Thanks, you're probably right... :/




It would be my choice, so I guess they'd have to just accept it.



This is useful to know, and yes, I need to talk to people who sit on panels in my area to hear what they have to say (I know one academic I can ask but she is on holiday at the moment). I think that explaining that there was no intellectual development on my PhD would surely be a good enough explanation, if probed about it. Unsure though.

It feels a bit like a trap!

A couple of things are worth bearing in mind.

1) If you downgrade to MPhil you will spend your career justifying it and competing with people who don't have that red flag on their CV.

2) In your best scenario, you end up getting a second PhD position. How do you guarantee that the second PhD will go any better than the first? It could be even worse. You could spend a few years of wandering around just to end up where you are now.

My advice would be to finish up. Stop thinking so much about how meaningful it all is. You are too far down the line now. The PhD should really be considered as a means to gain a vast range of secondary and soft skills. A door opener if you like. The technical stuff is much less important because by definition nobody else is working in your immediate area.

You have plenty of time to get your academic freedom. Virtually nobody gets this during the PhD phase.

What you are suggesting in your original post is, in my opinion, potentially ruinous to your career.

Hi all. I agree totally with pm133 two points.
Another point. Do you know what is worse than spending 3 years doing "meaningless" research and get a PhD ?
It is spending 3 years doing "meaningless" research and NOT get a PhD.

Pm133, I am shocked! This is the first time I have known your opinion to concur with everybody else's! :D I was actually looking forward to your contribution, as I had hoped it would open up the debate!

I write the above in a lighthearted way by the way. I do value what you have said. And everybody else's advice on this thread. It's been invaluable as it's basically caused me to think even more carefully.

I still haven't decided yet. I just got off the phone to the PGT manager who gave me some information and advice too - which I will also take into consideration. He encouraged me to just submit it anyway. But he also shared how that he has known several candidates who had an MPhil who were then awarded PhD funding. He says the point is to be able to explain why you chose to downgrade to MPhil (in my case - lack of intellectual development afforded by my PhD). In his experience, he doesn't think it would close doors to pursuing RA roles and future PhD funding. But he still reckoned I should just go for the PhD.

I will keep you posted and in the meantime, please continue to share if you have insight / advice.

Best
Tudor

Nice one! But that would depend on your perspective and what you value most. For me it is 99% about the process, and only 1% about the award at the end.

Thankfully, the research hasn't been meaningless. It definitely is worthy of an award (PhD or MPhil - whichever I decide to go for - probably it will need minor or major corrections if I submit for a PhD but that is normal). It is just which one will enable me to be able to move on to something better. If I get a PhD and end up getting stuck in a research associate job still regretting my PhD and wishing I was doing a PhD that actually afforded me the development I wanted and the freedom to carry out my own project, I would not be happy.

If I do go down the find another PhD route, I will be very sure to try and a) propose my own project that I believe in, and b) choose supervisors who I know I can respect and work with.

Hi Tudor_Queen,
I am sorry for saying meaningless. I know it is valuable. I put it between brackets to imply that ambitious persons like you always underestimate their work. Some people will see always their work as meaningless even if they win a noble Prize.
I can see your reasoning. Although I won't recommend going for MPhil but I can see some logic in what you say.
If you eventually decided for an MPhil, the most important is not to wait long before looking for a good PhD. Not long IMO means 1-2 years.

Thank you Eng, and no worries - I wasn't offended by the word meaningless - I just wanted to clarify that the research is OK (not great but OK). It is just my development and therefore my confidence that has suffered.

Thanks - I'm already thinking about PhD options. Thankfully, I have a good bit of time to come to a decision (the PGT person told me to just take my time - and he will keep it all confidential in the meantime). Something that is becoming apparent to me is that I don't think I would want to do this without already having either a) an RA post, or b) a new PhD prospect. It is hard though - my head feels a bit of a mess after everything - I am not really in a position to be thinking about PhD proposals - not right now anyway. I probably would need to take some time out first (and let my mind casually work on it - perhaps while doing an RA role).

Anyway - I am getting ahead of myself again. Thanks again for your input - it's all helping.

Best
Tudor

TQ, don't go worrying about offending me. I got your joke and it's nothing my own family haven't told me in the past :-D
Unless there's personal abuse in there, you can be assured that I won't be offended.

BTW, I was fascinated to read that you view the award itself as only being worth 1% and that what you are considering at the moment proves you actually mean it. Do you know how rare your mindset is? That is precisely my attitude as well. I don't generally celebrate any achievement. For me, the joy is almost exclusively about the process of getting there. The upside of this is that I get to spend more time being content rather than my entire happiness hinging on getting a particular grade. We might be closer in our thought processes than you think. I consider maths and science as an art form to be mastered. My PhD was the same. Only the final paper was really meaningful to me. Without it, I would have felt a fraud for accepting the PhD. During my undergrad degree I was always motivated by fully understanding and mastering a topic rather than managing to get an A in the exam. Unfortunately there isnt time to do this during the course which is why I am filling in the gaps now in my own time.

There are very VERY few people out there who genuinely think like this. I think that this is the core reason behind why my views are so different from those of others. I am normally looking at things from a completely different place. I think artists are probably most likely to understand exactly where I am coming from. I have very little in common with those who see their jobs as just work, those who switch off at home time, those who are happy just to pass exams, those are happy to get away with mediocre work with minimum effort and those who see life as a massive checklist of things to do before they die.

