Hi everyone, I just wanted to get an idea of what a typical word count for a PhD thesis would be. I am worried mine may be a little short. Our department maximum is 100,000 but there is no minimum listed. I am in a geography department (so generally the human geography thesis' are longer than the physical geography ones), but my background is in geology and earth sciences so I am less 'wordy' than most of the other people in my department.

My thesis will probably be around 60-70,000 words in total I think, and I just wanted to see how that compares with other people from similar disciplines?

Hi, I wondered if anyone could give me some advice on a point relating to my appendix. I am doing a PhD in geography and part of my fieldwork has involved using remote sensing techniques to repeatedly survey part of the landscape and measure change. I have conducted 6 field visits, each of which have involved the capture of thousands of data points. The first step of processing involves converting the data into a format readable by Microsoft Excel, essentially giving me thousands and thousands of lines of data.

My supervisor has told me that all my raw data needs to go into my appendix. Unfortunately my department still has a policy of requiring a printed as well as digitial copy of the full appendices, so I don't feel like this is reasoable - my appendices would be many times longer than my thesis and very expensive to print as everything has to be double spaced!!

Is she correct in insisting that all of my raw data has to be included?

I am just coming into my third year (of three) at the end of this month, and while I feel like I am quite organised, I also feel like I am massively behind. My PhD is science based, and has involved a combination of experiments, field surveys, and archive data collection. I work in a department that is mostly social scientists so I have no way to gauge my progress because the methods and structure are really hard to compare, and I am really worried that I am quite behind.

At the moment I have my introduction and literature review written, one small chapter written, all of the data processing and analysis complete (apart from statistics) for two large chapters, and some of the writing done (intro and methods), then I have two more short chapters that I have hardly started on. I have basically established my data sources, and collected some of the archive data I will need, but not all of it. I don't think it will take me too long to do the rest of the data collection and analysis for these chapters, maybe 3 months for each, but maybe that is being very optimistic.

I was just wondering if any science-based PhD students could share where they were at the end of their 2nd year. I would like to be able to work out whether I will finish on time or not, as my husband needs to start making some career choices that may involve us moving abroad, and I want to be finished first.

Hi everyone, was just looking for some advice as to whether changing my course to teaching is a good idea.

I am currently about half way through my PhD. Everything is on track so far, I have a couple of papers in preparation for publication, and my supervisors and thesis monitoring committee are happy about my progress. I have some concerns as I am following very different lines of investigation with my two supervisors, and I think it will take a lot of hard work to get a coherent thesis out of my work. We have also just found a major problem with one of the pieces of field equipment I have been using which significantly reduces the absolute accuracy of a lot of my work.

I feel lucky to have an interesting and challenging job, but at the same time I find that I feel anxious and stressed whenever I think about my PhD, and as time goes on, I have become more and more certain that this is not the kind of work I want to do for the rest of my life. I have done a lot of teaching (demonstrating, field trips, lecturing, marking, practicals, exam writing, pretty much everything!), and this is something that I find very rewarding and really enjoy. I look forward to my teaching work, where as I always try to put off my own research.

I am pretty certain I want to go into teaching rather than research as a long time career option. I just don't know whether it is better to try to get myself onto a teaching course now, or to wait until I have finished my PhD. I feel like it might be morally not very fair to my supervisors and funding body to just drop out because I've had a change of heart. At the same time, I feel like I am making myself stressed an wasting time for no reason as I'm fairly sure this isn't what I want to do long term.

Hi all,

I am looking for some advice with how to deal with a very sad situation I am going through. I started my PhD last summer, and am just over a year in now. In October last year my step-father (who is like a second father to me) was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He responded very well to treatment, but the diseases is so aggressive that it came back almost immediately and he wasn't strong enough for further medication. We are now at a stage where we are looking at losing him in days or at the most a couple of weeks.

I am obviously distraught, as are the rest of my family. I haven't been able to settle to do any significant work on my PhD since mid-June when we found out how bad things are. My supervisors are very understanding on the whole. I said I would try to work from home a bit, but really struggled to concentrate - mostly because there were interruptions (either to help with caring for my step-dad, or to spend some time doing things with him), so I never seemed to get more than 20 minutes at a time to actually get down to work. This is a really busy time for my research, and one of my supervisors was happy for me to work from home, but I think expected me to manage a near-normal workload, which I'm now realising I have no chance of achieving.

I am thinking about requesting to take some time off, but have no idea whether I will need a week, two weeks, a month, etc., as I want to be able to help my Mum deal with the aftermath of everything.

I just wondered if anyone had any advice as to what the process is when this kind of thing happens? Is it acceptable to take time off and get an extension? Or are you expected to take a couple of weeks off and then try and get back into your work?

Thanks.

Hi Yash,

I can only speak for my departments. My PhD is split between a research centre and a university. At the research centre everything is very professional and well run. People are very friendly, but it is definitely a 9-5 working office atmosphere.

