Hi all,

Just wanted to ask if anyone has any experience or advise for finishing a PhD early due to certain circumstances that are not in your control. I am planning to basically submit by April of this year although my expected submission date is in December 2018. I believe I have enough work to be able to submit in terms of experiments and about 90% of my writing is also done. Btw I am doing a PhD in biological research, more specifically in breast cancer therapeutics. I have 3 main results chapters and a mini 4th result chapter. However the issue is that most of my work is rather descriptive in nature and there is not a lot in terms of investigating the mechanistic side of things. My supervisor is concerned that it may not be enough for my to be able to submit early if I do not have some more experiments done for explaining why I see what I see. However she also understands my reasons for wanting to finish early so is unsure too. I am now concerned and stressing out as I do not think I will have time to finish more experiments, write the chapter and then get corrections before submitting with rest. The experiments themselves are an issue as the the reagents I needed could not be designed by the companies we approached and the ones we have have been in a storage for a number of years and may not be reliable (although I am testing them out now but don’t think they will work). There are other more expensive options but I am self funded and do not have enough in the budget. If I can’t do these experiments I am kinda stuck as we don’t have a back up that is quick to do. I personally think my work should be enough to be able to submit as I have seen some other Students in my department submit work that is also kinda descriptive. But still each PhD is different and I just don’t know..help!

When you say early, how early? Many universities have stipulations that you can not submit earlier than 2.75 years. If you've gone past that requirement, then it's up to you when you submit.

But I would urge caution if your supervisors are not recommending you submit early. They do have more knowledge than you about these things.

But then again, if you've got no more funding then you've got no choice. Sounds like you have quite a lot of results, so probably worse case scenario is major corrections/R&R asking you to do more experiments, which you would have to do on evenings and weekends around a FT job presumably. I know someone who took the option to submit when they weren't ready knowing they would get major corrections and it worked out ok for them in the end.

Hi TreeofLife

Thanks for your response. I am trying to submit 7-8 months early. I am hoping even with major corrections I will be willing to submit early although that isn’t ideal. The funding is an issue too. I will take days off work to do them as quick as I can. I just need to get this PhD finished as soon as possible due to funding, health issues and illnesses in family. Being in lab and writing and then working while dealing with issues at home and paying bills while being self funded...I don’t think I have the stamina to go on. There was the option of taking abeyance or going part time but I can’t do that because of the stress of wasting more time and being always worried about the PhD...it’s always in the back of my mind. I am also worried if I go away from the PhD I don’t think I will come back..