Dear All,

I am new to the PG forum, though I have been following the posts here for over 4 years now. I am 4 years and 2 months into my PhD in Mathematical Economics at a top 5 UK university, which by UK standards this is quite long. However, I am due to submit my thesis this month.

My supervisor comes from the North American system and himself had been supervised by a very famous econometrician. Therefore, unlike most of my colleagues, I found myself to be almost completely independent throughout the process, as he rightly believes that this is the correct way to supervise a PhD student. While he has a general idea of what I am doing and has 'scanned' through the maths, he is not particularly an expert in the areas I have been working on.

Even though I've had doubts about my methods and maths, until September I never even exercised the idea of failing my PhD (by fail I imply MPhil or an R&R verdict). We had only heard of one case in my department in the 5 years that I've been there and everyone considers the Viva more of a formality. However, I started getting paranoid when I Googled the terms 'failed PhD'. Alone on this form there are numerous such entries, with people seeming to have ended up with an MPhil or have had horrific experiences.

I am frequently told that such verdict is highly unlikely. I am told that my supervisor is very well-recognized and that he would never let that happen. I've been told that the external examiner (especially in a case such as a well connected supervisor like mine) tends to be a friend of the supervisor, and as such if my supervisor thinks I am PhD worthy, then there will be no issues.

However, with nagging doubts about certain areas of my thesis and having read these horror stories on this forum, I am freaking out.

I would like to hear some advice, as to how to deal with this situation.