I did my phd from 2004 to 2007 (with david barrett - nottingham) and then wrote up and passed and awarded at 2008. I am doing my postdoc now and would like to reflect my phd experience.
Initially it was fine and I was excited the opportunity, particularly the project work proposed was innovative and had lot of things to learn. It was proposed to developed a technological development. The work was in collaboration with a research group not in this country. The collaborators were all right too and they were very keen to the cooperation. One of them was also a close friend of the third supervisor – who did not actually do anything – but acted as middleman. There was a big catch. Struggling for funding is an essential part of research. The lack of funding also meant technological y behind competitors. Although it was not said in words, they wanted to prove their main competitor had no foundation (i.e. all wrong). On the other hand, if there were funding available that could support their work, it would have been excellent.
It was indeed how the project was proposed: the third supervisor wanted to help his friend and not because he was interested in the science. I was ok with that. However, funding in one country would not transfer to another and the fact that they could not get it. A project was proposed as collaboration but in fact intended to support their work. If it was exercised perfectly, everybody win.
The problem was me. I went to do a phd to do science. During my journey, what I found was that it was my collaborators got it all wrong. Although their main competitor was also got it wrong, it was them said this loud with confidence and arrogance. Would I stand that?! When it come to me in my reports, this became a focal point . Would dave be happy about that certainly not.
This was rather a spark. The big fire was that in the original proposal, there was many exciting biological study he promised to do. It turned out no such thing – all lies – it was possibly added there to make the funding proposal look good. The project was meant to support the collaborators. It was not acceptable and would have been a career suicide or career killing to me. He has no dame idea the world had changed and was not the same time as he did his phd. Certainly I would make noise. Guess what he has prepared for me then. Some urine sample from those who has consumed different type of tea. Asked me to go to supermarket to buy some vegetable if I wanted to do some biological work. He had no wish for me to success and when it came to biological work, he wanted to reserve to his next project – which by no mean would be me to carry it out. It was again all about funding. Did he get that eventually – of course not – he hit the brick wall like everyone else called economy. I found my own way to carry one my work, which surprised him.
in the end i passed, two of my fellow students failed their phd. the story continues ...