sorry to disappoint you there, Chris, but obviously that was a joke. I don't have a clue what happened to DanB.

DanB, if you are still reading it, tell us what you've been up to.

Tbh, I'm talking rubbish.

Otherwise I wouldn't have two bottles of Berryblast Volvic Revive with Ginseng and Guarana standing in front of me in order to pull an all nighter

I this drink.

Well, it depends on the individual case. But expecting everybody to work on the weekends should not be the standard, IMO. I tend to work better in the middle of the night, too, but I doubt that this lifestyle is healthy over long periods of time. Lectures tend to be in the morning, so most academics would have problems to regularly do research in the middle of the night as teaching quality would suffer. I just don't believe academia is healthy for anybody, to be honest.

My advisor does not reply to emails over the weekend or after 8pm and quite frankly, I admire him for this. Drawing a clear line might be annoying for the student but good for the health of the academic. Emergencies are a different story, obviously.

Penny, you haven't got a clue, apparently.

Why not take the 20,000 Pounds Sterling and donate them to a charity - money better spend I reckon.

Just heard from DanB for those who remember him.
After he got evicted from his PhD in early 2007 he went to Sudan to work in a UNICEF camp for about six months. Had Malaria and returned. Subsequently he travelled Asia and is now thinking about applying for a new PhD in an unrelated area. He added that he'll soon be back on this forum, with the new username BannD2006.

And also, if I was married to that woman who meets with a PhD student on a Sat morning and is checking her emails at 3am on a Friday night I would probably file a divorce. Only the existence of certain unhealthy research cultures does not eliminate the fact that they are rubbish!

sorry sleepyhead but I think what you write does not make any sense at all. I don't know why you assume that being a PhD supervisor must involve working on weekends?? That's just rubbish. In fact, working on weekends is not very healthy over the long term.

Replying to students within a day is not good practice either. To meet student's expectations includes reply within a reasonable period of time, that could be anything up to 5 working days, depending on the nature of the email (for example if it includes reading lenghty drafts, etc.).

I see where you are both coming from but it might be worth thinking about the advisor's life work balance as well. We work to live and not vice versa.

PhD students tend to forget that because we think about our PhDs day and night. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here on a Sat afternoon trying to put words on an empty word document.

Sorry, but I'm completely on your advisor's side with this one. I wouldn't read my emails outside office hours and quite frankly, you can't seriously expect anybody to do that or "to read it over the weekend". It seems that she tries to have a life outside of university and that's a good thing. Also, if you agreed to send the stuff on Friday, sending it on Sat is just not good enough.

We are all leading very busy lives, trying to make progress in our Ph.Ds, trying to satisfy our advisors, our department, parents, partners etc.

But what life are you all secretly dreaming of, when you forget all these every day committments for a second?

You might be right, things have to change. The question is, will we live to see the changes? Given the bueraucracy in academia, the arrogance of evil and the hierarchical position of Ph.D students it seems to me that the change will take centuries to happen. That's why I'll be out of this once I graduated.

People, don't be so naive.

That scumbag (new word, found it on some other thread) is only here to exploit you and not to represent your views or reality in a balanced way. Plus, saying "will also be featured in some national newspapers" sounds annoyingly arrogant, like if the survey is only needed to confirm prefabricated positions.

The most shocking bit is how quickly someone changed his entry on Wikipedia. "He died on January,22 etc.", only a few minutes after they announced that he passed away.

Guys, please be gentle to Olivia. It's not easy to move to the UK from a different country and culture. I speak from experience.

and don't answer too quickly. Listen to the questions, take your time to think about it and then answer in a calm and confident way. Don't waffle. Keep your answer short and ask them if they would like you to go on.

You'll get the PhD. Whatever the examiners do, if they shake their heads or do anything irritating, never let them intimidate you during the viva. be confident.