======= Date Modified 13 Aug 2011 15:42:49 =======
Hi all,

I have been on and off on this forum, haven't posted much myself but have been reading posts of others. This forum has helped me a lot during my depression times when things wouldn't work! And also it is highly motivating to read success stories of people and it makes me think mmm....I will make it too!!

I am an international student into my final year, 2 years and 10 months and still counting. I am doing a PhD in Applied Physics. It has been almost like a roller coaster ride with so many ups and downs and here I am almost at the end of the tunnel. I really love my PhD despite the problems I have faced as it has been a challenging experience. I am still not totally done with my experimental work but aiming to wind up by the end of September. I am supposed to submit my thesis in October but unfortunately as I had quite a lot of issues with an important complex code to run my simulations my supervisors have agreed that I can take another six more months from October to finish my thesis (they have secured funding as well for the extra period for which I am very grateful!!).

I spent most of my third year trouble shooting, validating each and every step of the code and I have managed to solve all the problems now! I am progressing slowly with minor issues of my simulations crashing now and then. I am writing up simultaneously the first two main chapters and I have written bits of it here and there. I do not want to drag it up to March as I really want to finish off by the end of this year and looking forward for something new in 2012.

Anyway sorry about the rambling, I just thought of creating a post to see if there is any one else who is aiming to submit by the end of this year/first week of Jan?

All the very best to everyone!!

Cheers!(up)

Congratulations Dr. KB!!! (gift)

Hi all,

Phewwww!!!!!, I managed to solve the problem with my code which has been haunting me for almost a month and as expected it was something silly!! I hope I wouldn't have to encounter any more of these issues. It is good to see that everyone is getting on well with writing up and I sort of stopped writing for the last two weeks as I had to concentrate on solving this issue. Also I have moved into the staff accommodation which is hardly two minutes walk from my work place (earlier I was travelling 40 min - 1 hr) which means I have handful of extra hours to work. Now that everything seems to be in place, I am going to restart writing up in full swing.

I am aiming to finish the first six chapters by the end of May:
1. Introduction
2. Literature review
3. Algorithms
4. Models
5. Validation
6. Study I

Concurrently I will be working on Study II and Study III, and hopefully if I managed to finish these by the end of May I can carry on writing the rest of the four chapters,

7. Study II
8. Study III
9. Conclusions
10. Future Work

I am keeping my fingers crossed to submit my thesis in the first week of October!!

All the very best to all of you!!! (up)

Thanks Pink_numbers. He he, I chose my name almost one year ago when I was really so!! Things have gotten better but still way more to go.

My god, am so impressed with you Fm! I can't manage just myself and you are running around doing a full time work, without compromising your personal life and doing a PhD. Bravo!!

Today has been a disaster for me, I have been spending the whole day trying to solve the problem which I have but in vain. It is sometimes frustrating to spend days together doing nothing but trouble shooting. I have decided to take a break this evening, so going to watch the Black Swan in the cinema.

Everyone, have a good week end!! (up)

Hi gals and guys,

Thanks Pink_numbers for starting this post. My funding runs out in September 2011 which means I will have to submit my thesis on the 1st of October! I have sort of decent results which I can put into my thesis but I need considerable data to generate which I am working on. I am right now stuck with a problem which I am trying to solve and hopefully I will be able to crack it by the end of this week. I have had delays in starting my work as I did not get the necessary tool/software for my project. But anyway it is better to be late than never. So I have been putting up the bits and pieces together and am at the final step. I have started writing up fairly recently and have outlined the structure of my thesis and have created the template with chapters, sections and subsections and filling it up slowly. Taking February out I just have 7 months to get quite some results and to write up as well. I am a very hard worker and I am quite confident that I will make it (hopefully)!!!;-)

It is actually an in-house software of some other institute which they promised to give us for my project. They promised almost when I started my PhD here and still haven't got it yet. I am not sure about how long it is going to take.

Hi all, I am half way through my PhD and I am still waiting for a software on which my entire project topic is based on. I am completely down now as I just have one year and four months do work and generate results and write up my thesis. My supervisors are really very nice and they know very well that this is completely not in my hands at all. They are thinking about diverting the topic a bit. I am very much worried now if I will be able to finish it on time with good quality. I feel so depressed and incompetent all the time. Please help me with your suggestions.