Afternoon all,

A few days ago I recieved some devistating news that I have been asked to resubmit my thesis in 6 months time.

I have been doing some looking and a few universities seem to say that this is not uncommon, yet I have found the news quite hard to take and quite a knock back in my confidence. I am finding it hard to tell my friends and familty because I feel like such a failure.

Is being asked to resubmit your thesis a comon thing? Will affect my job search etc?

I am a little annoyed at how this came about. Some quick feed back over the phone I was told that the external examiner wasnt happy with some of the data or the level of data. Before I started writing the final paper I asked my supivisor on a few occasions if she was happy with the methodology and the results. She said she was and that it was largely down to how well the paper is written. The feedback I have gotten seems to flip this suggesting the paper is well written but the level or data may not be sufficient.

Some kind words of encouragement would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks

Sorry to hear of your troubles Daithi, can anyone offer any advice?

Dear Daithi,

I can imagine how that would be a tough thing to go through! One way of thinking about your situation that might help: the external examiner did not reject your thesis, which is good; he asked you to resubmit it, which means that he must have seen enough value in it to request a resubmission. (Otherwise, he might have rejected it.)

It sounds like it will take longer to finish your master's than you had anticipated, which must be disappointing. But you are most definitely not a failure! You've gotten far enough into your studies to write a master's thesis. And I think if you plug away at doing whatever the external examiner requested data-wise, you will reach your goal of earning your master's degree.

And I doubt that needing to resubmit your thesis would in any way affect your future job prospects. Unless you disclose to prospective employers that you're resubmitting your thesis (and I don't think you'd need to, although if you're applying soon, you might want to let them know that you're still working on your degree), they would never know.

Best of luck!

Michelle Jones, PhD, ELS