I have so many worries about my PhD that it's not funny.
I'm a part time student 50% study load and am in my second year. I made almost no progress so far.

While I think that my primary advisor is nice, he just seems too distracted with his more important projects as he progresses up the career ladder. We were supposed to have the paper out at the beginning of the year, but it got postponed to the end of the year now. I'm thinking it will never happen. I have two other advisors but I find them useless and completly dissinterested.

I'm worried that I'm not good enough, my research topic is still very vague and even if I end up somehow getting the thesis together (big if) I might be completly unemployable with no publications.

Meanwhile, other first year students present at conferences and have few papers out already.

I have overheard my primary advisor describe me as a "strong student" which almost sounds fake to me as there is all evidence to the contrary.

Maybe I should just admit defeat and quit.

I'm a 4th year with no publications and have been told I'm still employable. Some people don't get results until their 3rd year. As I understand 4 year PhDs were brought in as it can take up to a year after finishing to get publications.
Research is down to luck sometimes, even if you are clever, work hard, are in the right lab etc. I insisted on a new project at the end of my 2nd year as my first one has been a bit of a turkey.
I'd take it as a good sign you were told you were a "strong" student.

You're a part time student, which means you are probably only the equivalent of 1 year full time, and reasonably wouldn't have made any progress.

Everyone in the forum, put your hand up if you have no publications.

Ozzy, most people on here won't have any by the second year, a lot won't have any by the time they've submitted, except perhaps the odd conference proceeding. Firstly because you need quite a lot of concrete data for a paper (which might only finally come together in the second or third year), and plus the peer-review process is so long that it might take a year or longer from sumbmission to publication.

It sounds like you might have a few more things worrying you, and a publication record is important in an academic career, but don't let it worry you too much. After all, somebody told me that publishing is what a post-doc's for!

(luck) - that's my raised hand but with fingers crossed that I'll publish something soon!!!

(in my fourth year)

You are describing is pretty much how 90% of PhD students feel at some point. Don't worry about other students too much. You don't need your supervisor in order to write a paper. Write one, get it looked at, send it off. A PhD requires you to be self-motivating and self-productive.

I wouldn't expect you to have done much by now if you are part-time.

You can give up if you like, but I can't see how it would make things any better. You are only at the start of your PhD, even if you were behind you could easily catch up. If you complete your PhD, worry about getting a job then, but you aren't going to be any less qualified than you are now. What are you doing your PhD in? There are lots of jobs that don't require a PhD but one is advantageous - mathemetics or programming for example. The cleverest people I have worked with have not had a relevant degree (computer science), one had a PhD in biology, one had a degree in Economics and another Physics.

Well, I'm naturally a worrier and can never tell when my fears are realistic. My "no publications" issue stems from asking a senior lecturer yesterday how do I know if I'm making enough progress? She told me "You measure your progress by how many publications you get".

My other problem is vague topic, but that is getting more clear and sorted out now.

You don't need your supervisor in order to write a paper. Write one, get it looked at, send it off. A PhD requires you to be self-motivating and self-productive.

I do rely on my advisor too much I guess. I tend to wait for him to tell me what to do because I'm too insecure that I will do something wrong. Result of that is me taking tons of his time (meetings twice a week and I'm part time) but he doesn't seem too annoyed by this. He is getting busier though and I am on my own more which makes me uncomofortable.

I do have to do my thesis defence in few months (standard procedure here) so I guess I can wait till then and either pass or fail. Hopefully things will work out for the best.

I disagree somewhat with the senior lecturer who told you to measure your progress in publications - there are numerous ways to measure progress, but I would not have thought publications was one of them. Few PhDs have much in the way of publications, especially after only 1 year of work.

I would also have to disagree with Away - I don't think you would be allowed to submit without your supervisor; universities are very protective of their name and will want to preview anything that gets sent for publication.

Other than that, you are expressing exactly what most of us are feeling, so don't worry too much

Thanks Juno and others.

I'm so glad I found this forum and I will probably post regularly and annoy you all with my freakouts. Yes, submitting without my advisor and about a team of 20 (that have had contact with the data in even a small way) wouldn't go down well.

It would hurt your supervisor's ego.
Our papers are all collaborative with my supervisor's name and a PhD just wouldn't get published on their own. He does actually take papers as a priority.

In academia postdoc up you would probably measure progress with papers..?!

I wouldn't entirely agree with the senior lecturer either but it can be a useful guide. I think you need to continually ask yourself whether the work you've completed is publishable and one day when the answer is "yes" then you can stop and start on the next part of your thesis. It's kind of how I'm planning my thesis.

He does actually take papers as a priority.

Mine does too, just not my paper. He has million of higher profile papers to write/review. He is pretty influental in our department and is regarded as extremly succesfull (won awards for his work etc), while I am at the very bottom of the food chain.