hi,

am in my second year and am just beginning to familiarize myself with quantitative methods, eg. statistics. I met a first year in another department who has to learn them in his first year. I spend the whole of last year writing a literature review which honestly needs a lot more work. what i can say i got from last year was narrowing down my research question. my supervisors are not really interested in my research, i think they just picked me coz they needed a student. they research aspects related to my broader subject are and its been 4 months since we had a meeting. i have emailed them several times and they just don seem bothered, so i've decided that am the one who wants the phd and i'll do it on my own. what's worse is that even if they were bothered, they would have nothing to say about my research, coz they don have a clue. anyone in the same situation? i hoping to get opinions from conferences instead - at least people there know something about my research. did you do your empirical research in your second year? am a social scientist.

J.

J.

there are a couple of courses going on, but they have already started, and their times conflict with my teaching times. so i can't attend.

second year? am not way off then.

thanks .

Doesn't the Research Council in your area or some other association organize basic research training for PhD students? This is my first term and I have already signed up for several training sessions (outside the university), they will be probably quite basic as they only last 1 day or so, but I suppose you can always ask the person who gave the conference to provide you with more extensive bibliography. I would also try to look for undergraduate and masters level courses (at your own uni) in this area and try to attend them (in my university PhD students can do that, you only have to ask the lecturer in advance).