Hi Nige,

I'm writing from Australia, so things may be slightly different here, but I would think that you could accept this offer and then if something better came along, withdraw if needed without academic or financial penalties applying. These would only apply perhaps (if at all) if you withdrew after actually commencing and making progress in the course next year (even then I'm not sure that they would).

My perspective would be to consider it and if you have no other offers before the month is up, accept it. You can always decline or withdraw your application/acceptance later down the track if other offers are made or if you have made other plans.

Hi GiGi, what you are describing sounds like a really difficult and distressing experience-and given you have been quite ill and had leave for this- you would be more vulnerable to your supervisor's mood swings and her recent harsh behaviour towards you.

I thought your last post, where you were looking at finding a way to work through this and exploring different options and suggestions provided by other forumites was terrific! How strong you are in doing this-good for you!

I hope you don't mind if I ask a question-I'm curious in that I think you have said that this behaviour and relationship issues between you and your supervisor have only occurred recently-and prior to your illness, in the last 2-3 years things between you were pretty good? Have I interpreted this correctly?

Could it be that your supervisor is also going through some hellish experience (nothing to do with you), something like a divorce or relationship or work issue, that is causing her to behave in this stressed out, unprofessional and unsupportive way? Perhaps right at this point in time where you are recovering from an illness and are stressed and exhausted, she is also going through something very stressful and difficult and this is influencing how she interacts with you.

My perspective would be that you still need to look after you. Follow up on the different options, keep talking to helpful academics, support staff or student counsellors to help you through. However, perhaps time will also assist with this issue-if indeed it is unusual or out of character for your supervisor to treat you this way and this has not been a feature of your relationship prior to recent times. (PS: I am not saying that her behaviour is acceptable or fair in any way or that it would be in any way easy to ignore).

Hi RougeMelon, the PhD can get pretty lonely and isolated at times and the first few months are notorious for being confusing all round for many of us. Year 1 of the PhD can be a bit like finding one's way through a labyrinth blindfolded and on a unicycle! If you have a good supervisor, they are calling out encouraging advice from the side and if you have an unhelpful supervisor they are criticising you like mad as you fumble your way around!

So, what you are writing about does not sound unusual-not that this makes it any easier to bear mind you, when you are going through it-it can be a horrible experience at times.

I'm also wondering whether you are the sort of person who prefers working with others rather than on one's own and benefits from regular feedback from peers or your supervisors/academics. The loneliness of the PhD can take a while to adjust to. Can you set yourself some small goals for the next week or so and then give yourself a break over Christmas, so that you can do some things outside of the lab that you enjoy? Something that involves some form of socialising or similar or at least involves an enjoyable activity beyond the lab walls?

Some of the people here on another thread have set up a facebook site for meeting up or providing social media support, so that might be worth checking out as well. It is on the thread saying 'fulltime or part-time' located up at the top of the thread page at the moment.

It sounds like things might improve in January when some new students join your faculty/lab, so perhaps just having a bit of a plan to get through the next 2-3 weeks might assist with managing these negative and confusing feelings until you work your way through them. In most cases they do pass and you get beyond the labyrinth stage and move into the dire and gloomy marshes of data collection. If these feelings don't pass though or they do get worse, please make sure you seek support from friends or university staff or wellbeing or healthcare professionals.

Ravenix, congratulations on passing and receiving only minor corrections. Well done, that is a great result. I agree with ToL in that I would think you only have to do the items on the list to complete and pass your MPhil. The other suggestions read as if the examiners believe these suggestions would improve your work overall but are not mandatory for a pass.

They may have also included them in case you were thinking of publishing (and I imagine you would be hoping to publish an article from this) and/or your examiners had different reports and suggestions and when your panel or chair looked at both reports and had to determine your next step, the ones on the list are the must dos-with the others being suggestions made by one or other of your examiners, but not ruled as absolutely necessary by your chair. (Just surmising-could be wrong).

I know it must be pretty hard now to go back and do those suggestions in the next month. However, if you just tackle them one at a time, you will be able to do them and then graduate! How good will that be...best wishes and good luck-and don't rule out that article.

This post is related to Tree of Life's comments. I hope it presents a realistic but not unsupportive perspective on the process from someone who is just completing it.

I have completed a PhD part time in Education while working full time in senior teaching/leadership roles in secondary schools. It is hard and it has taken me just under 6 years to write, but the final parts of faffing around before submission and now the wait for my results will make this whole process to be around 6 and a half years in length That is if my results are fairly positive and do not include a R & R result. (My examiners reports are just in-the late one arrived late yesterday- but currently are doing the rounds of the admin and panel chair before they are disseminated to my supervisors and me. I am hoping to hear any day now what the results are-fingers crossed they do not include an R & R as while I will cope with this, an R & R result will be at least another year before completion).

