Listen to your gut feeling.

I was my supervisor 's second PhD student. It was great in terms of availability and resources as he really cared. It was bad in terms of workload as he was too ambitious and workaholic.

Yes, I used lots of coloured maps etc. I did the graphs in grayscale and printed them colour (looks better). I printed separately on good quality paper, and asked them to post to binders (too expensive).

The opposite holds true with more senior academics being far more involved and supportive and "excited about". I find it hard to believe that one spent 4 years and resources that mount up to thousands of pounds, that would not even stimulate an interesting conversation for a couple of hours. At the end of the day, if being an examiner is such a drag, refuse politely and let someone else do it. Yes, some academics actually enjoy it ! Crazy, I know

pd1598 criticism on someone's work is essential when submitting to a journal, or there are problems with the PhD. It is pointless when a candidate had at least two supervisors involved, has presented in conferences and has journals accepted. That means that this work has been criticised by at least ten people before. It is pointless when they don't have something substantial and they go through the pages trying to find something to say that may not even have a scientific basis. It's not a "pat in the head" you expect but you walk into a viva hoping that the other academics share your enthusiasm and love for the subject, and they really want to discuss about it, not fill in some forms, ask the standard questions, and go home.

Hi TreeofLife,

I had a very similar viva experience and I also got minor corrections. I have experienced the micro-aggressions in the viva. I went to the viva knowing that I will not fail, as I had a two-digit number of publications (journals, conferences, book chapters, technical reports etc).

My 4-year PhD was overall a positive experience (apart from the financial exploitation side of things). But the viva stays in my memory as a stain. They were late. The nicest thing they said was " there is enough for a PhD". They were unpleasant throughout. The external was talking to me slowly (because I am foreigner I assume, despite living in England for a decade). It did not shake my confidence but it reminded me of how important it is that we are gentle and kind to each other.

In any case just finish the corrections and forget about it. Maybe some day there is a PhD by publication (where people contribute to something) and there is no need for vivas.

To all of you out there, choose examiners wisely. They should be nice people and good scientists.

Stalk him to find out where he lives, then break into his house and hide under the couch. Wait until Sunday morning when he reads his newspaper with a warm cup of coffee, and then subtly slip the printed version of the paper inside the newspaper.

"I stumbled upon a paper that carried out a pre-test to generate items"

Contact the authors of this paper and ask them for the questionnaire. Most people are happy to help.
This is what I did :)

I also wanted to collect some characteristics of participate and case studies. As I didn't know which factors would be important, I used extensive standardised questionnaires. Developing such questionnaires might be a project on its own. The key here is standardised

Do you have any other contact person in the department? Like a post-doc or PhD student who will be supporting you on a daily basis? Contact them instead. Book a visit in the department if you can.
And keep calm, he is just busy.

Congratulations !!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you are currently working, get some time off to do the changes rather than stressing over them on weekends :)

Good advice already!

I just want to add that "things are slower" is an illusion that deceives many students. You might not have the day-to-day to deliver specific outcomes, but you have milestones you should be hitting every six months or so.

I can't speak for other PhD experiences, but my PhD was harder than my previous job (I ran my own practice as an engineer) both in terms of long-hours and intellectual effort.

I have to deal with such issues of open aggressiveness from individuals from my cohort even post- PhD. I think it is very much related to the few academic places available, and the large number of PhD students produced in mass. People feel insecure and view me as a competitor to their success. It is hard to deal with this issue. I have my own issues of feeling like an outcast since childhood (for various reasons), so I can't deal very well with aggressiveness/ rejection etc...

Passive-aggressive disruption when working quietly using loud music, drawer-banging, loud phone calls etc was the preferred strategy from another individual in the open space. But I was less concerned about that.

Hi SecondWing,

I had to look up the term! Sorry. Yes, it is quite common (that's why it has a name!).

A friend of mine didn't manage to get a new academic position after moving cities, but as a couple they have a better quality of life in the new place now.

Some other academics work from home most days of the week and commute two-three days etc. Commuting in these cases varies from 1 to 3 hours. This is particularly true for London academics that are often out-priced by the rent. In those cases they are flexible, but that might not be achievable if you are lab-based.

Hope it works out for you.

A control group can be unethical. If you start an intervention that there is evidence that is beneficial for a group of people, then you deny these benefits from the control.

So, one way to go around this problem, is to offer to the control group an improved version of the intervention next year.

I don't know exactly how many words, because I did mine in latex, but it was really short, 165 pages with lots of images graphs and tables included. I estimate it was 50k (maximum 100k). Possibly in social sciences :) passed with minor.

People who write more than 80k have a strategy: bore the examiners to death, make them lose the will to live, become suicidal etc :)

Finish the PhD. The PhD is training on how to do research, the topic is largely irrelevant. You have a fellowship and a supportive environment, which is just as good as it gets.

Apply for a postdoc anywhere you wish. My undergraduate degree is so different from my postdoc that people just stare at me when I tell my story :) in the department I did the PhD you could find architects, psychologists, mechanical engineers, physicists, mathematicians, epidemiologists, medics, chemists, microbiologist, economists working on the SAME project :)

Good luck!