Hi everyone, I know all universities review students differently and my university seems to be especially hot on it, but I have my research plan approval sometime in the next two weeks and have to submit my 8000-word form on Friday - I am not too worried about this because I have been preparing it for about two months now and my supervisors have seen numerous drafts and are happy with it, only a few things to do now. This review is basically a discussion of my proposed research and the way I am going to conduct it, so the main questions will probably be on methodology and ethics. All full-time PhD students have to go through this four months after they have started.

I am just getting a bit nervous about it now! The other students say I will be fine and that the panel are not there to catch me out - they will all be familiar people to me as well. Generally people get through them quite easily, they may have to tweak a few things but as my supervisors are happy they should be happy as well. It will last up to an hour.

I was just wanting to hear some of your first-review experiences - good and bad, so that I know what to expect a little more. What is the best way to get through it unscathed?! I am most nervous about sharing my research and being questioned by academics other than my supervisors, but I think this will be a valuable learning experience as well. To prepare I was just going to go through relevant literature that I will include in my literature review but haven't had the space to include in the proposal, that should help me to answer the questions that they might ask and feel confident in my knowledge.

Thanks in advance, Nx

Hi Natassia! It sounds as though your uni has a slightly different system to mine, but we had two reviews in first year, then one on second and one in third year, which I have in a few weeks. But I have never been asked to produce particular documents for the review apart from a short report about what we have been doing since the start/previous review, and providing a copy of all written work to date. Of course, the first review mainly was talking about the research proposal anyway, and it was pretty laid back and quite helpful really. The people in the review had a few suggestions and questions about what I was planning to do, and made a few points that I needed to give more thought to, and suggested literature that I hadn't already considered. It wasn't intimidating, it was really chilled out and freindly, and no-one was on a mission to catch me out. To be honest, I actually quite enjoy reviews because I tend to get a lot of positive feedback from other academics about what I have done, whereas my sup just seems to take it for granted and doesn't bother with praise any more! Hopefully it will be a useful experience for you, but I don't think you need to be stressed about it! Good luck, let us know how it goes! Best, KB

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Yeah I had mine back in Nov. Had to submit Chapter 1, working Biblio, report of work done.

As your friends are saying, they are not there to catch you out. They're there to show you what you can improve and offer some suggestions on ways to do this. The questions they ask are just to get you to think about your approach thus far and how you might improve your approach for the next chapter or section of work.

The thing to remember is that your place as a phd student is not in question - what's in question is how you go about the work that you are doing. Why choose this text, why that experiment, where do you see this going etc.

I think the big word in Phd land is ownership. It's your work, it's your research, it's your project. You've made these decisions. Stand up for them - but also be open to their suggestions and talk them out with them.

Listen to Larry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URtQAa3Y-ns

Hi Natassia,

At my university, this type of review is called "transfer assessment", which aims to assess the progress of first year students after they have developed their research proposal in order to be "transferred" into the second step which is preforming their independent research. During the assessment the focus is to see the student has specific goals and objectives that are well laid out so as not to deviate away once they start their research. These objectives are called "SMART": S for specific, M for measurable, A for achievable, R for relevant, and T for being time-bound. The other focus is on transferable skills that the student has gained so far or is planning to gain. These are communication skills, career-oriented skills, team-working and leadership, and innovation. The assessment aims to seek whether the student has weaknesses in any of these and give recommendations on how the student can enhance such skills.

Overall, it's not about pass or fail. It's about making sure all is going well and will go well in the future. I don't know if it's the same at your university.

All the best and good luck :-)
Dima

At the end of year one we undertook a transfer assessment. I believe that traditionally this was the transfer from a MPhil to a PhD program.

I like this type of review as it forces me to put things into a coherent context for me and those I am presenting too. I also more than welcome critical comment as praise does little to help me improve (but it is nice to be stroked once in a while). Much better to have potential pitfalls pointed out as early as possible.

Good luck with it :-)

We have a transfer system at my university, but we also have thesis monitoring committees all the way through the PhDs: twice yearly for full-timers, once yearly for part-timers.

I found it a really nice experience to be honest. Each time there would be two academics from my department there (not supervisors), and they were genuinely interested in my research, and keen to ask questions. It's a really nice chance to have a relaxed conversation about what you are doing, and what you are going to do, with academics who are interested in it. Almost like a preparation for the viva as well. And it's good to get their different/outside perspective.

So enjoy it I'd say. Don't worry. It will be much more pleasant than you expect.

In 2 weeks I have to submit a 13,000 word report which consists of a lit review, research questions/hypotheses, methods, data analysis and a plan for the thesis as a whole. The methods and data section are based on what has been done so far, since October, and is also a plan of what will be done for the rest of the PhD. After submitting the report which is read by both supervisors and 2 other academics in the department acting as examiners I have to have an 'upgrade meeting' which is essentially a viva where I have to defend my work. The outcome of this meeting determines whether I can upgrade from MPhil to PhD and also whether any corrections are needed on my report. I am a bit scared about this meeting because a few months ago someone who had to resubmit their report because it wasn't good enough first time has not been allowed to upgrade and can only work towards MPhil. Obviously there may be specific reasons for why this may have happened that I'm not aware of but I'm still scared as it does seems to be a very formal process.
I think my primary supervisor is more confident than me because in a recent meeting he has been talking about which direction to go in after the upgrade. I just wish I had the same confidence about myself.

I also had to give a 20 minute presentation yesterday to the department as part of this upgrade process but it wasn't assessed. I think the presentation was OK but mine was the last one from a group of 7 students and so I got asked more questions and my mind went blank and I felt like an idiot afterwards.

Sorry I've had a bit of whinge there about my situation. All of us first years in the office are feeling quite nervous about this. Good to know we're not the only ones going through this process though.

Fingers crossed that both you Natassia and me and anybody else who is having to go through this process will come out of the other side and can continue with our PhD's safe in the knowledge that we are heading in the right direction.

Thanks for the replies - all really helpful and reassuring. :-)

Just to clarify - this is not my upgrade, I'm nowhere near ready for that as I'm only four months into my PhD and haven't done any real research yet; at the moment I am just planning what I am going to do and doing a lot of reading around the research area. This is what my department call a 'research plan approval meeting' and basically is a chance for academics other than my supervisors to read through what I'm going to do and question it to mainly ensure that it is doable within the time frame etc. and ethically sound, amongst other things. To avoid having another meeting in a few weeks' time, this is going to be combined with my annual progress review that all the PhD students have to have by the end of June.

From what I have heard and what my supervisors have said it is like a few of you have said, an overally pleasant experience and more of a 'chat' than a viva-style grilling. This makes me look forward to it a bit more and hopefully I'll feel relatively confident on the day. I had a meeting earlier today with a professor in another department who is doing research in a similar area and he was really interested in what I was doing and said that there was a need for it; this was really inspiring, especially at this stage.

To be honest I just want to get through it and start the actual research planning and literature review now, I've been working on this and worrying about it for long enough!

Good luck with your upgrade Pixie - let me know how you get on - I always think it's a good sign when you get asked loads of questions after a presentation :-).

Natassia xx