I have found a regular pattern helps. If you can try to treat the PhD like a job, with work hours and breaks at the same times. This helps give a start and end to your day.

Try to study in a place where you cannot sleep, ie: not at home and not on the comfy couches in graduate student rooms.

I concur with the exercise and sugar comments.

Assess your diet. Alot of us PhD students do not eat that well. Try to get at least two good meals in during each day.

My wife experienced tiredness along with the early stages of depression. While this may not be an issue and not meant to scare, depression is not unknown to PhD students and something to look out for.

Hope that helps.

That is tough. Often we wish we would get along with our supervisors on multiple levels, but this rarely happens.

If she is motivated and good a networking, try to milk this for what it is worth. Just try to treat the PhD like a job, be professional and keep things at that with your supervisor. They are there for you to learn and gain tools from.

It its no fun that you feel she treats you like a child, but something like this, while annoying, can just be laughed at. The most important is whether this super can help you in your research, help you make connections in your field, etc. If these factors are good, then it may be worth putting up with her personality, but just do not get walked over.

Why do you have reservations about this?

For jobs later on, one of the skills will be to present yourself in a concise, written form. The web site will be a good place to practice that. Just the thought process alone will help: Ie: how to strongly represent your research while not over-representing, etc. With the knowledge that people will read it, it often gives us a different perspective on self-presentation. The same questions can be applied to ones c.v.

A good opportunity. All the best

Thanks Nimrod81

I am just finishing the first year also and also always look at the jobs just to follow what is up.

I am mostly Hebrew Bible and had to get the ancient languages first (Heb, Greek, Aramaic, Syriac) and now must get the German and French for modern scholarship.

I have worked through a German grammar and am just translating articles for my PhD research; slow going.
But I am going to a different school where there are classes in these languages, but more for speaking not reading.

Have you found these classes helpful for reading academic articles/books, or would you just suggest plowing through the articles and not worry about the classes?

I think the required German/French exams for the school I am going into is translating 500 words in 2 hrs into good English. How many years of German/French have you done to get to this level?

Hang in Ryan. As the others have said, do try to explore your options about why it is not working for you and see if they can be fixed.

In my experience, it is much harder to go back to a PhD after a bit of work. I am increasingly meeting people around 40 who are now just starting their PhD's, have children and other commitments, and find it very difficult.

If you really want to do the PhD, sooner than later seems the best. But it is good to be honest and ask whether this is for you or not.

I agree that seeking out your supervisor on this is a good step. Also maybe seek out someone in your program who is just finishing or finished recentley and now working. They may give a perspective a little closer to your situation.

Thanks for the reply.

I am speaking more of ones academic experience in the context of the areas of study I listed.
Areas of discussion could include: I am curious how people have dealt with gaining French and German (a common hurdle in our areas of study), whther they are self-taught, what texts they have found useful or whether their universities classes (which problematically are often for learning to speak German and French) prep them for comps, how they find doing that first publication (I have tried a few and have some opinions), which journals of a relatively high quality they have found more open to having PhD students publish in, what resources they have found helpful outside of their departments, etc.

Just attempting to find discussion partners with a similar area of study, but I am not interested to discuss the relationship between faith and the academy (while an important topic) in this context.

If anyone is interested in speaking of their experiences in the areas of Hebrew, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, OT, NT, or Religious studies, let me know.

Which university are you at currently, what is you general experience of it, and the big question, how are the job prospects for after? We could use this forum to discuss things a little closer to our area if anyone is game.

Age is an unlikley factor.
It seems that publications are important. Even for a post-doc position when such criteria is not expressed, if someone else who applied had one or two publications in good journals, it goes a long way.

The only way I can see age being a factor (in an indirect way) is during the actual interview process. I have just finished sitting in on an interview (the presentation section) and when the canidate left, we as an audience were invited to give our impressions for consideration. While age did not come up, there were comments regarding how the potential collegue would fit in the department. This seems a personality thing more than age.

It seems the c.v. gets you the interview (publications etc) and then other factors coem in for getting the job. But age does not seem to be one of those factors.

Choice of a PhD seems to be most importantaly the supervisor. If the super is well known in your area of study, that will be more important than the university. Sometimes a department and supervisor are more well known in your area than the school.
After that, consider whether the school has the resources to do the work (classes, funding etc).

If it helps I have a blog on this issue choosing between a Eur vs a North American PhD.
http://shawnwflynn.blogspot.com/
Look under EUROPEAN OR NORTH AMERICAN PHD?