Lilbobeep, if you search the contents of this forum, you will find that there are loads of people that have felt exactly the same way as you. If you use the search terms 'thesis, about to submit, think, rubbish, poor and low standard' you'll find that people from Blackpool to Hull, Texas and beyond have thought along exactly the same lines as you. In fact, I'm going to cite the comment you've made above (Lilbobeep, 2009) in about a year's (well, about 18 months at the rate I'm going) time, because I'll feel exactly the same way, like everyone else. I think I'll call it the Lilobeeb PhD Thesis Submission Anxiety Phenomena, closely rated to the Lara Viva Apprehensiveness Complex (Lara, 2009). If your thesis was crap, your supervisory team would not let you submit and make recommendations for improvement. Every PhD student (a sweeping generalisation) worries that their thesis is not up to scratch and starts to pick holes in it before submission. I know I will. You'll be fine. Good luck.

Hey, Sue2604, nice to hear you like Morrisey - he's a talented chap. Some of his lyrics resonate with me, in fact, as I sit to work on my PhD and contemplate a potential future as a researcher..."Heaven knows I'm miserable now". In return, I can tell you that there is an Antipodean flavour to my taste in music with my appreciation of Crowded House, who have songs that can be every bit as miserable as Morrissey's.."You go quietly, my miserable friend, to the depths of despair you will crawl"...basically me again, as I attempt to write a systematic literature review for publication and think about having to do it for a living.
I was almost liberated from the shackles of despair by the 'bugger them, life is for living comments' made by the Guitarman (whom I am pleased has done very well for himself since giving up his PhD) and elevated by the reassuring comments made by Tasha about the possibility of being normal, doing normal things and being a researcher at the same time! Bewildered then gave the benefit of her experiences...bugger, I bloody knew it!
It's not that I'm afraid of hard work. I wouldn't have worked as hard as I have for all the years I have if I were. It's just there has to be a line between the normal (progress in life in general) and the abnormal (life as an all-consumed, RAE slave-pleasing researcher). I don't want to sound self-obsessed, but I'm actually quite a shy person (when not behind a keyboard) and as a result of the all-consuming nature of my research (which occupies my mind like Isaac Newton possessed), I desperately need a haircut (I look like Morrisey from the 80s, Sue2604!) and shave. The, what I perceive to be introverted, nature of research could mean that this will be me 10 years down the line, the only difference being that I have been worked in 10 different locations in the search for post-doc work and short-term contracts, now have a hunchback, RSI, badly stained teeth from drinking lots of tea and coffee and even bigger eye bags.
I'm certainly not slagging off academia though; I've enjoyed myself so far more than I ever have in a call centre, on an outband telesales campaign, cold calling unsuspecting women and trying to sell breast cancer insurance to them (the women employees did better than the men), or doing field sales, trying to sell pathetic magazines to different households (Candis magazine anyone? £3-50!). It's just, I want a career in academia and research to be such that I can disconnect and have a life with everything I want to develop and have, whilst at the same time working hard for a career I have trained for. Thank you for your perspectives on it guys - you've been very helpful. I'm fortunate enough to have a very good supervisory team, and I'll bring the issue up with them - hopefully not sounding like some prima-donna. :-)

