Hey I am sorry you didn't have such a good expereince. However, I don't think you should quit without taking any time out to review everything with a clear head. Also although it seem bad now, they would not have passed you if they didnt think you were doing something right! Maybe you should use it as constructuve criticism so your project will be even better and will benefit from their comments

It just feels like there isn't much of a research environment, like I can easily spend days on end not speaking to a single person if the other phd students are not in, and its a bit draining when the dept treat you like this! advice welcome!!

Hey! I have enjoyed reading the messages on the forum but until now have not posted. My PhD is going really well as I find the topic enjoyable and have a great supervisor. What I wanted to discuss was the lack of support or respect in the dept, where everyone treats you like an undergrad. For instance, the admin staff have been telling me I cannot go into the kitchen to make tea as I am only a 'student'. Also one of the other PhD students asked about attending a conference being hosted by my dept on my campus and was told there are only a few spaces so you cannot really go unless its really important to your research and if your supervisor writes a letter to this effect. I mean this is just wrong isn't it? we shouldn't even have to ask for these sort of things in our own dept!!! and we our in the best position to judge if a particular conference would be useful ourselves!! sorry for the rant but I just feel like my dept is soooo crap at looking after phD students and it gets me down!!!