Well I finally passed my PhD viva with minor corrections. I honestly don't know how, as I think I only answered about 25 % of the questions that I was asked ! I can only assume that it was the strength of what was in my thesis that got me through. I definitely got brain freeze on the questions and was thrown by some of the questions I was not expecting. From my experience make sure you know everything about the figures in your thesis as 90% of my questions concerned them. Anyway just glad its over.

======= Date Modified 22 Jul 2011 01:16:40 =======

Well for me it has to be my sup promises to do something by a deadline. They are terrible. I have an equation to predict the real amount of time I will get say feedback, it goes as follows.


T = D+(D2-C)+(D3-2C)-KLM

where
T = time to get feedback
D = number of days to first promised deadline for feedback
C = number of complaints by me
D2 = number of days to second promised deadline for feedback
D3 = number of days third promised deadline for feedback
KLM = number of kicks of sups line manager

The + - errors on the answer are quite large tough, especially the + !!

I have found the write up the best part of my PhD, but as Delta said, its waiting for the feedback that has been so frustrating.

======= Date Modified 22 Jul 2011 00:50:25 =======
======= Date Modified 22 Jul 2011 00:49:59 =======
Why dont you try applying for a PhD in nuclear physics, its not that far away from particle physics, and not as many students want to do it, so I imagine not as hard to get a funded place. But remember a PhD does not mean it is easier to get a job at the end of it, thats my experience anyway.

Just a thought anyway.


Good luck

For my transfer event my external examiner was not an expert in my subject and did not ask me any questions regarding the details of my work only how I went about my work and if I had any problems. However all of my group were present when I did my one hour transfer presentation, and they made sure they asked a lot of hard questions about my work. As it happens I was confident that I had enough new and original work to be transfered onto the full PhD, I was just worried that I would make an arse of myself in the presentation, therefore I practiced and practiced until I knew the presentation of by heart and thankfully it all came together for the presentation, the external examiner even said it was a very professional presentation. Therefore, my advice is to practice and practice what your going to say and go over any questions that you think may be asked especially about what future work you hope to achieve, do all of this then I am sure that you will not have a problem passing your transfer event.
Anyway Good luck

======= Date Modified 20 Jul 2011 18:45:18 =======
======= Date Modified 20 Jul 2011 18:44:36 =======

I know exactly what your going through as I have been through it. Basically there are two many graduates, and there are simply more people with PhD than there are PhD level jobs. Hence the reason why it is so difficult for a PhD student to find work. My PhD is in experimental physics, you would expect there would be a lot of jobs wanting the skills required for this, but like you I rarely had a reply to any jobs that I applied for, as I mentioned in my last post I now have a job as a postman, and I am really happy that I have it. So much so that I have given up applying for so called graduate or PhD level jobs.
Lastly I highly recommend that you claim job seekers allowance, my funding ran out last year and I have claimed it in all the time since then that I was unemployed, indeed without out it I would have been screwed as I have very little savings.

======= Date Modified 19 Jul 2011 20:21:58 =======

I must be old fashioned as I have never used a laptop throughout my time as a PhD student. I just used a PC, and only Linux OS (Ubuntu and scientific Linux). But I imagine that any average priced laptop would do the job for most PhD, I would not recommend a mac, for one it is too expensive, and if you want a free alternative to mac os then just use Ubuntu on a pc/laptop :D

======= Date Modified 19 Jul 2011 00:01:08 =======
======= Date Modified 18 Jul 2011 23:59:04 =======



Ok I am not far away from submitting (I hope ! ), anyway when my funding first ran out last year I moved back to my parents to write my thesis, while I was doing this I must have applied for at least 100 jobs, you know the usual types of job, first postdoc positions (could not get one as I dont have enough experience) and then graduate jobs ( could not get one as I was too experienced), to be honest it was nice to get a reply at all from the ones I applied for. Anyway getting sick of applying for these positions I decided to apply for a postman job ( I should add that I did not mention my qualifications in my application), and I got it ! and to be honest I am that sick of getting rejected for so called PhD and graduate level positions, that I am seriously thinking about just sticking with the postman job.
I never really wanted to do a PhD or any of my degree's so that I could get a high paid job, I did them so that I could learn about my subject, especially first degree, and get a job I enjoyed doing. Now that I don't think I can get the type of job that I originally did my degrees for, I just dont think I can be bothered to continue looking for or indeed like doing a job in industry or academia. At the minute a job like a postman is quite attractive to me, enough money to get by, no pressure, no stress, set times of work, out in the fresh air and meeting people instead of being stuck in an office in front of a computer. I guess all this rejection I have experienced in the job market has made me look for alternative careers and from what I see these have a lot more benefits (money aside) than the so called high paid high stress careers.

So I think I will go through my viva, really not that bothered if I pass or not, and then put it all behind me.

