The certificate/transcripts are methods of verification. You can send these to admission in New Zealand and they can later contact the university in the UK to confirm these are authentic. UK universities usually charge a fee to produce verification of award letters

"since forming meaningful connections ultimately needs to be something that comes from you. You've had a major dig at the majority of well-meaning posters basically telling them to shut up - yet these are the type of people you're simultaneously complaining about not being in a community with"

Well said!

I was in a similar position. One month was given for the examiner to approve my corrections but he did not commit to that timeline (because of all the workload on academics during the pandemic). So I contacted the doctoral school at my university, they then followed up with the examiner and the corrections were approved approximately two weeks after this email and I received my conferment letter. My advice is not to contact the examiner yourself and let the administrative staff handle it. Don't panic, leaving the UK has nothing to do with your degree now as you will be able to finalise everthing while abroad and even receive your certificate by post if necessary. Congratulations on your PhD and best of luck moving forward.

I printed my PhD thesis (3 copies) in the printshop of my university using my research budget code (with supervisor approval). This is the same budget code i use to buy consumables and chemicals. The 3 copies cost around £150 for 200 pages thesis all coloured.

I was an international PhD student (on a full scholarship) in the UK and I agree with eng77. If you are not funded during your PhD, it will be a miserable experience. You may try to look for a PhD in a country (e.g. Germany) where tuition fees are not as expensive as in the UK. Otherwise, keep applying for scholarships until you get one, it will look good on your CV to secure funding.

After an interview, it is customary to get a response either a rejection or an offer. I would certainly ask them until I get a response or may be email one of the supervisors/PI instead to know the interview outcome. Sometimes they go further and give you some feedback on why you have not been selected on this occasion.

I deal with this by wholeheartedly adopting the mentality that I am not perfect and that there will always be something new to learn form someone no matter my status is. We are more ignorant than we would like to believe. If someone pointed out my shortcomings to me in a constructive way, I will even be grateful.

I really understand how you feel. I had the same experience attending one of the most prestigious conferences with three Nobel prizes laureates attending and giving lectures there. However, unlike you, I was fully funded to go there but still I felt like the week-long conference wasn't scientifically helpful to justify the cost . Like you said, you can read all their work online for free. From a touristic point of view, the trip was awesome. Poster sessions are always boring like that too and I normally get way more exposure and feedback when I share my poster on linkedin.

That being said, there are some hidden benefits that may not materialize themselves immediately but nonethless affect your way of work. You get to know how people present their work generally in your field, the trends, what they focus on, what kind of questions the get asked, what the audience normally focus on etc. There is always the chance of meeting your next employer in one of these but you don't know it at the time (you have more chance if you are near completion).

My advice to you as a PhD student is not to spend so much money out of your own pocket to attend these conferences. You can always ask the uni or supervisor to fund these conferences (this needs planning ahead) and many scientific societies provide travel bursaries for their members and particularly for PhD students to attend conferences. If you can't get funded, you can attend plenty of local conferences (there are many in the UK) and seminars where registration is free. You will get similar experience, and you will only have to pay for local travel cost.

you know people for real only after you spend significant amount of time with them. Short-term visits can give an indication but it is never a 100% predictor of the reality.

Not to mention most people (whether supervisor or supervisee) are good at putting on masks revealing only what is appealing. The masks hardly stand the test of time though.

c'est la vie

I actually got my laptop from my bench fees through the university. I had to spend leftover budget before end of financial year and my supervisor agreed to get me one as mine was quite old. thus,I went for an expensive thinkpad model.

Lenovo Thinkpad family is decent and durable. Get something with core i5 and at least 8GB of RAM. I have an expensive convertible model Thinkpad X1 Yoga (core i7, 16GB RAM) which is very convenient for travel, reading books and watching movies etc in free time

I don't know if you should quit your phD or not. I just want to say that passion means nothing. You become passionate about something when you succeed at it. No matter how good or "passionate" your are about a particular topic, sooner or later you will face hurdles that will make said passion disappear. If you really need a phD (for good reasons like being an academic or getting a good research position in industry or other) then you should suck it up, do the hard work and then move on after you finish your degree. You will have more options then to work on different topics if you want.

We don't know how much you will be reliant on statistics from your question. If statistics will be heavily needed throughout your project you wouldn't have been offered the position given your statistical knowledge. However, if you only need statistics now and then, you will be fine since you can learn these as you progress through your PhD. Most universities (good ones) provide statistical workshops tailored to the needs of specific disciplines and the internet is rife with resources as well. Your supervisor may or may not know anything about statistics (if say he/she is a chemist) but he/she surely should be able to point you to the right direction.

Congratulations! this is indeed very rare. Amazing work.

I have a question. Have you published any parts of your thesis before viva?

Try making an appeal for IELTS results. You may get it to 6 as sometimes markers can be harsh and writing mark is subjective. My brother did appeal and he managed to get an extra 0.5 he desperately needed. Best of luck