It amuses me how Badhaircut's constant critcism in the past of the status quo in academia turns into complete support as soon as he becomes part of the system (gets comfy in his postdoc job). Critics of the status quo have a point when they say that the constant desire to publish may not lead always to the best work being published or by the best people simply those who are willing to continually churn out a high quantity of new articles (sometimes regardless of quality).

Oh, I can see myself failing my viva too, as i am not eloquent either, i think its so much pressure to have your whole phd life on the line - on that one day , that one viva. scary !!! oh well, we can all just try our best and hope for the best. at least he gave it his best shot, poor guy, i do feel for him though. as i can see it happening to me. but then again getting a phd is no easy feat, and you gotta talk, think and act like a scholar. at least he gets a mphil out of it, which is good.

I have been told that a candidate rarely enters the viva examination room without the examiners already having their decision made as to whether candidate is going to pass or fail. If a pass is on the cards, a candidate will have to really mess up, possibly raising doubts as to whether the work is their own etc, to end up failing.

Thus, there is no point getting nervous in the viva as our fates are usually already decided ! :-(

well in that case, that makes me feel better :-) id rather have my fate decided before my viva lol. takes the pressure off.

me too! i would be happy if i could submit my thesis when i felt it was good and ready, instead of having to submit because of the deadline. i know people say, well then you will never submit. but i am sure i heard in the olden days you submitted your phd thesis, after years and years and years of work, sometimes the phd would be an accumulation of your life's work! nowadays its like a conveyer belt, belting out phds after 3-4 years. i admire those that can do it, dont get me wrong. thats fantastic, but sometimes in science, things dont always go the way you planned.

i read this really nice article in Nature, about a scientist who's an incredible scientist now, that failed his phd! but he did eventually get his phd later on.
{{ 'failure' was a blessing in disguise.}}

Nature 431, 1041 (28 October 2004) Published online 27 October 2004

Bruce Alberts
Turning points A wake-up call


Bruce Alberts is the president of the National Academy of Sciences, 500 5th Street, NW, Washington DC

"How failing a PhD led to a strategy for a successful scientific career.

One of my most important formative experiences as a scientist was very traumatic at the time. In the spring of 1965, I had finished writing my PhD thesis at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had purchased aeroplane tickets to take my wife Betty and our one-year-old daughter with me for a postdoctoral year in Geneva, Switzerland.

Only one step remained — a meeting of my thesis committee to approve the granting of my PhD degree in biophysics. No one in recent memory had failed at this late stage ...But to my great surprise, the committee failed me, specifying the need for more experiments that eventually required six more months of research.

This was, of course, a great embarrassment and a shock to my ego.

....I was to spend the next few months struggling to answer two questions that would be critical for my future. What had gone wrong, and did I really have what it takes to be a scientist?

..In retrospect, the shock of having my PhD thesis rejected in 1965 proved to be a critical step in shaping me as a scientist, because it forced me to recognize the central importance of the strategy that underlies any major scientific quest."

he then talks about how other labs are always in a race to just publish, but are unlikely to make unique contributions, because they take the "safe road" but the risky road, where the result might end up being negative is seldom taken.


"I had witnessed the frustration of scientists who were pursuing obvious experiments that were simultaneously being carried out in other laboratories. These scientists were constantly in a race. It had always seemed to me that, even if they were able to publish their results six months before a competing laboratory, they were unlikely to make truly unique contributions.

I had used a different strategy. My approach had been that of predicting how a particular biological process might work and then taking years to test whether my guess might be right. This was enormously risky. The good news was that I was carrying out experiments that were different from those being done by everyone else. The problem was that these tests could produce only a 'yes' or 'no' answer. If 'yes', I might be able to add something unique to the world's store of scientific knowledge. But if 'no', I would learn nothing of real value — in this case, I could eliminate just one of the many possible ways in which DNA replication might begin."

"The months of analysis triggered by the wake-up call of my PhD failure finally produced an answer. I would look for a unique experimental approach, but one that would have a high probability of increasing our knowledge of the natural world, regardless of the experimental results obtained."

that to me is great science. not focused on producing papers like some sort of factory. i didn't like the pressure my sups put on me to produce papers, everything was geared towards papers, instead of a phd. i'm seeing the same thing happening to my collegues, they almost are putting their phds in the back burner, and saying to each student, 'we expect at least 2 papers out of you'. instead of focusing on their phd thesis! i know sups have pressure to produce papers for grants etc, but they see phd students as "cheap labour" in producing papers. i may sound cynical, but i am not the only one that feels this way. its happening more and more these days.

and they try to make it out like you wont pass your phd if you dont have your work published first. its done so subtly, you dont even realise it!

Thanks for the article Juno, it was very interesting to read.

I agree with the comments he made about how the focus should be on producing a good thesis instead of submitting it within 3-4 years, and whether the work reflects the time instead of the quality, and originality and whether it contributes to the ether of knowledge.

I hardly ever agree with Commonsense, but in this case I do. BadHairCut, have they brainwashed you? Since it's going well and your the number two in your lab, you seem to completely have transformed into one of the academic monkeys? Or is it the money they paid you?

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PhD these days has completely no value. The level is s**t and its all about numbers and not research. Its completely waste of time.

That's what my 'ex-boyfriend' told me. I just start my phd cause he dump me for no reason. i leave in much more emptiness and some kind of sadness.

Hey, I am just pointing out that UK PhDs aren't worthless.

I despise the publish or perish mentality just as much as anyone else and the politics, gameplaying, etc. However, that said publication IS at some level a fairly objective yardstick that your work is taken seriously at some level, and that you aren't coasting by on a biased supervisor with a biased mate on the external panel. Would you prefer me to say "Why yes! All British PhDs ARE worthless!", because that simply isn't true.





I think you have a point about being an academic monkey -they do pay me peanuts. But isn't it inevitable that I am going to defend British academia at least at some level if thats what I have chosen to do with my life?