I am a final year engineering PhD student that is mostly experimental.

My university is offering all final year PhD students 3-6 month extensions upon request. I have also unofficially got a 3 month bursary extension pending university finances through my research group. From what I have heard most people are not getting bursary extensions and universities are reluctant to commit any money until they know how many students they will have in September.

What does your supervisor say?

I did an integrated masters and if you failed 4th year you got a Bachelors at the grade you had at the end of 3rd year. Your student admin team will be happy to help as we asked them this question all the time.

You don't have to live your Mum and don't feel obligated to be her saviour. You have a been a good child so far and a PhD is mentally draining enough without having to look after a parent. It is not your job to look after her and there is absolutely nothing wrong wanting to succeed.

If you are afraid of telling her you don't want to live her, there is probably no easy way to tell her. So don't be afraid to rip the band aid off and be honest about wanting space.

This is a very tricky situation. You have to believe someone if they say they are meds for mental health issues as you don't wanted to be accused of being uncaring. However you can try and distance themselves as much a possible.

I know this might sound crazy but I know there were 2 PhD students in the same lab area that absolutely hated each other in the chemistry department. They agreed a rota were one of them works like 8am-2pm and the other 2pm-8pm, it is completely crazy but they avoid seeing each other. You don't have to go that extreme but you can try to become completely independent of her in the lab. Arrange two glass cupboards, your own stash of consumables, your own little space. If she asks you for something agree and be nice but play dumb and be unhelpful. If you stop facilitating them they will eventually stop bothering you.

About the equipment, does anyone else in another lab know how to use it? It avoids the hassle and you might meet new people in other labs.

Hi Tapa,

I can feel for you. My university loves shared labs and most days I come in to find someone has changed something or stolen some chemicals. I think every lab should have some basic lab rules so that everyone can work effectively and independently. Ideally there is a technician, senior researcher or supervisor who enforces it and is respected enough to get away with calling people out. If you don't have someone like that, you need to be that person or live with it.

I think you can go your supervisor but they either don't care or don't know about what is going on. Regardless, one talk with your supervisor is not going to magically fix it and you will need to be the person maintaining the standards. You can't complain about lab untidiness and then be messy. If you want equipment to be left certain settings then you will be expected to maintain the equipment. I am sorry to tell you that this is not an easy problem to fix and will require some effort on your part. So you have to choose does it annoy you that much or can you learn to live with it.

What are they discussing about you? I am trying to understand are they talking about your project, your personal life or you as person? As people will talk about you behind your back regardless of what you do and you can't stop them. You can only ask them to not share certain details with other people or not tell them certain details in the first place. I would suggest being honest with your friend and that you think she shouldn't have said certain things to your supervisor. Say that you wanted to tell your supervisor yourself and you don't want her to interfere with it, no matter how good her intentions. As it sounds like you are more upset with your friend than your supervisor.

I have had some very gossipy friends and I have learnt the hard way you can only trust them with certain things. You don't have to stop being friends, just learn not to trust them with certain secrets.

Most authors would happy to answer questions about their experiments if you ask nicely. Just be honest in your emails, saying what you want to know and what you are planning on doing. However, sometimes the corresponding doesn't know either because someone left or they simply forgot.

I hope my supervisor never works out my ID, but my answer is yes.

Nothing ever happened and I do not know her opinions but the feelings slowly faded for me. I think after a year or so, I got to know my supervisor better and started seeing her more as an older sister. I know that sounds weird and I wouldn't say I have lost all of my feelings towards my supervisor just the sexual ones. I think we are friends and I am happy with that. Not all feelings have to become sexual but can become a friendship based on mutual respect.

PS: I am not going into details

You have a submitted a review paper which is a significant amount of work in itself. At your review meeting, you can present your submitted review paper as a research output. I know several people who had no data at their first year review but had submitted a review paper, they were all fine.

You don't need a perfect research plan at this stage with detailed explanation of how you will do everything. Research plans change throughout your PhD and very few students stick to their original plan. Usually you have a firm idea of what is achievable in the next 6-12 months and your research plan becomes "fuzzier" the further into the future. So don't worry about having a super amazing 2 year plan, focus on what you can and need to do in the next 6-12 months. I know this is cynical but break your PhD down into smaller projects and work out how later.

Also, do you have a second supervisor who can help?

Hi Laurajaynejoyce,

If you self-fund the first year of your PhD you lose a lot of flexibility for getting funding in future. Funding is difficult to get and requires a funding organisation to believe the project is viable and worth while. Unless you absolutely believe in your project, you are better waiting and applying for already funded PhDs or polishing your proposal. You don't won't to get stuck with an unfundable PhD.

I agree that awards can set you apart but they have no real bearing on your ability to do research. They are nice but should have little impact on your post-doc job prospects.

Do awards matter at all? Like seriously what does getting a presentation or poster award say about your research skills, other than you can give a good presentation? Universities want to post-docs to primarily do research and your ability to present has no bearing on that. Yes it is nice but not critical.

Academics want post-docs that could do good research independently. I agree with the other posts that you can tailor your CV for better chances. Generally PIs look for postdocs with skills that they or their group lack but need. So consider what unique skill(s) or experience that you have that would add significant value to the post doc.

Also, have you talked with your supervisor about post-docs? If the PI knows your supervisor you may have a better chance of getting the post-doc or at least an interview based of your supervisor. Maybe hint to them to reach out and inquire on your behalf.

Thanks for the advice everyone. It is really helpful to get some different opinions but it looks like very university is different.

I have just got written confirmation that I can include text published papers. Which is a massive relief! I found out that at my university all dissertations and thesis's are referred to an academic standards committee if there is a significant similarities. That is why the graduate school and admin staff couldn't give me any advice. Fortunately, the head of academic standards committee for my department confirmed in email (with a few good cc's) that I can include published papers. I just had to spend several days chasing people to get what should have been a simple answer.

Thanks for the replies and advice.

I am planning of sticking the papers in as chapters and am not worried about the thesis structure but I have been warned of self-plagiarism issues with copying text.

What pm133 described is what I am fearing, where I have to waste weeks rephrasing basic text. My supervisor sounds pretty adamant that it has to pass turnitin and was wondering if there was an easy way around it. Nead, did you modify the text of your chapters or have any issues with self-plagarism?