Hi Everyone,

Reports from the examiners came back, advising only "minor corrections" for my thesis. I managed to finish those corrections in less than one week, and I got the word yesterday that these final corrections have been accepted!!! Party time!!
I am seriously considering to change my username on this forum from "aleruri" to "DrAleruri". Just kidding :-)

Feeling over the moon at the moment!!

Thanks to everyone on this forum for taking the time to answer me when I was in very difficult times. To all of you still in this PhD journey, hang in there. I have been there and it is possible.

Woohoo!!!

aleruri

Thanks Nautilus for your kind words!!

OK everyone, thesis has been submitted!! I never thought this day would come. After a very very very thorough (and painful) revision from my supervisor, he agreed that the thesis was good to go. Everything started with an email he sent me last week which subject was" Thesis ready to go. Time to bind"

The thesis has now been sent to the examiners. Apparently it takes between 6-7 weeks, but my supervisor says that on his experience it takes longer than that. I ended up with eight chapters, 181 pages. Chapters 1: intro, Chapter 2: lit review, chapters 3-7, journals and papers I have published/submitted, and chapter 8, conclusions. Out of those 5 chapters (3-7) I have four already published (3 journals, 1 conference paper). Not sure if I should feel happy or nervous, it is honestly a combination of both.

BTW, my area is in informatics/telecommunications.

Fingers crossed!!

Hi guys,

Joining the thread too. Also writing my thesis at the moment with a self-imposed end of June deadline. I am part time and in my fifth year so in theory I still have another 3 years to go but I have had enough. My supervisor thinks the same which is a good thing :)

Struggling with the Lit Review chapter but this is the only one left as I have already finished the rest. Actually, that's not entirely true as I still need to write up the Abstract and the Conclusion chapter.

As I work full time (9 am -5 pm) the only time I got to work in my PhD is between 5 -8:30 AM and between 5:30 pm till midnight and during weekends.

Feeling really tired at the moment and it is really hard to get up that early given that it is winter now here in Australia. I am so pathetic and I want to finish this ASAP that have I even written the Acknowledgments already :)

Good luck guys.

Hi there,

I am also in the same boat as you. I have a pretty stressful full time job and doing my PhD part time. I am on my fifth and hopefully, last year. Although my full time job is somehow related to my PhD I constantly live in these two very different worlds where academy does not mix with industry.
My advice to you is to take it easy. My first two years I used every single 'free from work' moment to work on my PhD. I Stopped going out with my wife and stopped having a social life. This made me really stressed and could not really make any real progress on my Ph D.
Try to dedicate most of your free time to your Ph D but not all of it. In my case, I decided that I was allowed to rest and relax during the weekends and even to go out once in a while on a weekday.

Good luck on your Ph D and all the best. I am pretty sure that when we finish, we are going to see it was worth it.

Thank you very much for all your replies. They make me feel a little bit less guilty about my decision of resting during the weekends.

TreeofLife, I manage to put 4-5 (sometimes more) hours per day mainly because I have no kids :)
You are right, will try not to check my emails during the weekends.

Thanks again.

Hi guys,

I am currently doing a PhD. part time in telecommunications while working on a full time basis as a network engineer.

This is my third year, and I can't avoid to feel guilty about not doing enough at all times.
Regardless, how tired I feel at the end of each working day, I manage to always give good solid 4-5 hours to my PhD. My progress has been quite good, as I have managed to finish one journal article and two conference papers and I am right now working on my second journal paper. Last year was a really good and productive year, and I always felt very motivated.
This year though has been pretty average, as I have not been able to succeed in finding a solution on a specific problem I am working now (related to my second journal paper).
Unfortunately, when Friday comes, I am extremely tired and I don't want to do anything PhD. related during the weekend. My supervisor is really good and he always sends me emails to give me some ideas and to know what's the status of the things I am working at the moment. The problem is that I believe he is expecting me to work during the weekends (he sends me emails on Sat and Sun). This is something that I did in the beginning (during my first year) but honestly, I am not willing to do anymore as I saw how this was affecting my relationship with my wife and also my health.

I have even stopped going to the gym in the mornings (during the last month) in order to dedicate to my PhD. two more hours per day before work.

When I see one of my supervisor's emails during the weekend can't stop feeling really guilty because I got the perception my supervisor is thinking more about my problem than myself and that I should stop resting and that I should go back to my studies immediately.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks

Hi fellow PhD. students.
This is my first post on this forum.
I am currently doing a Phd. part time in telecommunications while working full time as a network engineer. I am on my third year and I believe my progress has been good so far.
My supervisor is a very busy man but he manages to always come back to me on time with very helpful feedback about my work.
Recently, however, I've been quite frustrated. He has always profusely reviewed my work, making heaps of corrections and finally after too much suffering, deciding that the paragraph, article, etc. has been completed and even instructed me to submit it or move on. So far so good, right? I mean this is what you would expect from your supervisor. Heaps of feedback, draft after draft and really hard work. He has though recently started to change his mind or finding errors that he has not seen before. There is even this case where after multiple revisions he encouraged me to submit a finalized paper. I did it just before the deadline (which was extended btw) and I felt great. However, one week later just when I was getting ready to enjoy my weekend with my wife, he then came back to me and pretty much asked me to redo the whole already submitted paper. I appreciate the feedback and I believe that he is actually right, but makes me wondering why he did not see all these fundamental issues before.
Sorry about the long post. Just wondering whether this is normal. Now I am facing a very tight deadline which I don't think will be able to meet.

Thanks,

aleruri