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Hey All,

So as the months go by and I approach month 4 I'm still not getting into the PhD lifestyle and slowly realising that this is not for me (well 90% sure, maybe 85%). As such, I am applying for 3 or 4 graduate campaigns with companies I'd love to work for. I'm just wondering if you guys think I should put my current job down as a PhD researcher. I've done it on one application, and thing is that I'm not ashamed to say I gave it a shot and didn't succeed. In fact I'm still proud of the fact that a panel of 6 academics thought I was smart enough to fund me for 4 years :p

Its just I did so well in my masters (top of class b*&%*s!! lol) that all the talk of PhD's made me forget why I even did my masters...and it was so I could kick ass in the business world and make top dawg someday! So now my heart longs to be back in the business world.

Anyhow I'm just wondering how you guys would recommend accounting for my 4 months as a PhD student and how I should address it in interviews. Some personal friends have suggested I pretend like it never happened, but I don't want to do that!

I find that 9 out of 10 times people have no idea what a PhD entails. When I first got my position on my phd and since I've started, I've had to change the way I phrase it. I used to say 'I'm a phd student' but as soon as people hear the word 'student' you're pigeon-holed and written off. Even though I'm only 24 some people have still said 'oh you're still in college'....

So now I say I'm a PhD candidate or a Phd Researcher for my college. It gets such a different reaction....in that people seem to be more inclined to follow up with more questions compared to when I say I'm a student. Anyhow my PhD is a job. I have work to do and I get paid for it!! :-)

Seriously though, very few people know what a PhD means or is....the effort of trying to explain and justify your existence is tedious however, better off not going into detail!

Bumping this up as I CANT be the only Marketing PhD head here.........

Try a bad two months :-) Then we'll talk!!

Hope the mood lifts soon!

This will cheer you up

http://www.pink-world.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/pug9.jpg

Always works for me!

Hi OP, don't worry I felt (feel) the exact same. I stared on November 1st last and still I'm constantly asking myself if I'm able for this at all.

It really is a scary experience. Everyday I think...am I suited to a phd, do I have the dedication, do I have an ability to investigate something and produce a worthy document, are my ideas even worthy enough to begin with......

I have 3 1/2 years on my scholarship so I'll be right along with you all the way.....

Can I ask what field your in?

Good luck with it all
;-):-)

Hi All,

So I'm starting my third month of my PhD and so far I've not really made any friends in my office. I'm a very sociable person but I just don't seem to have clicked with any of my 'roomies'. I don't think it's my fault - I think it's just that they are all so busy with their own work that making sure the newbie was feeling welcome and loved was at the very, very bottom of their list of priorities :-) I can already tell that the life of solitude is going to be my biggest challenge. I feel like Tom Hanks in Cast Away most of the time. Maybe I need to get me my own personal Wilson lol

So I just wanted to meet fellow PhD students - especially within the field of marketing. It would be great to have some online contacts to help discuss issues, ideas, good days, bad days, conferences, papers etc with. Also I've been told that networking is invaluable in the world of academia.

So I'll start off with a bit about me and hopefully some more of you Marketing guys will get in touch:

I've just finished a taught masters in Marketing in September last. I got my place on the PhD scholarship programme and originally proposed looking at how Web 2.0 technology can be used to influence brand perceptions among consumers. My research has changed somewhat since then and now I'm looking that the role of social media in the development of virtual brand communities and subcultures of consumption. This will probably change again as I discovered a new area last week that I need to tease out a bit.

So would love to hear from other marketing phd students and what sort of stuff you guys are looking at - and of course feel free to share any stories about your whole experience that you think I should know!

Thanks guys this is great. I'm starting to get really excited about it. In my head I have a zillion ideas flying around and I really think it could work. I'm on my Xmas hols since yesterday but I'm dying to whack out the books and get working on this idea. But I'm going to enjoy my 10 days off and then attack it.


I'm confident that there is some new way to view these existing theories and apply them. I really hope I can carve my niche.

To be honest I think I had crazy notions that I somehow had to come up with some astounding new theory and blow everyone out of the water. Thing is though...my supervisor finished hers about 3 years ago and was praised right across the field for having such accomplished research. Now I have a complex about it. I think I just need to accept that while mine may not as be ground breaking it will be valid none the less....
:-)

Hi All,

Well I'm in my second month of a 4 year funded phd and I'm already starting to get very nervous about the whole process and my ability to make a unique contribution to the field. Its in Marketing and I proposed a topic which certainly needs investigation. However, when I met with my 2 supervisors in week one we discussed things and they gave me advice in which direction to take the research which I agreed with.

Since then I've obviously been reading deep in the literature but I'm struggling greatly at identifying an appropriate gap. This weekend however I had a moment whereby I got real excited and thought...yes that could so work and it would be amazing....so I did preliminary research and found that in this particular area of marketing this research has not being developed. However the problem is that in order to conduct this research, I would be borrowing heavily from sociological theories which are well established and studied.

So here is my issue. If I continue down this route, what I will have is essentially a body of research which has been done before, with a marketing twist on it. Obviously this is important as I am doing a phd in marketing field but I am just worried that the contribution would not be as unique as it should be and my peers would end up asking that dreaded questions of 'So what???'.

Can some of you out there, preferably those who have completed or are doing a phd in marketing, social sciences or rather theory based research (no disrespect to the hard science students :p) offer me some advice?

To sum up.
1. How unique does your contribution need to be?
2. Is it ok to borrow heavily from an extensively researched area and apply it in a unique way to your own field?


Thanks