Hey guys
This forum looks awsome; My first post in here..Since the majority of ppl here are on their way to get their PhD..I am just wondering what your views are regarding your current titles..

Do you prefer to be called PhD student/candidate/researcher, etc?

I personally prefer the last one. A friend of mine like to be called; a Doctoral Programme Member lol what about u?

I call myself a research student or just PhD student. I feel like I should take a stand for 'students' everywhere and show that we aren't work-shy louts (I work harder now than I have in ANY job) by being proud of the word!

I tend to agree with catchianthe. Regardless of teaching, if I feel like a student, have to write, study and learn, I refer to myself as a student. I feel proud to be a student who searches for spheres no others have been before (most of the time, except when I'm depressed and demotivated which is the majority of the time ;))

I call myself PhD research student or Research student.

I usedually call myself a student. It tends to be easier than explaining to people that I'm actually doing a PhD. On my emails I call myself an MPhil candidate (cos we get a DPhil and I haven't upgraded) but I stole that from someone else and thought it sounded good!

Yasser,

Doctoral Programme Member --- for real? Your friend's funny!

I am still in my first year of the PhD program and my upgrade will be in June (quite soon). So I feel the term "researcher" is too profound a definition for my current status. I feel more of a student and I feel humbled by it. I guess I'll start referring to myself as a "researcher" when I start my fieldwork in a few months. I'll be more deserving of it. But, then again, as a PhD student you're constantly doing research and thus you're a "researcher".

A range of interesting opinions English isn't my first language; but I find myself inclined to agree with phd_girl.. When i started my PhD, I used to refer to myself more as a student..I guess that I got a bit carrierd away with the empirical work I am currently conducting to the point that I have actually started to believe that I am a researcher. Well, I guess the PhD is nothing but a 'licence' to carry out research; and we are now being trained to become that qualified researcher...that's my personal view anyway

yasser, I like that..
Phd_boy , I never thought of that.. after I get my degree, I will be Phd man.

...hmmm...I prefer minor academic deity.

I called myself a postgrad student, sometimes just a student...

I found a lot of snobbery in other departments who always put emphasis on the *PHD* part and it was as if saying 'I'm not a common student... I'm a PHD student' - Cue me thinking they're a tosser.

Not all, mind you.. but some...

i don't quite agree with the feeling of being "only" a student and that we are not really doing research but only learning how to do research. although that is definitely the feeling that gets relayed at my uni. but where i studied for my masters, i learned "how to do research" - and PhD students are expected to have this experience. PhD students are there, in my country, to "do research" which is seen as "work" and gets paid, too.
obviously there is also an element of learning. but calling it "just studying" distracts from the element of work, and the element of applying previously acquired knowledge and skills, and in my opinion thus devalues what we do. my friends back home would never call themselves "students" and find it strange that i do (i drifted into that).
for these reasons i like to call myself "doctoral researcher". but admittedly i often do call myself "student".

I always say student--because that is what I am--I am attending a university in pursuit of knowledge and learning and a degree, that makes me a student ( according to me!). Sometimes I say mature student, sometimes I say student doing a PhD, sometimes I just say I am studying for a PhD, or if trying to clarify to someone that I am not a member of staff, I say I am ONLY a PhD student, to emphasise that I am NOT in a position of authority or whatever ( to a student knocking at the door, asking for an extension on an assignment, where their missing tutor is...or what have you).

It doesn't bother me to say student--I don't think it diminishes a capacity at all to say it--but then I am speaking from the perspective of a mature mature student.

Mature mature student meaning OLDER than the average mature student, not an emotional state of grace!

When I was practicing law there was a whole thing about using a first or middle initial in your name and signature as some sort of status...I dropped the use of a middle initial as not right for me, seemingly pretentious and status seeking---my name without the middle initial seemed more "me", but that is an individual choice. I think that the rightness of how you refer to your PhD degree seeking status is in part determined by the context of what you are doing, who you are trying to express this to, and what you want to convey.

It depends on the situation.. Sometimes being a 'student' has its perks! The grad school where I am likes to call phd students Postgraduate Researchers.