Hi everyone! Just joined after reading and enjoying lots of threads. I'm looking for a bit of advice: I'm doing a Phd at a university which is a wee bit away from me (2 hour train journey). I tend to work at home and as a result my desk etc has been reallocated to another student. I don't use any of the uni's resources and mainly communicate via e-mail with sup. I've paid my fees in full and just feel it's a lot of money to pay for just a monthly meeting. Anyone else in a similar position?
Cheers!

Hi Zipidee,

  Welcome to the forum! I come into uni each day, but I don't have a desk either, I just grab whatever computer I can find that day! I'm wondering though, when you said you don't use any of the uni's resources, does that mean you don't even access journals through your institutional account?

CB

I'm part-time, and my fees were the equivalent pro-rata of full-time, even though I wasn't in campus every day, didn't have an office space (though my department - in humanities - is a bit rubbish at providing desk space for postgrads), and hardly used the library. But I just accepted it as how things were, a bit unfair, but nothing I could do very much about. As a part-time at-home student I felt very cut off from support networks like other students, which was more of a problem during the tough patches.

Thanks so much for replies - just wanted to know if it was fairly normal! Missing out on the student network is a real disadvantage of working at a distance and do feel like I'm not getting social side of experience. I work as well so don't really have time or money to go up on a regular basis. I suppose it was my decision to go to that uni (based on supervisor) so I should just get on with it! :-)
thanks again x

Yes, I'm distance too, but PhD students in my country don't pay fees, so at least I don't have that to worry about. The worst thing about working from home is the isolation, it can be absolutely crushing. This forum helps, as does http://www.phinished.org. The other really bad thing is that not being on campus means that I have missed out on opportunities - my peers get offered work, as they're around, networking etc etc and their careers are taking off, whereas mine isn't...So, try and network too, if you can.