At the university I work in a small office with 15 postgrads (although normally there are only 3-5 of us in). I am fortunate to be in a pretty small department and everyone is really friendly and gets on well. People work whatever hours they fancy, although most still do a 40 hour week, with much longer weeks if you are coming to the end or have a busy period of lab work. While we do work hard in the office there are a few occasions where we all get chatting for an hour or two, and we also meet for coffee once a week.

With regards to life after the PhD is completed, most people either move into industry or if they plan to stay in academia apply for either a teaching assistant or post-doc position.

Hi CSNOW, sorry to hear that your PhD doesn't seem to suit you too well. My first instinct when I read your title was to say to stick with it a bit longer. It is really common to feel like quitting at about the 4-8 month mark. This is a period when people are often feeling disillusioned with how narrow their topic is, their lack of progress, feeling like they're not capable, etc.

Having read through the rest of your post though, I think you have very different reasons for wanting to quit. If the PhD doesn't fit in at all with where you want your career to go then I think it is probably best to try to pursue an avenue which will be more useful to you. It could be very frustrating to spend 3-4 years working on a PhD and then feel like you have to go back to the drawing board to pursue the career you want. In addition, without motivation, I think it would be very difficult to complete a PhD.

There are just a couple of things I would say, though. Firstly, you should discuss this with the company and the university. Explain your concerns. It may be the case that the company might find you more employable in a range of departments/roles if you complete the PhD. Secondly, if you really are certain that this PhD is taking you in the wrong direction I would ensure that you are accepted to the Masters and have a definite means of funding yourself before you quit. I'm a bit 'belt and braces', but in my opinion it would be a big risk to quit a paid position if you don't have anything lined up to move into. After all, a PhD in something you're not that interested in is better than nothing!

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if anyone had any advice or tips for giving lectures? I was volunteered (and agreed) to give five lectures to undergraduates this summer but I've never given lectures before and have been a bit overwhelmed by how long it even takes to put the powerpoints together and write lecture handouts. I've just started my 2nd year so I've done plenty of 15 minute presentations, and done some demonstrating in practical classes, but I've never spoken for an hour before, and I don't have any other real experience in teaching. If anyone has any advice I'd be really grateful :)

Hi,

I plan to use my car for occasional field trips for my research (maybe once or twice a year, going away for between 5-14 days). I was just wondering whether this would still fall under the category or personal use, or whether I would need to declare my car for business use (which is more expensive). Under our insurance, personal use includes commuting to your normal place of work, so I don't know if my major field site counts or not. I wouldn't really say I have a normal place of work as I am based at two separate institutions (one of which is split over two different cities), and often just work from home!

I wondered if anyone can give me any advice on this?

Congratulations for submitting (or almost submitting at the moment!). My view is that you should celebrate as much as you and your friends/family fancy.

I think the kind of celebration you described would be at the more extravagant end of the scale (at my department when someone submits they get a pat on the back and then we go out for a few drinks in the evening - we would then have a bigger celebration when they pass the viva).

I have a friend who worked at Cambridge university as a lab technician after her undergrad. While she didn't get a PhD at that university she did then move onto a PhD at another university, and her experience working as a lab tech was seen as a big plus. I think getting a bit of experience at a uni would be a help - anything you are involved in (field work, lab work, data analyis, teaching, etc.) will be something you will probably come across in the course of a PhD.

I took one year out after doing an MSci and asked a potential (now actual!) supervisor whether the gap worried him. His reply was he would only be worried if I had been out for 5+ years, so you should be fine. I am pretty sure your industry experience will be seen as a big plus - a lot of PhD's are now very focused on having a 'real world' applicability or usefulness attached to the research, so having a bit of practical insight can only be a plus.

Of course having a masters would be a plus - it demonstrates you are capable of (semi-)independent research, which is what a PhD is all about, but equally there are plenty of people who go straight from BSc to PhD.

I'm really sorry you're feeling this way, but I think it is something most (all?) PhD students go through. Even those who are initially very enthusiastic about their topic and in their comfort-zone discipline-wise tend to have a fairly major drop in enthusiasm at some point in their first year. I have just finished my first year, and I have to say I'm really glad its over. My workload has increased massively over the last few months, but I also pleased that I now have things to do. I completely understand the feeling that you are just reading all the time, and don't actually have anything to do.

My suggestion would be to stick with it for at least 6 months and see if things are improving. Also, enjoy the fact that you have relatively little to practically do at the moment and spend more time thinking and engaging. One of my supervisors said I should be spending at least ast much time actively thinking as I was reading. There is a really important distinction there. I'm not saying slack off, but I don't think there is a need to be glued to your computer 9-5 for the first few months. Some of my better ideas and inspirations came when I was jogging or walking somewhere I liked. At this stage you want to be doing what is best to get your curiosity and interest going.

I would also say that while your supervisor's job is to give you advice on how to complete your PhD, it is your job to decide whether to act on their advice or not. If you feel that going to conferences, courses, etc. would help you, I would go for it.