Hi all,
I am a 3rd PhD student in UK-funded student. I want to say that the last three years of my PhD program have been very difficult. Initially, the first-year probation review was not successful, and I was not transferred to PhD registration and was told to rewrite the probation report and return after six months. Following the six-month review, the panel felt that I had made enough progress and recommended that I progress to year two. I have faced challenges in getting progress with obtaining ethics approval for a qualitative study, and the recruiting participants have been a challenge, which has affected the next work package of the project. I was advised by my supervisor a while back that in the interest of time, I should drop the last element of the project which was supposed to be testing and implementing, and I could show in the thesis how I had used a robust theoretical framework to develop the intervention, then this should be sufficient to qualify for a PhD award. However, during my third-year progress panel review, the internal examiners felt the scope of work, that is, systematic review, qualitative study, and intervention development without piloting, would not be sufficient for a PHD award, and I should consider downgrading to an MPhil. I am gutted at this because I feel like I have wasted my time persuading this for 3years only to be awarded a MPhil. To be honest, I feel like failure. On top of that the stress of the PhD has caused me to have Hypertension. I met with my supervisors and they echoed the panel review's concerns and stated that continuing on the PhD path risks me not getting any qualification at all. Is this true? please help! should i downgrade to MPhil or continue on PhD pathway? is is worth it? what would you advise me?