It's best to start with the rest of the cohort really, so you can work to the same deadlines as everyone else and get the same training etc. Start at the start of next academic year. You can start PhDs at any point though, that's why he's asking. You'll probably get thrown in the deep end and it's sink or swim. Best of luck.

Wow, this is a great post Faded! So inspirational! Glad you had the courage to sit in the front row and it must be so satisfying knowing others agree with your opinions. We definitely need an upvote system :)

That's good to know :) Don't chase the examiners yourself, you're not supposed to do that, ask the research office or someone to do it for you. 3 months is a long time to be waiting. Although I guess if that's normal for your uni they won't want to chase them.

Have you spoken to the student union?

You're worrying too much. It's perfectly fine to not have done all the corrections, as long as you provided justification. You should chase up the outcome, it's been long enough now.

A lot. And I didn't know know all the answers. What's the mode of action of ampicillin? I've looked this up a thousand times and I still don't remember, I just chuck it in the media and it kills the non-transformed bacteria.

You are probably expecting too much from your supervisor. They are there to give you with the big directions, not necessarily give you day to day training in the lab. You can find most things you need from speaking to others in the lab and department and from googling. A PhD is meant to be independent research. This is not undergrad.

Sorry to hear you're suffering at the moment. Can you take a break? Maybe go on holiday? Are you eating, sleeping and exercising well?

Can you seek counselling from somewhere? Get some treatment for depression? It sounds like you really need to complete this PhD. It's probably not as bad as it seems, you can still recover from this. Try to ask some other people in your cohort if they can help you pass the class maybe?

Hi, yes I know this feeling. It's been the same for me to be honest. All of my close friends are now married with kids and at a very different stage in their lives to me (I'm in a teaching focused academic position). I don't know what the answer is. I work more and see my friends less. I don't really mind though because I don't particularly want to sit around and talk about babies all day anyway. You may find it changes for you once you finish your PhD.

Keep going, you know it's a numbers game. Eventually you'll get something.

A pass is fine at masters level. No one really looks at grades.

This is generally up to your supervisors. I imagine it totally varies, some are in every day 9-5 and others only pop in. You will benefit from being around peers though, rather than trying to work in isolation.

If you are doing a fulltime PhD, I wouldn't consider working, because it's really difficult to sustain both. If you're funded, you might find a stipulation with how many hours you can work e.g. only 6 hours per week during work hours on non-research focused work in the department.

You need to email the uni and tell them about your dilemma and ask them to speed up the process or confirm to you that it's all finalised.