I'm with you guys, depending on the outcome of the simulation which will be finished in 10 mins or so I'll be here for 10 more seconds, or 10 more hours...

Hi everyone

Thinking about a Post Doc in the states when I finish (Currently have about 9 months left of PhD in England). Does anyone have any broad idea of Post Doc salaries in an independent research institute ie Not a university?

Thanks!

I have only had my transfer viva, but I found that when it came around I had been working on fine details of coding and analysis the few months before so I wasn't really looking at the big picture. Remember that your examiners will know less than you about your project, so will not be asinterested as you in the fine details.

I would make an effort to take a step back, try to be able to sum up what results you have in a few sentences (Hard I know!) and have a good idea in your head as to why you are using the particular techniques you used, what you are doing that is different to what others have done before.

All good advise above. One suggestion I had on a course about overcoming writers block was to 'free write'. Take a piece of paper and start writing and try not to stop, let the pen follow your train of thought. I was very suprised at how cogent the writing that came out was. I'm sure a cursory Google search will give you more information on this technique.

Does the job cite your PhD as a requirement? If so obviously you will have to finish it and maybe they will give you some kind of time limit, or it may impede your progression in your job, promotion etc.

But if you don't need to have a PhD I think it will be hard to find the motivation to write up while you are working. There will be enough to deal with (Learning new things, getting up at the same time every day!) and finishing your thesis may slip off the radar which would be a tragedy so close to completion.

You said you have 6-8 months left, assuming your start date would be in a couple of months time that is still a long time to juggle working and writing up which are two very different lifestyles to have. As someone else pointed out if you found this job, there will be others. I know it is nice to daydream about having a job sometimes, I do the same! But you have to be realistic.

Hope that helps.

Hmmm, I think things can get quite fraught in labs with identifying who has done what and who gets credit for what. I would hope that if anything comes of this guys work ie Results, then you would be credited. Experimantal papers often seem to have 100 authors, right down to the lab technician. If he is just experimenting with them then I don't think you have any right to complain unfortunately. Although I disagree personally, I guess your lab would see it as the labs property.

If some results do come out of it I would just drop lots of heavy hints to remind whoever necassary that these things you isolated were all your work. Perhaps in the ecstasy of discovery this fact was forgotten!

This is very personal I suppose but I started out doing the following, and am very glad I did.

-Give each paper a reference ie First authors name and year published ie Rutherford:07
-After reading the paper write the 3 main points at the top, it is good to summarise straight after you read it and will help you when you come back months later.
-Put all your references into BibTex/Endnote using the same reference as above so you can search them easily.

Having just done my transfer viva (And passed, woo-hoo!) which was in the style of the real thing, I was asked at the beginning to spend 5 minutes outlining the main results I had and how my approach differed from and improved on what people had done before. I would recommend being very sure of those points.

If you are using Linux then presumably you are in a scientific area?

In which case I would consider using LaTex to write up in, much easier in terms of formatting and equation numbering. Plus it sorts out references easily, I think you can import Endnote quite easily into BibTex (The bibliography function for LaTex). It takes a little time to get to grips with but it looks really smart and saves much time with formatting as it is content driven. A cursory search will find loads of resources online.

EPSRC studentship with CASE contribution from the UKAEA. My supervisor works there two days a week. I was going to go there for some time during my PhD but it looks like there isn't much work for me to do actually so my PhD is much the same as any other but I get a contribution to my studentship and obviously keep them abreast of our work. Happy days!

Hi Ryan

Tough one. I think 6 months is really not time enough to decide if you are 'an academic'. In my experience (Just over 18 months through, having wriiten transfer report and transfer presentation and a father who is an academic) research is peaks and troughs. Days where you can't get out of bed and can't see the point at all, to days where you are in love with your subject, absolutely on a high from achieving results and wondering how on earth you could do anything else. I think until you have been through a 'cycle' you can't make a decision, getting started ie the first 12 months were tough for me and I think are for everyone while you find the best way to work for you.

Plus, as someone who is planning to go into industry in a similair area after my PhD (Financial modelling) I think you could find a better job with a PhD, more independence as you have proved you can handle it, more of a challenge. Oh yes, and more money.

It's not exactly an academic reference, but the Economist website has some tips for people doing business in different cities.

Here is the section on London
http://www.economist.com/cities/Displayobject.cfm?obj_id=1603251

And you can look at a number of different cities from the drop down menu.

Might get you started at least...

Plus I'm just a bit self involved I suppose...

I think it winds me up so much because I know that they will never understand ways of an academic. Especially if I am wound up with work and could really do with offloading on my friends, or at least if they are not in the mood for listening to me talk about my work then be a bit more understanding!

Love the pictures of the sheep being dragged around btw....

*********Addendum**************


I also find it hard to prove, given that I do have very flexible working hours and do take the odd long weekend, or work from home occasionally or have the odd lie in if I have a night out in the week. I can't explain what it is like to carry such a large burden on your own and how it is different from a 9-5. This especially annoys me when I have heart palpitations, insommnia and migraines from stress and I consider myself to be a very pro-active and hardworking student and am where I am because I worked hard.

Grrr! Does anyone else know what I mean, and how do you deal with it?