I understand your feelings. I was also plagued with social anxiety for some years, and without warning it just sort of...went. I am still quite non-committal with people, and avoid disappointment by making sure I have very low expectations of others. However, you need to be practical too, and whilst empathy and support are useful (you will get that in abundance here), that's just a temporary feeling of relief.

1)Get a research question. It's your 2nd year; get on with it.
2)Sit down and talk to your supervisor. Say "I'd like to have a more personal discussion than usual, please, as I think it will benefit my working relationship with you and also my own feelings of adequacy", or something like that. If that talk goes well, the sup will be more aware of her behavioural style when she deals with you. If the talk isn't very successful, then you know to ask for another supervisor, or withdraw. Nobody should go through a PhD with a bad supervisor.
3)People will probably flame me for saying this, but if you find alcohol boosts your mood, a wee rum and coke to start the day can work wonders. If alcohol makes you depressive, then avoid it.
4)Keep reading interesting papers in your area. If you don't read, you will lose your interest in the subject area.
5) Try an re-initiate contact with dependable, understanding friends. If you don't have any, get new ones.

It took some months for me to hear back from the journal editors. I sent a gentle 'Hello, just wanted to check you received my updated manuscript' email. They replied confirming that they had, and due to problems with reviewers, it was taking longer than usual.

Gentle email is probably a good idea, but I wouldn't worry.

There's also a good argument to be made for not using socioeconomic status as a descriptive measure. Class and socioeconomic status has, I believe, been largely supplanted by identity consuption and identity management. This is particularly true of getting at any kind of behavioural data - e.g. buying habits, consuption, travel trends and so forth. Nevertheless, I imagine that for something like healthcare/access to education and so on, socioeconomic status i.e. class is still relatively useful.

@Catalinbond - flip flops at a conference. are you a kiwi per chance? ha

We often think of the learning process as being about what we learn about our subjects, or about academic life/politics etc, but not often about what we learn about ourselves. As such, I'd like this thread to be about just that. What has surprised you about yourself? What has doing the PhD really reinforced about your character? Has your self image changed?

I'll start

1) I'm actually really impatient. And I don't mind that I am. e.g. as soon as I have an idea for a project, or someone in my department mentions collaboration, I want to get it done now.

2) I have the attention span of a small child at a zoo. And I seem to be productive enough this way. If I devote too much time to a particular piece of writing or work, I get bored of it and want to move on to the next thing.

Thanks for replies.

I'm considering whether to just jump on the next plane home (not literally, but within say the next week) and worry about the administrative stuff later. I'm not really thinking straight. But then I might just get in the way?

The best advice I can offer is this:

Use the forum when you are happy as well as when you are feeling low. It's easy to express your feelings when you are down, but I've found it important to come on the forum and look at positive posts, especially when I'm feeling good about things. The same goes for a lot of things in life, actually; don't let the negative outweigh the positive simply as a factor of attention paid to those things.

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Like the poster below said, for the first half year or so I didn't enjoy it much. I felt like everything was moving at a glacial pace, and I wondered if I had made a huge mistake.

Now that I have data, and significant results, I am snowed under with work and beginning to find it productive, and at times even enjoyable. But I still see it as a means to an end.

Once you have been in the further education system for so long (I started undergrad in 2001...) it seems like the only option left.

Morning all,

I'm writing this here because I feel like I'm going to collapse if I don't verbalise this. I think I need the anonymity of the board.

Well, I started seeing my partner more than 2 years ago. At the end of the first year, I was offered a PhD scholarship at the other side of the world. After much consideration, and considerable guilt/unhappiness, I took the opportunity and chose PhD over my partner. Much to his credit, he decided to stay with me and we began a year of long distance. A year in, and we are still together.

Now his mother, who I am close to, has been told she is inoperable and will be given a 'timeframe' anytime soon. I always knew she was very ill, and this made leaving him to go abroad even harder.

I want to be with him when the inevitable happens, and don't know if I could live with myself if I wasn't. However, I don't know when this will happen, how long his grieving process will take, or whether I could bear to leave again after what I'm sure will be intensely emotional. I feel like such a selfish person.
I'm not really asking anything, but any advice/thoughts would be appreciated.

Drew

Hallo - thanks for your advice so far!

The responses are all binary - 0s and 1s. They ask identical questions, but some were presented in a different format to others, and I'm looking to see if the format had an effect on the answers. I'd also like to make sure that the format is what causing differences, and not say sex/ethnicity of participant. How would I account for that?

I was stats frazzled yesterday, so took a day off today and had a walk along the beach. much betteR!

Hallo all you lovely people

I've started getting the data in for my first experiment. It is an online survey, where multiple versions of the same survey were sent to different groups. The survey has 40 questions.

My question is: would it be useful to first know if there is an overall correlation between answers given, and group who answered? In the sense of throwing all the data (nominal) into SPSS without separation by question. My second question (well done for still reading) is, if I do find a positive relationship between ALL questions and group, but the correlations for individual questions are really weak or non-existent for most, is it still worth reporting?

Much ta.

Drew 8-)

Hallo all,

Now, let me start by saying that I'm used to referencing, but having read some others' PhDs lately, I'm beginning to think I might 'over-cite'. For example, I have it so drilled into me from the British academic tradition that anytime I say something, even if it is widely known (e.g. Freud is the father of psychoanalysis/Seneca was a stoic) then I feel the need to cite.

What approach do you take to citing your sources?

It's also interesting that most of the books I cite (these come mostly in the introductory sections of the lit review...as I get into methodology/discussion it tends to be journal articles) don't themselves reference their assertions. So, for example, if a well known author writes 'Freud became increasingly unpopular in the field', there is no citation for this.

Cheers!

Euan

Hi Ailicec

Thanks for the input. Yes it's definitely good to hear others are trying the same 'setup' with their phds, and partners. Unfortunately a 4 hour plane ride is the stuff of dreams for me. We're about ...28 hours away by plane. Literally opposite sides of the world (UK and South Pacific). With the cost involved, it's unlikely we'll be able to do much more than once a year, although we're trying to convince ourselves that 2 or 3 times might be possible. I think that leaves me only option being : when I do fly home once a year, to stay for a few months. I think it's the only way I won't get depressed.

Hope you're enjoying your studies so far

:-)

Thanks for prompt reply sneaks,.

Yes, you're quite right - I guess 6 months is too much to do 'email' supervision. At the same time, a month seems too short, especially when at the other side of the world for 3 years. Do you think it's best to explain the situation wholly and honestly at the beginning, and get a realistic idea of what's possible, or do the oft-advised 'wait and see what happens'?

A

Yes, indeed, the same hackneyed topic. But I reckon that as it's a common complaint, you guys will be all the more ready with helpful anecdotes/words of wisdom!

Started PhD this week. Too early to talk about the academics of it all, I barely know my way from the library to the bookshop yet. However, this is my worry:

I'm doing it far away from home, and my boyfriend still lives back there. We're attempting 'LDR' (sigh) and I think the ONLY way I can be happy doing a PhD, is knowing that I will get to spend quite a bit of time back home.

So, do you think it is reasonable/usual/ to ask to spend say, up to 6 months of a 3 year PhD at home, whether it is the experimental stage, or the write up? I think having that to look forward to (rather than a week here or there or stolen moments) will really motivate me to work my ass off.

Thanks in advance! Keep workin...

Andy