I'm not sure how to get what I'm about to say across without sounding like a total whack-job. I'm in my third year now, as I've probably said before, and I'm going to have to work harder than ever to get it done - thanks complicated mixed methods! The thing is, though, I'm wondering whether it's all going to be worth it in the end? I'm not going to have a life for this year - I'm going to be an absolute slave to my work and do whatever is necessary. This means it's going to be more lonely than ever and involve just getting up, working, going to bed.
If I do well and pass, expectations from others, for future work will be high - assuming I ever get a post-doc. The problem is that I don't want to finish my PhD and have to face it, in the same way, all over again - the monk-like isolation, stress of deadlines, writing, thinking, writing, revising... Contrary to popular belief, I'm really not a jibbering weirdo and I want to do everything that normal humans do, like get drunk, meet new friends, have relationships, settle down. I miss that most with doing a PhD, and it's made me more acutely aware of this need than ever before.
If doing research means that I have to forfeit all these things, then sack it, I'm not doing research. So my question is, does research, if you are to be successful, really suck up your life that much? Honestly, I'm 28, and before this PhD used to get asked for ID when buying beer. Now, I don't. So, I don't want to succeed in academia if I can't succeed in other areas of life, like normal people. Obviously, I'm not implying that academics are all strange people - but some are:$
All my friends are settled down and very happy, buying houses, getting married and so forth. My sister has two adorable little girls and my big brother has one. And then there's me, drowning in a stack of papers in a dingy little room. In my more existential moments, I think: "Shit, is this going to make you happy?"
So, apologies for the self-pitying rant, but I suppose my question is, does being a researcher mean you're doing a PhD all over again in terms of the time and commitment? As much as I sometimes like my work, the uniqueness of it, I don't want to kiss it, I certainly don't fancy it and more than anything, I don't want to spend my life alone with it.

Hiya Chrisrolinski, I've had a crap day today, with barely any work done - feeling a bit burnt out. Like you, I have stacks of work to do, haven't seen any mates in ages, am critical of my job prospects (though I don't expect to finish on time) and just feel like crap. Doing a thesis is a lonely business - I just hope I don't become a recluse at the end of it and end up living in the woods somewhere. I was walking my dog tonight and saw a group of people about my age piling out of a Clio, all dressed up for a fun night (may as well have been a Clio car advert actually) and thought 'crap, I'm stuck with researching for and writing a thesis. Not an ounce of fun in my insular little life.' I think I'll file that under 'self-pitying rant', which is probably the drawer just below 'writing-up tantrums'.
I don't know what advice I can give, maybe because I haven't experienced your stage yet, other than to ask, does it have to be perfect? A thesis represents a journey, your philosophical and methodological development as a researcher - it demonstrates training, learning by doing. You'll find very few theses which aren't flawed to some extent; there are always going to be holes you can pick at, just like in any journal article you pick up. Have you discussed the issues you have with your supervisor? What does he/she say? Is there anyone knowledgeable enough you know, about your subject, to be able to give you their opinion. I do remember your work being about animal symbolism or something (apologies if I am way off the mark there)...so that could be a tough suggestion. It's your own work and you're always going to be super-critical of it - just like I am mine. And anyway, if your thesis does have limitations that you are aware of, won't that make for an even more interesting discussion chapter - self-critical skill is a very important skill that you're supposed to acquire and develop when you're becoming a researcher, and it seems like you have. :-)

Well I found it funny, Sneaks!:-) The problem is, I'm not sure how viable and lucrative a career living off the state is going to be when the next lot get in government. I'm not being political here, but the Tories don't much like poor people...

Sheena, why not save the copies that you currently have, put them out the way in a separate folder, and then makes copies of the files, put them in another folder and try merging them together, through cut and paste to see what happens, sort of like an experiment? You don't have to save it if it all goes wrong. Am I making sense, or have you already tried that?

Reading this post over the past week has made me feel quite uncomfortable. To think how we work so hard to become so qualified, but ultimately can be just as easily unemployed as anyone without qualifications, makes me feel pixsed off. Because, but for personal achievement, it makes you wonder whether it is all worth it in the end? I do what I do, not only because I sometimes enjoy it, but because, although it'll never lead to great wealth, I want to be comfortable and just do a job I enjoy with interesting people. Perhaps I sound a simpleton, maybe like the world owes me a living, but I've not worked all the years I have to end up no better off and where I started. That's not one of the many main aims of entering higher education, which is supposed to raise people's aims and aspirations. Let's face facts, most of the posts on here that we get about PhD and funding opportunities are from good people that want to improve their lot in life by working hard. If talented people really can't get what they want (or close to it) through doing a PhD (especially academia), then it's all a bit messed up - and potential candidates should appraise the value of doing a PhD. It must be soul-destroying, as an eminently qualified individual, to get your PhD and then find yourself unemployed for long periods. Obviously, the matter is much more complicated than I make it out to be (I know that), but I think I get across the essence of the matter. :-s

Sorry, Eska, I've just checked and I meant Keenbean, though you still deserved the mention. As regards the natural talent for recruiting participants, I wish it was the same for all PhD students, like me!