My topic was initially in an area that I was actively working in professionally but the thing is as you get new roles or promotions your focus changes and as the PhD has taken so many years, what I am in working in now is quite different than my study topic, although the skills and much of the knowledge have been useful-even if now they are not directly related.

There was no way that I could spend time at work on my study. I work long hours and need to be totally focused on my professional work during the working day-which often involve very long working days working on admin and professional responsibilities, a small of amount of class room teaching and a much more substantial portion supporting students and families and working/leading staff.

I tended to use my weekends, holidays and two or three stints of leave to complete major writing tasks. So there were times when I could tag some weeks of long service leave onto a term break and have a couple of months to focus completely on the thesis. These breaks and the holiday and long weekend days helped in the first 4 years or so. This last final year I have worked hours on the PhD after work 2 or 3 nights of every week and every weekend and holiday to complete and submit.

Has it been worth it? Well yes, I think so, but ask me after I receive my results. Has it provided what I thought it would? No, not really but I don't regret it. Will it lead to further work, employment or promotion? Possibly but it isn't strictly necessary for the professional work that I do. Masters are often far more useful -I have one of these as well though. Do people understand what it is and entails-mostly they have no idea. But that's okay.

PS: I would also add that if I did use my time during paid employment to work on my study and this time was taken from my daily job, this would not have been regarded well by my employers and my colleagues, and direct reports would have been absolutely scathing about it.

Tudor, at my university, you have nothing to do with choice of examiners. The only choice you do have is that you can specify to your panel and the Graduate Research team (not your supervisors) that you wish a particular examiner excluded and if you do this you need to complete an online form and state your reasons in writing. That is about it as far as any choice or influence goes. I think this would be the same for many (if not all) universities in Australia.

Hi Emaa,

My university's library does not allow students to share online books with others. It is a bit different to articles from Academic Journals, which are fairly easily downloaded as pdf.s and shared. I'm not sure why but I think this might be because single articles from a non-profit academic journal, while not exactly public property, are regarded rather like public information and are accessible to all either online through formal membership-or in hard copy (to read and photocopy) to any person visiting the library-whether a member or not.

Sorry not to be able to assist this time. Given this is a reference book, does your local library membership allow you to access this from its online resources?

Australia offers scholarships and living stipends. These are very competitive however. In Australia you do not have to have a Masters degree before qualifying for a PhD. You do have to have honours though and would need a 1 or 2.1 to qualify for any form of scholarship.

The reason you don't have to necessarily have a Masters in Australia is that over here 'honours' is a further year, so it qualifies as a postgraduate degree, whereas in universities in the UK for example, I think honours is embedded in your initial 3 year undergrad qualification.

You generally only need the Masters if you did not do the extra honours qualifier. (For example, I used my extra year of funded study to get a teaching qualification on top of my degree rather than the honours year and then did the Masters later as a self funded degree- so as to qualify for a PhD. I still had to achieve a 1 or 2.1 in that to qualify for any form of PhD beyond self funding).

What you need to do is some research-find out what universities you might be interested in and then look up their various scholarships and stipend packages and see if you qualify and apply (apply for several not just one). I don't think you would qualify for the government living and fee scholarships (which are available to Australian students) but universities are keen to get excellent students, so they often offer a range of special scholarships beyond these for outstanding applicants and these may be also open to international applicants.

I would just add one word of caution, Australia makes a great deal of money out of international students, who fully fund themselves, and so competition for an overseas student for both fees scholarship and a living stipend is extremely competitive. However, it may depend on your particular speciality. Biomedical engineering would be an area that may offer some opportunities and if you have published and have a great proposal, that could make the difference.

PS: I've attached a link to a non-commercial site that provides scholarship information for International students and sent this in a PM. It might have some helpful and encouraging information.

To the original poster: Why do you ask? Are you thinking of starting up some form of business?

Actually at 30 years of age I was the mother of three children, 8, 6 and 4 years of age and newly divorced from an absolutely terrible marriage. I had had a great deal of worldly experience and was an avid amateur scholar but had low self belief and did not believe that my keen interest and reading in history, psychology and literature amounted to a 'row of beans', but was just a quirky habit. Having looked at growth mindsets and underachievement within my thesis, and also having worked very hard on understanding how childhood patterns and trauma can affect our choices, I understand much more about the choices I made as a young person and how they impacted then on my life and even now.

