mate said that due to your abd status you'll be probably treated like a phd student on an exchange year and they might give you the odd first year course or so to teach, for not a crazy amount of money.

the crucial bit might mean tho that as you are abd (all but dissertation), that this might be regarded as a bit dodgy, as the phd degree in the uk often does not entail coursework and is just about writing the dissertation, so having the dissertation not yet done might deter people from hiring you for a proper lecturer position (people normally need a phd and a ton of publications and a postdoc or two can't harm either). you might get temporal/adjunct positions quite easily due to your teaching experience where you might fare better than uk students. adjunct pay is better in your country than in the uk. here we're talking triple digit sums for a whole course taught one semester. sorry this is not more encouraging.

i don't know much about this fundingarrangement, so can't comment, but i have seen in other circumstances that people often do not get much in the way of 'schriftliche verbindliche Zusagen', there are for instance jobcontracts that barely spell anything out and other things like that. as someone from the continent and being used to proper reliable bureaucracy i share your uneasiness about this, but apparently this is how it is done here.
oh yes, and try getting a bankaccount here. very difficult.

not sure if that helps, mine is about 10k for an 80k thesis (about 100k in total with footnotes). i felt this was a bit on the short side, but i also have a topic that had very little previous literature (i am in humanities). if you are worried about the length you could put some of the information into footnotes. then it's still mentioned, but the wordcount is lower. although maybe this is not a good idea bc your wordcount is not very high in general? in any event i wouldn't be worried too much about it, bc the literaturereview shows your good background knowledge. and the 58 aren't too far off from the suggested 50-55 pages and in the final formatting everything looks longer anyway. i don't think it's a huge problem, but then you never know with academics... maybe ask someone else in the department if your supervisor isn't willing to suggest anything, or look at previous theses that have been submitted in your area at your uni for comparison?

go for eindhoven. having studied in holland as well i concur with dunham and janjansen. boston state university sounds a little bit less good than eindhoven. holst centre collaborates with belgium which is a plus.

i concur with durham, having studied at several universities on the continent i don't see how, for instance a random average continental university (note: they only count the real ones, not the polytechnics) is worse than a russell group uni. and i don't think that, say for instance, munich university (lmu) is worse than oxbridge. the old continental universities suffer in the rankings because they're still in the process of adopting the anglosaxian way of measuring research output. i would certainly recommend people to go abroad, if only for a year or so. makes a world of difference, as they say.

really sorry to hear you're going through this. it's not an uncommon, loads of people have anxiety, so you're not the only one. my advice would be to see a counsellor at the university or via your gp if you aren't doing this already, to discuss anxiety and feelings of failure. then to tell your supervisors about the problem - and that you're seeing someone about it. they ought to react in an understanding way. and it's important for them to know this as it might cause further problems during the PhD, you said you needed time to recover and if they know about the anxiety they can support you better.

i am in literature and you could throw in the historical perspective in the introduction and show off there how well read you are, in any event that's what i've been told to do.
no new material in conclusions, i agree, except in that bit where you mention further questions to be explored in the future and so on...
my conclusion is shorter than 10k, about 3k, but i also have little conclusions after each chapter. so those and the final conclusions are around 7 or 8 k in total with the introduction being around 5k (i have an 80k wordlimit for the whole lot).

i agree with wowsers, i had similar situations where initially i made allowances for the supervisor's difficult circumstances and was all understanding, only to find out that he was giving other students more time. and someone so close to submitting should have priority, sups should be organized enough to get that and not leave the responsibility to the students to chase them up. everyone knows that folks close to submitting are at the end of their tether so sups should have a pedagogical duty there and be reliable, or at least honest... that sups cannot be held to account for their shortcomings doesn't help and makes it worse.
if he had said - look i can't hack it, let's find a different solution - it would have been a different story, but he didn't.

that suggestion to write a mail to both of them, hazyjane, is a good one, as it gives both a chance to say something.

just like you i didn't like much space in my text either and wrote everything single space fontsize 10 because it gave me a better overview. so i ended up using two versions, the shoddy fontsize 10 version just for me drafting along and another properly formatted version into which i copied the good stuff and which i used to send to my supervisors.

it's good to send them the properly formatted stuff because then they see that you are on top of the presentational aspect of the thesis.