Ok I am not far away from submitting (I hope ! ), anyway when my funding first ran out last year I moved back to my parents to write my thesis, while I was doing this I must have applied for at least 100 jobs, you know the usual types of job, first postdoc positions (could not get one as I dont have enough experience) and then graduate jobs ( could not get one as I was too experienced), to be honest it was nice to get a reply at all from the ones I applied for. Anyway getting sick of applying for these positions I decided to apply for a postman job ( I should add that I did not mention my qualifications in my application), and I got it ! and to be honest I am that sick of getting rejected for so called PhD and graduate level positions, that I am seriously thinking about just sticking with the postman job.
I never really wanted to do a PhD or any of my degree's so that I could get a high paid job, I did them so that I could learn about my subject, especially first degree, and get a job I enjoyed doing. Now that I don't think I can get the type of job that I originally did my degrees for, I just dont think I can be bothered to continue looking for or indeed like doing a job in industry or academia. At the minute a job like a postman is quite attractive to me, enough money to get by, no pressure, no stress, set times of work, out in the fresh air and meeting people instead of being stuck in an office in front of a computer. I guess all this rejection I have experienced in the job market has made me look for alternative careers and from what I see these have a lot more benefits (money aside) than the so called high paid careers.

So I think I will go through my viva, really not that bothered if I pass or not, and then put it all behind me.

Good points everyone, but maybe it could be just a score rating say a mark out of ten for a set number of topics such as communication, time management etc etc then take the average of these scores to give a final overall rating. This way no specific information is given about the student doing the rating. There could be a way to ensure that the students are legitimate. Anyway was just a thought ;-)

======= Date Modified 15 Jul 2011 10:21:20 =======

Im just wondering if there is any website or alternative method to get honest advise on a PhD supervisor. I say this because I am pretty sure that if I knew what I know now about my current supervisor, I would not have decided to accept the PhD that I did. Of course when I had my PhD interview I asked the other PhD students what my supervisor was like, but I am pretty sure from my experience with my supervisor and obviously from conversations with students after I joined the group, that they did not give honest answers, most likely afraid that the supervisor finds out they said anything bad about them ( I have found that the fear of upsetting the supervisor is common, as students do not want bad references the main reason).
Therefore is there anyway a prospective PhD student could get honest information about a supervisor.
If there are no websites that do this, it might be a good idea to setup one, something like "www.RateyourSupervisor.com".

======= Date Modified 14 Jul 2011 19:53:17 =======
======= Date Modified 14 Jul 2011 19:51:16 =======
Hi Delta,

I know what you mean. My supervisor encouraged me to write a paper after I had my first set of results from my analysis. I got very excited thinking it would be great to get a publication ( This was when I was just starting my PhD and the whole I want to be a scientist thing was very much at my forefront, sadly this changed as I became disillusioned with my supervisor). Anyway I wrote the paper and my supervisor read it and said it was fine, however, it has been sitting on their desk for over two years, despite endless emails urging them to publish it. I would like to do it myself, but I cannot since it has around 15 coauthors (international collaboration for experiment) who need to give their consent to publish the data and my supervisor happens to be one of them. As I mentioned in my other post, I have given up trying to get it published.
Later on in my PhD my supervisor, suggested that I write another paper on the new results I had, but I reminded them that I am still waiting for the other results to published, so I saw little point in writing any other paper for it to not see the light of day for years. They made excuses about being busy and never mentioned it again.

There really should be better methods to hold supervisors to account, as from what I see, they can basically do what they want and not give one hoot about what anyone thinks as they are virtually untouchable. Thats the impression I get anyway.

======= Date Modified 14 Jul 2011 17:51:49 =======
======= Date Modified 14 Jul 2011 17:48:05 =======
Well my funding ran out for my PhD last year, I had finished my analysis (science PhD) and I decided for financial reasons to move back to my parents house and finish of writing my thesis. Anyway my supervisor insists that I send them my chapters so they can correct any mistakes that I do, which seems fair enough. Well it would be fair enough if my supervisor actually gave me the feedback in a reasonable amount of time. I mean it usually goes like this, first I email a chapter to them and they say they will read it in two weeks and get it back to me, so two weeks passes nothing, and I email asking when I can expect to get the feedback, they say they have been busy and the will look at it within a week. Again another weeks passes and nothing, so I email again and the same excuse comes and this continues for about 2 month on average before I finally get something back. This has really slowed me down and quite frankly I am sick of waiting around for them to read the chapters. I mean its only a few hours work, maximum of 40 pages per chapter, so why do they continually put it of, and prioritise other things before it. My second supervisor has complained to my supervisors boss on more than one occassion about this but it makes no difference, my second supervisor has also recommended that I make a formal complaint if things do not start to speed up soon. The same thing happened for the paper I wrote on my work, it has been sitting on their desk for two years waiting for them to read it so that it can be published. I have gave up hope of that paper ever getting published. Anyway the fact is I have written my thesis it has been fully written for over three months now. I have been dripped feedback for all but the last two chapters over the last year, and rather than waiting for this dripped feedback for the last two chapters I have decided that I am going to make a formal complaint if feedback is not had by the end of July and I told my supervisor this. And I also told them that I fully intend to submit my viva with or without my supervisors consent at the end of july. I am aware that this could backfire on me, but I really don't care, I cannot continue financially to go on waiting for this to finish before I find a job, and god knows I have tried to get a job (no prospect when there is no idea as to when I will finish and no publications) I want to finish this and draw a line under the whole thing and move on with my life. Anyway I thought I would share my frustration and experience with all of you.