I'm not sure why I feel the need to state this now, PM133, perhaps just a need to acknowledge that unhappy young 30 year old, trying desperately to look after her children, blaming herself for everything, and choosing not progress to honours (extra years of study) and further studies beyond the initial undergraduate degree despite achieving outstanding grades, as her children needed a mother who was there for them and had some form of professional and stable employment.

Tudor, are you really at that point where you need to make the break? I'm asking as your supervisors may, like you, just want to get on with it and move you through the final year. They would have more invested in success than failure as ultimately this all reflects on them as well.

The last year is hard and it isn't uncommon to become annoyed with supervisors as they criticise your work in order for it to be a quality piece.

The issues you are talking about now with your supervisors (the ones you mention who only communicate in writing) will continue as this is the main part of the last year. EG: Supervisors constantly criticising your writing until you are at the point where you are signed off and can submit. This is going to happen no matter what.

You are ultimately going to probably change some things to suit them and there may be a few instances where you argue your point-and you can do this through email. I finished the last 10 months of my thesis through distance and most of the discussion regarding changes during this time was through email.

Your main supervisor sounds like she is a person whose opinion you value very much. Can you discuss your concerns with her about how it all might work?

It is a tough situation and I think we all empathise with you. However, I think you need to talk this out with someone in person and perhaps you may be able to work through the situation as it is with some support and a bit of a game plan. Best wishes P.

This response is not so much regarding the journal article example as I think you have worked out what you think is best to do there Tudor. It is more to do with the issue of ongoing collaboration or work and what works for me. So it may or may not be helpful.

The thing is, in the professional world you generally have to collaborate with others to complete work and trust is not always present, nor do all parties necessarily think, feel or process in the same way. So it can be really difficult. When this happens, Covey's concept of 'trust in the process not the person' is something I find really helpful.

Someone could be quite difficult to work with for a range of reasons. They may have radically different values and they may process things cognitively very differently, and this difference in itself means that achieving trust is more difficult.

I guess with the PhD, one is lucky in that you can change supervisors if you really have to, while as professionally you often have little choice over who you collaborate with.

Tudor, when I find I am working or collaborating with people who I don't particularly like or whom I know may not particularly like me or value the way I go about things, Stephen Covey's line (quoted above) always comes to mind and I work on making sure I have a good and equitable process. Make everything visible, accountable, above board and follow clear procedural guidelines. Then the feelings can sit in the background, but not get in the way of doing things and general respect for all parties is the order of the day.

I'll go and have a rant to someone I trust privately at some point when the feelings become really stretched and strained by difficult behaviour. This is always in person, to a trustworthy source and never put in writing.

What does your current supervisor for your Masters say Lissal? Are you hoping to extend your Masters study into a PhD thesis or do you want to try something new? Have you discussed your wish to go on and complete a doctorate with your current supervisor? They may be able to help with references, information and support.

Personally, I don't think it would hurt at all to email potential supervisors at Monash and express your interest. No doubt you will still need to go through the regular processes and applications for scholarships and stipends, which will be pretty competitive, especially for Monash, but I would imagine some, if not all, of the academics you email (regarding future doctoral supervision) will respond with encouragement and information that would be helpful.

Best wishes, P.

Hi mak17, I put your reference into my library's search tab and it came up with many articles by your authors on Thymoquinone-and some even used similar titles including the term 'promising' and 'clinical trial' but none had this specific title including nanoparticles, and none were from the Journal of Nanoscience.

Given the large number of similar articles that turned up in my library by your author/s, I checked with google just to see if there were any mistakes in title and noticed that your article came up immediately from an online science provider (with a large price tag attached). Sorry, this is not a great deal of help. However, if you need other Thymoquinone articles by Majed AbuKhader, then there is a chance I can provide one of these. However, I'm gathering you are focusing on the nanoparticles rather than the Thymoquinone?

(I'm not expecting to be a member of this library after a few more months once finished, so my thinking is I will help out other members with article access where I can)

Best, P.

Hi Aldermere, as you may have gathered from previous responses, it is a bit hard to know what they might ask as it all depends on context (and quite possibly level of funding, availability of staff/resources at that university). My interview was some time ago and it is all a bit vague now.

However, given a different faculty, context, country, and level of funding-I applied for fee and research costs scholarship but not living expenses-given this, they mainly:

* Wanted to go through my application and proposal briefly
* Wanted to check regarding my preferences for supervisors so they could assist with allocation
* Checked that I was the same person 'in person' as 'on paper' (including level of confidence and my understanding of the process)
* Checked that I had some background knowledge of my research topic and could discuss this in interview
* Wanted to know my reasons for applying for a doctorate
* Gave me an outline of the process to follow.