Dear friends,

I would like to honestly ask your opinion about my situation whether I should sue the institute I work at. I am originally from the Netherlands and I’ve got grants to study in a foreigner country (Germany) for my PhD. During my PhD, my supervisor was terribly neglected and did not give a shit for me, my project and for the lab. The whole PhD project was conducted by myself, alone and alone with no help from my supervisor. Of course I had some help and suggestions from friends and other PI that knowing my fears and despair tried to help me! I suffered tremendous prejudice and from other PIs in my institute who are colleagues of my supervisor. I even experience racism and racist speeches during this time.
I submitted my thesis last August and both external reviewers did accept the thesis and I got good evaluations. I scheduled my defense and I really fear to fail or be humiliated at the defense. My data is not so good, I don’t have publication from my PhD and I was not really prepared for this defense as usually other students are prepared.
In any case, I would like to be prepared for the worst: in case I fail my defense, can I sue the institute/supervisor for being so neglected during my PhD?
Have you heard or experienced something similar?
I thank you for your help

Best

Hi,

Don't worry! This is normal... I am a final PhD stupid and sometimes I feel really stupid for research and academic environment. In my case I had the worst PhD time ever... many problems, no support, horrible staff.... horrible but I still like science and this is what makes me move on.
Do not lose your self-confidence this is very important in a PhD students life! I tell you this because my self confidence was ruined during my PhD. I survived and I am about to submit my thesis and I do believe that will be ok!

Dont give up! Keep on going!

Best regards

Johannes

Dear Colleagues,

I am about to finish my writing and I plan to submit my thesis to the university in May. I am already editing the format and trying to find typos and other mistakes....
I have been always obssessed with references and if they are corrected cited and so on.
Since I've been reading too much for writing my thesis and during my PhD, I would like to double check if my citations are correct. I mean check if the papers I read are really corresponding to my citations. As I mentioned I read too much and sometimes we can match references or make mistakes. I would not like any embarassing situation and this is the reason I ask for some advice.
Would you have any idea how to efficiently do this? what would you do?
Is anyone else doing so or just me that has this obsession? :(
If the thing is go and re-read citation per citation I will do anyway. I rather prefer 2-3 days sleepless than having problems with this. My PhD was a really really hard and painful time :/
Thank you!
Best,

Johannes