i can understand kathryn, at some point in your life you reach a stage where you'd had enough of kissing ass, even the elaborate forms as faking a job interview. you start getting interested in some quality of life, like mortgage and permanent contracts and not wanting to display 'flexibility' i.e. moving country on some arbitrary person's whim just for the sake for a job. you'd just want to be a normal person doing a normal job alined to your qualifications and getting an ok compensation without going through all the additional brainfuck. that's it. why should you have to put up with all the additional hassle. and i agree with her that plenty people sail through life like that. what of all the oxbridge ponces getting it all served on a plate despite some being distinctly mediocre. somehow no one gives them advice on how to be more 'bubbly'. there's selling your soul and there's wanting to have some dignity. those who are inclined to the latter will continue to get told they have to kiss ass/be bubbly because this is the way to do it, apparently, and it's us having the wrong 'attitude'.
in addition, the uk is fairly anti-intellectual. also something one shouldn't say too loud. hence the suspicion towards phds; it being a low-wage economy doesn't help. the british don't know what to do with their educated people, it's not that it's too many with them. there's a lack of phantasy and political will to find employment possibilities for higher educated folks. look at all the wonderful quality of life that could come out of that. but no, can't have that.
however, being a foreigner, i will 'bugger off' to my own country where you still can get a lousy job without having to have 3 references and a criminal record check. i mean really. there are alternatives. i have had no problems finding very good jobs in other continental countries with my 'attitude'. here: zero.

Having experiences of the countries Dunham mentions I am as well often shocked about the conditions here in the UK. Not just for postgrads but generally. In my eyes it's a massive, massive difference compared to the continent where things are better in many respects. PhD students in the Netherlands get pension benefits, they have their own offices and they do teach, mostly tend to develop a Mastermodule related to their research which they then teach, apart from some undergrad courses. They're generally not allowed to teach in their 1st and 4th year as the thesis would suffer.
Switzerland isn't exactly shoddy either regarding the conditions.
However, while teaching is valued in the UK it is not always easy to get it, how the teaching hours are allocated is often opaque (nepotism is key, like with many things in the UK), the pay is - not great and probably half of the PhD students in my department get through their PhD without teaching, some because they didn't get any hours, some because they didn't want to. You also often only hear whether you get the teaching a week or so before the course starts so it's not exactly brilliant regarding preparation either.

Good luck with all.

Didn't know how it's organized in the sciences as I am in the humanities. I just went off on my own to conferences to get to know people, but it seems more complicated in your case because of those properties rights and stuff. That said it's still good to get out and talk to different people (maybe worth getting in touch with those other students that also suffered?). Maybe they might not be of direct help but it can be psychologically good just getting different opinions and just to talk. And a little hobby is good too to keep you sane, like running or so. Look after yourself. It definitely helped me to stay focused on my thesis despite all the horrible supervisor stuff.

My troubles with my supervisor happened in my 3rd year as well and I thought: this is game over. But I am about to submit in autumn. There is hope. Things can improve. Hope the union has very good advice. They should have, because fraud is no small accusation.

It sounds positively horrific. I had a similar story, breakdown with my supervisor and changed supervisor, the consequence of this was that the whole department regarded me as dodgy and had to work hard at gaining trust again. The old supervisor blocked my way where he could. One thing that helped was having a few big name people (outside my uni) tiding me over. Without them it would have been truly game over, because also the Head of Department took the side of my old supervisor, even tho I had Student's Guild and third party evidence proving I was right.

Everyone always says of course: ! Think of the reference, don't make a complaint/waves. But then again I know that even without having made a complaint I am not in a great situation reference-wise so I just as well could have made one. Nobody ever says anything and this stuff goes on and on.

My advice would be to change supervisor, ignore her, do the formal things to stop her from mentioning that fraud thing & keep going, focus on the positive people & move on. Disengage. Go to conferences, try to meet other new people & focus on writing your PhD. As you mentioned in your first post, this must be known & in my case it was known too that my supervisor was 'that type' of person & I realized later on that it is maybe not as claustrophobic as it looks like & that there are some nicer helpful people out there even tho this might not be a direct help or consolation, but in the long run those contacts may be well worth more, this secured me a publication I would have had no chance in hell getting with my old supervisor & I'll get references from them as well.

but yeah, an awful situation to be in and I hope you find a way round it...

That said, on the whole I am well and truly shocked how little recourse we have when those things happen, how much power supervisors have and how easily 'ranks are closed'.