Thanks for the input on this thread so far, guys - seems like the So So's are winning. We're all more or less experiencing the same issues to one degree or another. I hated the person who ticked 'extremely well' until I realised it was PhDBug and how hard she works to do so well for herself (not to sound patronising I hope). Chrisrolinski, it seems that you have it worse than me at the moment - it's quite sobering to read your post. My best wishes to you for getting it all sorted (you deserve the bloody thing (PhD) now). Sue, I love On the Buses - 'I 'ate you Potta!' Not to sound an odd-bod, I really think Olive could look more glamorous if she dressed with a bit of style and got some contact lenses - that program is so mean to her! Bilbo, Human League aren't that bad really - I'd just never admit to the few friends I still have (due to this PhD) that I listen to them and jerk my shoulders, in a pathetic attempt to dance, as I try and work on my PhD.
I'm sure Eska will agree, the thing I hate most about doing my PhD at the moment is having to rely on the good will of participants, the constant worry that you'll never meet your sample size requirements. I hope that this isn't indicative of what it's really going to be like when researching as a career, because it takes me back to a job when I used to have to sell mobile phones, always worrying about hitting targets to keep my job.

God no! It's not a question of either or, as far as being an academic is concerned. We're not flippin' robots, or drones or Dr Spock. Just let me find my box of cliches...hmmm...it's in here somewhere...ahh, right, here we go: you're busy doing an MSc at the moment and you'll meet someone right when you least expect it or are not particularly looking. Obviously, being acutely intelligent, seemingly very sensitive, caring and considerate, and also taking care of yourself physically, makes you a prime piece of real estate for a partner. My advice to you, and I haven't been around that long and don't have that many miles on the clock, is choose wisely from a diverse selection of potential partners (when you put the vacant sign up) because, obviously, they'll be throwing themselves at you. Sorry, if I come across a bit brash, but I think there's generally a lot of truth in what I have said.:-)

Hi everyone, I'm in the third year of my PhD now and really feeling the heat. I find the pressure I am under is directly proportional to the amount I drink (the more pressure the more I drink) - and the cheap offers ASDA currently has on beer doesn't help! Currently, I'm struggling to get participants for the second phase of my research - and that's not good at this stage. I therefore think that my PhD is going quite poorly at the moment - especially since I have teaching duties in addition to the need to churn out some chapters. I've even started to listen to A-ha, Human League and...Peter Gabriel, which definitely indicates things are not going well (I used to be a connoisseur of music, which meant I necessarily hated U2 and Bono).
I'd be really interested to hear what other people's current experiences with regards to how well their PhD is going. I've even established a wannabe Likert scale (not really possible with only 4 scale points) that people can use to rate how well they feel their work is going. At the end of the poll, we can then see what the overall range of experiences are. If the worst comes to the worst, I can even submit it as my PhD!:-)

Nope.

Write your PhD as if writing it for your mother...really good advice on this video guys. It was for me at least :$

Just remember that 'with great power comes great responsibility' (Parker, 2002).

Parker, P. (2002). Spiderman. Columbia-Tristar: USA.

Like an intrepid explorer, I have gone further on the Midnight Express tonight than I ever have before. I'll no doubt pay for it tomorrow, as I'll feel like shit due to lack of sleep. That's what preparing to do 4 hours worth of teaching this Thursday does to me! GRRR...