Hello everyone,

I want your opinions on whether it's worth appealing. I'm a first-year PhD student and I just finished my first-year report submission (2nd time round) and my examiners are not satisfied with the work I've done so far. There is also the other problem that they tested my maths knowledge and I had problems presenting basic notation but really I felt a little stage fright and my mind was completely blank. I don't know what happened to me but they think I should terminate my studies.

I also have to mention for this year, I was responsible for taking care of a toddler. Dropping/picking her up from school was very exhausting and demotivated me. However, the responsibility has been drifted as the toddler will be moving to a closer which means more to on my research and catch up. I also did everything my supervisor wanted me to do (attended meetings nearly every week and we get weekly todo list).

The responsibility drifted occurred after my report submission and presentation. My panel has mention I have the chance to appeal. I personally think I should appeal as I think it's unfair that you are not giving me the chance to catch up on the additional time given to me on a daily basis. It's quite hard to prove by documents that I have picked up and dropped of a school. Now sure what to do here?

The types of docs I'll be providing:
- Email communication with my supervisor to prove that I presented weekly updates on the work
- The number of commits, the point here is to show I've been occasional updates on the report show the comparison of work between the times I had the toddler responsibility and without.
- Copies of work done in the past weeks: this will show I made progress on my work and improving my maths knowledge. Also, show a list of future goals that I wish to complete. Also results produced, perhaps new paper suggestions.

What do you think?

Based on this and your earlier post, it sounds like you want to appeal and think you have a grounds to do so, and so I think you should. What do you have to lose? I'd ask myself that seriously and just be prepared for if my appeal wasn't successful. For example, would that affect my confidence etc going forward. In the other hand, if you don't appeal, I think you might regret it / not forgive yourself for not at least trying. So again, it's what do you have to lose vs. what you have to gain.

You asked in your other thread if I had personal experience of this. No, only through being a student rep on someone else's appeal panel. I don't think anyone can really advise you what to do here one way or the other, or suggest whether it would be successful or not. It's just impossible to know.

I agree with TQ. Why not? I do not have statistics but the chances of appeals to be accepted is not particularly high. Just do not put too much hope and while doing it, look forward search for a job and assess the situation in one year or so. At this time, you would have known if you want (need) to do a PhD or not.

Hi,

Thanks for the kind posts. I'll see what happens, I hope it goes well.

Yes, good luck. I think when I was sitting on a panel, the key thing that was important (in addition to the grounds for appeal and the demonstration of evidence) was the attitude of the student. I think it is about whether those sitting on the panel think that if the appeal were successful, the relationship between the supervisor(s) and student can easily continue and be successful. If the latter doesn't look likely, then even if there are possible grounds to reject the original decision, they may not vote for it simply because they can't see it ending up working.

I agree with eng77 about looking for a job (or other PhD opportunities) so that you have Plan B firmly in place should you be disappointed with the outcome of the appeal.

Fingers crossed for you!!