Argh! The viva is at the end of July in two weeks! 2 weeks! Freak out!!!!!

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Yes, it is cheating. But in this economic crisis I don't blame the graduate students that work for these essay mills. In any case, the outrage of universities is kind of missplaced anyway in my opinion. Everybody knows that the corporate university is a 2.1 degree mill for middle-class student customers. Marking schemes and appeals are all linked to pleasing customers and giving them what they have paid for. In my experience I have seen many GTA's give essays thirds or 2.2's and have them moderated upwards These essay mills clearly cater to wealthy /lazy students who need help or an in actuality ill-suited to degree level study. In part this is the fault of universities for taking such students on in the first instance. It interests me how universities will talk about these mills threatening their standards - but actually, far greater a threat is the pressure from within to comform to a business model (keeping customers happy, statistics, etc)...

In a neo-liberal state, essay mills and corporate universities handing out mass 2.1s are the logical outcome of education. Both are the marketisation of education.

Just my tuppence.

It took me 3 years and 9 months to research and write-up, so stick in there Walminski! It might be almost 4 years by the time the vivia is done and corrections made...(in this time my brother has had two children and one is now walking and talking, the other just about toddling around...)

If you can't speak much German already, make sure your Doktorvater can and is willing to give feedback in English. I have a friend who's supervisor very quickly started giving feedback only in German way too early - and so it was a steep, steep learning curve.

In the humanities, as I observed it, PhD students tended to see their supervisors a few times a year and were expected to be independent and produce work. They seemed to last of a similar duration but ended in a publication of the thesis as a monograph as part of a condition of finishing (this happens a lot, so don't worry - they do get published) The institution I stayed at provided free German lessons for me.

A flatmate of mine in Germany did some form of molecular genetics project, and he found his lab international and friendly. They spoke English most of the time, and would take lunch together.

I would take the German project. A chance to live abroad and learn a new language (if you don't know it already) - I saw a few Max Planck facilities and some of FU's too and they seemed very modern and well-provisioned.

You can do it!(up)

So sorry to hear about your poor dog, I hope thet make a recovery. Hug.

You can do it - you are so, so close!!

Thanks for all your comments people! :) Just read the thesis through - and there are a number of typos in there that escaped. :(

It has taken 3 years and 9 months, two supervisors, two funding bodies, and two different countries, but my thesis is finally done and in. It looked so nice when it was bound (lots of images).

So wow, 86,000 words in a humanities area I had no previous experience of. Hoping for the best. Haven't printed a copy of my own because my viva won't be for ages and I will only flip through in despair.

But yes, it is in - how weird.

I joined this forum in 2006 and never imagined I would finish. Thanks for all your support over the years and esp. in the last difficult stages.

:)

I didn't use endnote, but I did use a popular webmail account named after a famous search engine (hint, begins with G - no advertising here...) . It is free and has tons of memory and is fully searchable. So I used to email work and papers as pdfs or word documents to it, or little ideas in emails....so it I typed a word like "pineapple" into the search it would bring up all emails related to that. I found it a great way to remember and remind me of things.

Printer took bloody ages

Now I need to be at wrok in 15 mins, and will haver to take it to the binders tmrw. I am absoultely hysterical right now. grrrrrrrr. well submission tmrw, with ane elctronic date for yesterdat. sigh.

Now to work, and then to mark gcse papers all night. Wish I could jsut get a hug. so bloody annoying.

Argh, why me?!

Luckily I electronically submitted it (uni does wants that) last night so my date of submission is yesterday as agreed - but disaster printing this morning. The colour printer messed up at uni and instead of printing out just the images printed the entire thesis of 288 pages in colour. *****!!!!! argh.

So £60 on my uni print account for one thesis copy for an examiner - I won't be paying that off for a while. I still have to sort out the other one now. Work at 1-4 so I really need to get this bound soon - come on printer!!! Will have to hand in after work and whether that it today or tmrw I really don't know now.

What an annoyance. I jsut wish I hadn't slept in a bit later today, but was so exahusted from little sleep for 36 hours.

:(

Hi - I had problems formatting everything and it took ages to re-go over the bibliogrpahy. I am printing it off now and will take it to the binders first thing in the morning. Exhausted.

Fell asleep after marking GCSE papers, have formatted the entire thesis as ready to print - except the abstract! Need to write that asap and then dash to the printers before they shut at 15:00!!!!

Thanks people. I am putting the coffee pot on. I am switching between marking GCSE papers and doing foonotes. In a hour or two I will attempt the abstract!

Thanks ! A kind friend with his knowledge of word has taken my (what I thought) was formatted document and spent the best part of a day formatting things. It really looks like a thesis now. I could have never have done this without help.

Footnotes are better than I though, just need standardising. still the abstract looms...500 words to sum up!