

My supervisors also thought I would sail through my viva, and they thought my thesis was pretty perfect, so it was a shock when my examiners didn't agree!

Even though I got minors in the end (which took me a week to do), my external was considering giving me major corrections, partly because he was worried how I would do the corrections whilst working full-time I think, but also because he didn't think much of my thesis.

It is difficult to think what the examiners will focus on. The examiners in my viva were also both out of my subject area and so I had many questions on molecular biology, rather than the specific field of my thesis.

My viva was difficult because sometimes they asked really obvious, basic questions and it was hard to think whether they were actually asking that, or whether they wanted a more in depth answer. The external got annoyed when I broke things down too simply, and yet told me I was wrong when I gave a more complicated answer, because he didn't understand. I couldn't win, basically!

Even if you work out how to feel like minor/major corrections isn't a failure now, it may not make much difference once you have had the viva. I thought I would get minors and I would be happy with that (which I got) but because my viva was so horrible, I felt like I had failed anyway. It took me about a week to realise that my examiner was the idiot and not me, and I felt better once I'd realised that. (Even if that's not true I still think it, otherwise the 4 years of PhD would have been a complete waste of time, and I wouldn't be worthy of having a PhD and of doing this postdoc.)

Anyway, I'm sure your experience won't be like mine, because each viva is so different, and most people won't have the type of examiner I did, so do post an update with how it goes!