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Yes, funny enough Im waiting for the full report from my supa in the next few days. Hes already bounced some comments back to me and there are a few things I should try in th mean time. Nothing major. Still Im scared as hell if theres something he doesnt like. Of course we shouldnt go through life feeling this way when situations like this occurs but I feel this is a unique situation where our lives are on hold. Hopefully this only happens rarely and after all this PhD non sense i will go back to that confident assertive self!

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thanks Dunni. The truth is I am really terrified. My supa wanted me to get out a specific results using the model. However, it seems that the model doesnt work very well in the final chapter so i have just written what i have done and what doesnt work. he doesnt knowthat yet. I hope he will be ok with it.

it is really rubbish. we start the phD full of optimism but when the supa isnt supportive, u lose you confidence and in the end end up like me where my emotional state is depdent on my supa. It is terrible

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Hey, I been away from this forum for a while. Now Im back. Looks like there are lots of social sciences here on this thread.

Im in the sciences. I have had a very difficult PhD and been here for years more than you can count on one finger. BUT, im finihsing now, hoping to submit end of next month. I also had a very tough time at the turn of the year when my supa threatened to throw me out of PhD. It was crazy.

Now I have made my work stronger and finishing the last chapter of my thesis, which isnt the meat of the thesis, but tries to bring everything together. Unfortunately the results are not good. ie, continuing the line of arguement/modelling in my work, you cant reproduce the data. Well, what ever it is I am writing it. And almost done. There is just the fear that my supa might not be happy with my last work and ask me to do more which I really can not. Mentally and physically. We both had end of next month in mind to submit so I hope he will just accept this is the status quo and really nothing else can be tried to get what he wants to get...

I feel sad looking back at the years. When I was fresh and young, I was optimistic, eager to finish, find a job outside academia, optimistic in writing the thesis and believe everything will be fine. Now having suffered so much and been put down so much at the hands of my supa over the years, I am made to doubt everything and feel that things are not adequate. I hope this is just a temporary effect and after I leave I will get my confidence back.

Does anyone share this expereince? and also share the "not good enough" worry with the thesis as it is near towards the end? Not because you are afraid of the viva, but because you are worried your supa will make you do more.

congratulations!

congratulations!

Hey Dunni,

thanks for the reply. Sounds like things are going well for you. thats great. keep going. How much more new work is there left to do with you?

As with me, I just now need to extend my current work onto one more idea. How to approach it I know how to do it. We spent 2 yrs on this damn thing and in the end had to drop it for some time as what we needed didnt exist after realising this mistake. So now I have what i need ( which is the first few chapters of my thesis) i am now starting to fix that piece of work. it means methodology needs to be changed, and I ddont know what I will get out. But its rather emotional coming back to what you originally wanted to find out i nthe PhD. I hope that i will get out some resutls very quickly and just write up on what I learnt.

Hey Dunni,

Thanks for your input. It is comforting to know that someone elses thesis is very like mine. I have had a look at others people's thesis and they had different chapter stutures and more chapters. Most likely because I dont know their work.

Yes, for my last chapter I know roughly what I need to write. Its complicated because it is something that i did when I first started my PhD and later came my current work. It is a bit tricky because it is linked to my current work. We didnt finish it because we had some difficulties. I just want to finish it off, and write up what I learnt. My sup had other ideas last time I spoke to him. He wanted to tie them together which will take longer.

How long do you think it will take you to finish one of your experimental chapters? It looks like yours is very similiar to mine. Is it the same experimental set up for all 3 chapters or do you need to do something more different for each one? How much new thinking is involved in each?

thanks

Hi, Im joining in the discussion having been made aware of this thread. First I hope your peeps back home in Japan are alright pinknumbers. PhD can wait. Families are most important.

I have till end of June to finish my thesis. I have 5 chapters in a science PhD. So far.

1) Intro
2) More lit review+ introducing my work and initial/small results
3) My model, results. Fittings, and then compare with others results to support my model.
4) Extending my model, more results.
5)
6) Conclusions

Chapter 3 and 4 are the meat of the thesis. Im on my second draft and having to redo all my results again. Chapter 5 is blank and I need to do this before end of June! It needs to be a new chapter of work. I don't know how the hell Im gonna finish. It feels absolutely impossible. Current thesis needs more time to finish and then I need to get cracking on the new chapter.

Having bad experiences that resaerch takes so long, I have lost confidence in finishing off anything so quickly. Do any of you have similiar experiences? Each day goes so quickly. I seem to be only able to do so much each day. And this is already middle of March. Im so stressed that Im working 7 days a week. Life is crap. Be good to know what other people's "To Do" list is. How much is done, how many chapters left, how much work is finished, how much work is still new left to do.

It feels like Im doing half of my Phd in this last 3 months.