Please tell me that others out there cannot respond to this question in a sane manner. When people innocently inquire I have to deeply inhale, clench my jaws and wait for my eyeballs to come back to the front from rolling right back in my head. And people repeatedly ask. And they say, "but you've being doing it for ages". No. I. Haven't. Are others hyper-sensitive about this?!!

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=47

I used to hate the 'what are you going to do after?' question because people really can't get that (if post-doc-ing) you're basically going to carry on doing what you are already doing as a PhD student i.e conduct research!

LOL!!! It's true, you can't even ask 'how's it going'!

What are you going to do after. I get that too. When are you going to get a job? I get asked. I think, I already have a job. A bluddy hard one. Feels like 2 FT jobs!

lol Ann, how did I manage to miss that one

I love that question;) because every time I say ' In October' I deeply believe in it myself, despite there is no objective evidence that it is true;) Helps me to keep calm:)

I'm hypersensitive too
It's quite depressing that I've taken basically a year, and STILL not submitted while everyone around me has submitted or in a job already. Hopefully the end of July.....

I don't think a lot of people really understand what you do during your PhD. My future father in law said to me yesterday - 'So you're basically still a student but you get more money'. We were at a christening at the time so I had to refrain from kicking him in the groin.

Has anyone been called a 'lifelong student' or is it just me? I also had the overwhelming urge to kick that person in the groin. Instead I opted for a snide 'I didn't realise that cancer research was deemed an unworthy choice of profession. Maybe I'll go into accountancy when I finish my PhD, instead'.

Ha ha!! Good to know I'm not alone. The expression I hear a lot is 'eternal student'. And I know that a lot of people who say this think that means I get up at midday, spend the afternoon watching chatshows and the evening in the pub. I wish!!

I sometimes say "I'll meet you after work" or "I'm working on sat" and they say "oooh, have you got a job?" and I reply "yes, at uni" to which they do a funny smile which says they think it's cute that I call my 'uni course' work and try to elevate it to the status of a 'proper job'!!

Well, they have a point. Honestly, a PhD is not a proper job, whatever you call it.

Unless you do lots of extra hours teaching you are just a student, hence the motivation to end the status of "eternal student". And now some may say that given the working hours necessary to complete it, it actually is a proper job. But that argument is weak because even some Bachelor students at good universities may have to put in the same amount of hours per week.

o.stoll I disagree. If your PhD is in science, as is mine, what makes your PhD any less of a job than a research scientist or even a post-doc position? Should civil and mechanical engineers or accountants still be called students up until they become chartered? Obviously not, so why should scientists be called students until they get their PhD, which is effectively a chartership in research. I'm going off on one now...

I have to agree with robber. I'm not saying that PhDs are better than 'proper jobs' but why should they be seen as 'lesser' somehow. I have had many a 'proper job' and they were all a lot easier than this.

ha ha! I like this thread! I've got used to people asking when are you going to finish, but it used to wind me up alot, and especially when people say 'but you've been doing it FOREVER'!!! In my case I wish I hadn't keep telling people my 'deadlines'... it was Christmas, then definately February, then Easter, then end of July. Now it is definately end of September, but for once I know it will be done by then... but for friends & supervisors, I've cried wolf too often for them to believe me! I've learnt not to ask the question or any other questions relating to finishing to fellow PhDs. To people I dont' know who ask what I do, I say I work in research, because to me I feel like it's a job (well it was when I was funded)... though a job with a lot of emotional investment... much more so than any job I've ever done!

i did all my studies prior to the PhD part-time, working on the side to make a living and lots of other activities, so obviously it took me a long time to get my Lizenziat (about equal to Bachelor+Master). whereas the average time to complete on my course was 6 years, it took me nine. so you can imagine i was confronted with the question "when will you be finished" on a regular basis.
i developed the strategy of always giving the same answer ("two more years or so") no matter what i really thought. saved me the trouble of thinking about it and when anyone said "but that's what you said last year" i replied, "well, it's a stupid, repetitive question so it gets stupid, repetitive answers".

o.stoll: i take it your posting is cynical?
if not, would you mind explaining to me what makes a job "proper"?
is it that...
- you get paid for it? (some PhD students do get paid)
- you are bound to regular working hours? (lots of other jobs aren't quite proper, then)
- you've got a boss who bosses you around? (what if you are the boss? you don't have a proper job then?)
- you are applying previous education, in contrast to gaining more education? (show me a PhD student who isn't applying previous education, and show me someone in a proper job who isn't learning)
- you are doing something worthwile - adding value, so to say (i would argue that the kind of research PhD students do is in many cases certainly worthwile)

Sorry to disappoint but my post wasn't cynic at all. I was actually quite serious.

Of course this is subject to disagreement and personal evaluation, but for me a "proper" (if it really exists) is a job where you take a significant amount of money home every month. Studentships etc. don't count as a salary, in my personal view.

In different words, if somebody doesn't do a PhD full-time, but earns money in a different job (which could be part-time teaching etc.), i.e. the PhD studies are not the central daily occupation, then he or she has a proper job. Contrary, if the PhD is the main thing, then it's obviously not a proper job because doing a PhD is "studying", not working.