You can't do a PhD just so that you don't let people down. You really need to want to do it, its hard enough when you are really committed and driven. I would suggest that you're not really committed enough. Perhaps if PhD is the best way forward for you you'll know when the time is right. Its not right for everyone.:-)

I did my PhD remotely. I only went to the uni for supervisor meetings and of course the Viva! I am a particularly driven person so I actually managed with the loneliness of it and completed. If you can work well unsupervised and drive yourself it shouldn't be a problem. The biggest problem will be if you have to complete a taught research methods element in the first year. I have three children myself so I know the problems but I managed it all okay.

hey me too

I was given no support at all when I started teaching, I was just expected to get on with it. I wasn't very good and I was really nervous. I have a little more experience now (but teaching is looked down on in universities) so I still find it a stressful business.

Prepare - make sure you have enough to say and some real life examples that the students can identify with and they will talk and discuss. Then you just need to direct! The thing is to involve them, then they aren't scrutinising you and they're learning.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance

to say I was stressed would be an understatement. I had a mock viva the night before - which was too awful for words. I cried and cried all night and the next morning. I shook and I sweated and I considered just not turning up. The next thing I knew I passed!! Good luck - be calm

I'm in a different discipline, but I'm afraid academia seems to be characterised by short term contracts, periods of unemployment and low wages. If I had my time again I would have qualified in a different way. However we are all different if you love research - stay where you are.

Hi there

If you need to change PhD's then you must do it. Your supervisor is a professional and I dare say she will get over your decision to leave!
Remember though that you have already invested over 12 months on this project - the grass is not always greener you know.

I would like to thank everyone who posted such positive responses to my post, you have restored my faith in academics. We all need to battle on in the face of resistance and criticism, thank heaven for this forum it has helped me through many a dark hour.

I have already stated that I accept that my paper may not have been excellent but it has already been peer reviewed by others as it was part of PhD research which examined controversial ground. I am complaining because I feel that gratuitous rudeness only benefits a reviewer who feels need to vent! Academics should be articulate enough and well trained enough not to need to express criticism in terms that are unprofessional. What difference does it make to the reviewer whether they recommend rejection in professional and constructive terms or rude and unsophisticated terms?

thankyou so much for your support everyone. I accept that my paper was obviously not up to the standard required but the response was unnecessarily rude. It's just not a supportive critically constructive response. I will plod on and try to do better but any more responses like that and I will look outside academia for a career.

I've just had the most scathing and gratuitously rude rejection of a paper I submitted from a single anonymous reviewer. I am a mature late entrant to the academic world and I accept criticism (you have to in the PhD process!) and I have never in any other institution come across the kind of bullying and arrogance that seems rife in this world. Many of these discussions revolve around unfair and bullying practices. It is so disappointing.

I think there would be huge reservations re using your DR title in the medical profession. Med tech with a PhD doesn't equal med doctor. You would have to keep quiet about it most of the time, is this what you want?

Not anything you do will be praised! Its been the hardest aspect of the whole acadaemia thing for me. If you ask an academic to critique something they don't feel they've done the job unless they've torn you apart. I was even advised never to write a good book review in case it makes you sound 'uncritical'.

I have small children and my PhD was completely self funded - no financial help at all- consequently I had to work. Do what you have to do, no need to even consider the opinions of people who have a somewhat naiive view on life. The very best of luck to you, I know exactly what your going through. I think you seem to have your life well sorted!!