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Feeling very sad.
N

Thank you for your support :) Glad to know that there is someone with similar experience Newtophd :) I heard that she was mocking another self-funded student because she has to work... She was also complaining that the stipend for the scholarship is not enough for her to travel a lot and that it is not fair that research students gain so little. She is special. I guess what annoys me is that she has something that I don't have, that I would like to have, that I am not given any chance to have and there is a person who keeps rubbing it to my face.
Sometimes I am thinking "at least I am good at what I am doing", I really like what I am doing, I am very active within the department and I will do it no matter what. But I cannot help thinking that I do not get what I deserve. I do not deserve to work on all sorts of jobs outside my PhD, my parents to go through serious cutbacks, to work day and night with no personal life and not to be given any chance. A researcher told me that there will not be any opportunities this year so I should try in another University if I need a job and it was true there were not any.
Unfortunately there is no hope to gain any funding. The website of the University does not mention anything about this (UK) and there is unwritten rule "no scholarships to enrolled students, recruit more students" which I found out after I enrolled and I started asking questions (my mistake). The painful irony is that one of the scholarships advertised this year was extremely similar to what I am doing; the person specification is me.
Sometimes I feel used by the system. I wish there was a list with issues that are likely to happen for people thinking of becoming self-funded students. Just to warn them.

Feeling very sad.
N

Hi,
I made an account to ask for advice for something that has been disturbing me for some time and I found this topic http://www.postgraduateforum.com/thread-13158
I am a self-funded student and I am frequently mocked by the same scholarship student for not being invited to events that are open only to scholarship students. She loves bringing up the opportunities that she has when I am around so I have exiled myself to use the kitchen after or before her to avoid getting again in the "why am I doing this?" "Is this worthwhile?" questions to myself with no answer.
This issue gets me to tears on a daily basis and I really do not know how I will make myself thick-skinned enough to continue with my PhD (two more years).
She has bragged for getting a scholarship without a supervisor (which is true, she was looking for more than a month to find someone who would be willing to supervise her) and without been interviewed (which I had to). And I am not really hurt by her; the annoying reality is that the Department took these decisions. And I cannot really respond to her mocking because they are all true!
Now I am told that I cannot apply for a scholarship since I have already enrolled, and I want to scream that had I known, I would have not accepted the offer!
I wanted to talk to our graduate director, however, I am not sure if I should talk to people who took the decision about her scholarship about how this turned out.
Don't get me wrong, I knew that academia is not the citadel of justice in advance, but this is emotional abuse on a weekly basis (I do not manage to avoid her successfully every day) and I have started breaking apart...
Any ideas on how to handle it?
Any self-funded students who have been able to make a career in research?