This is useful to know, and yes, I need to talk to people who sit on panels in my area to hear what they have to say (I know one academic I can ask but she is on holiday at the moment). I think that explaining that there was no intellectual development on my PhD would surely be a good enough explanation, if probed about it. Unsure though.

It feels a bit like a trap![/quote]

Not saying this to be mean, but I think that reason would sound a lot of alarm bells. I would assume that it meant your work wasn't strong enough to pass if I saw it written down. And if I was able to probe in interview, I think my concern would be that you were unrealistic about what a PhD is about and so would be difficult to supervise.

Are you sure this isn't just cold feet at the thought of the viva or applying for postdocs? If that might be the case, you're far from the first to feel that way towards the end. Just wondered if you were in an over-thinking phase and whether a chat with the counselling service might be useful to clarify your ideas a bit before you do anything irrevocable?

It's very nice to be understood pm133! I have always been like this, and sometimes it does make for being misunderstood (people can think you're being arrogant or disregarding their achievements just because you don't place the same value on them for yourself), but that's just the way it is : )

The PGR tutor (who sits on panels) advised me that if I explained it how I did to him on the phone to him (lack of intellectual development) it would be respected. So I guess it just depends on the panel.

It's actually the culmination of 3 years of thoughts that I have not allowed myself to entertain (because I felt scared of quitting - scared of the unknown). I'm glad to be exploring it - so that I can make an informed choice on the matter, rather than just blocking out thoughts of regret any longer. Not sure if I shared this earlier, but the PGR tutor gave me details of a bunch of academics (not in my department) who I can get in touch for a chat about it. I won't make any decision that isn't well considered from all angles.

Can't express how great it feels to be understood! :)

:-D Good to hear.

I think other people are seeking validation for their life choices. When you choose such a radically different pathway, some people interpret that as a rejection of their choices which provokes a defensive response.
When you get to the very end of your PhD as you have and then start talking the way you have described above, it is inevitable that some people are going to think you are a self indulgent arsehole with ideas above your station. It is vital that you remember that this is THEIR problem not yours.

I am convinced that meaning in life and contentment comes from doing things which are fulfilling and meaningful to you personally. To do this, as an example, might require you to work 5 mornings a week at a supermarket to pay your bills whilst you spend your remaining hours and brain power mastering thermodynamics, electromagnetism, maths and embedded software in the hope that mastery across all these areas will lead you to a brilliant insight into a revolutionary green energy innovation at some time in the future. If you chose a technical job befitting your PhD you wouldnt have the mental energy or the time to do this. You sacrifice social status and wealth to pursue what is meaningful to you because anything else would kill you inside. It takes enormous courage to have to explain this to parents and friends who cant understand why a PhD grad wants to sit on a till for 25 hours a week to fund a life chasing a "fantasy". The overwhelming majority of people will choose the money and status route and tell themselves that they are being "realistic" and that you are a deluded idiot. I think this path explains why so many people fall into depression. A mismatch between the meaningful things the body wants to do and the chase for meaningless material wealth. One life. Choose wisely :-)

Some other notable examples of people sacrificing status and steady income in the pursuit of activities meaningful to them personally would be:

The busker on the subway.
The sculptor who needs probably a decade to master what they do before they can hope to seek a commission.
Musicians who live as squatters or sofa surfers whilst trying to create a hit. The list for this includes Blondie, Bob Dylan, The Cult, Guns n Roses and a stream of others too numerous to mention.
Poets.
Actors.
Novellists.
Film and screen writers.
Playwrights.
Ironmongers.
Knitting and textiles enthusiasts.
Inventors.
Self Employed people.
Entrepeneurs.

If the only thing that matters to you is success then these areas are not going to be for you because they require years and years of undiluted effort with absolutely no guarantee of success or perhaps only fleeting success. It has to be about the journey because there may be no destinations at all.

TQ, if you find one of these types of people you will probably have found a kindred "the journey is everything" spirit. I think everyone else is likely to be problemmatic unless they genuinely accept you for who you are.

I've definitely known this to happen before. I think that is a really good explanation/theory for why what happens happens. It's almost like being different is an offense and can even lose you friends. But I still can't conform! :-D



If this is so, then I hope people on this forum can make a judgement of me based on my posts over the years, and come to the conclusion that even if they don't understand me in my present conundrum, what I'm going through doesn't arise from arrogance. And I'm happy to say that none of my seemingly crazy decisions have ever closed doors for me. :-)



I agree. But at the same time, after quite a few years of a depressing and boring day job, I decided that I wanted to make my interest my career... which is why I went to university and did my BSc, MRes, and now PhD. That's why I'm being very careful in my decision now because if completing the PhD IS the best way for me to pursue my goal, then I want to do that. But if on the other hand, the PhD hasn't afforded me the development (and thus confidence) I need to pursue an academic career...

...then I need to seriously consider my options (which is what I'm now doing).

Thanks for the encouragement pm133! I'd say my brother is a lot like you described (he is very intelligent yet currently works as a washer upper while pursuing his interests as hobbies). I am similar but far less extreme these days. I've sort of mixed in a bit (a lot) of pragmatism - hence how I've got this far through the PhD though it hasn't been a good learning experience since day 1...

It may be that the best option is still to go for this PhD anyway - even though I don't feel I've got from it what I wanted. I'll try and do the most pragmatic thing (in terms of my goals and motivations as I see them in the immediate context but also in trying to look further ahead) in my decision. I don't want big regrets. Just need to get all the info to make an informed choice. I'll keep you posted.