I thought the PhD loan got paid in 3 instalments over 3 years according the .gov website. If you are worried about the PhD taking "up to 4 years", that is the university covering themselves legally. Most PhDs aim for 3 years but it is common for people to take 3-6 months extension to write up, so the universities say up to 4 years.

In the UK, Masters and PhD students are free to join any university club, as long as you have a student ID card.

Done

Hi drwubs,

I don't want to generalise but even top universities don't always have great seminars and groups for all departments. Organising seminars is a time consuming job and some departments can drop seminar series because the organiser can't do it anymore. Also, getting PhD students to socialise really depends on the group of people and I don't think there is any way to guarantee it. I can completely understand you feeling frustrated by the complete lack of social interaction. The loneliness and lack of a support network can be brutal. Not having a support network of fellow PhD students is a rather compelling reason to quit. However, I do recommend to everyone don't leave until you have something else lined up, mainly for the income. I am not sure how you would transition straight into another PhD, it can happen. If you did apply for another PhD they will ask why you quit your current one and you will need to give a well-reasoned answer. You would also lose two years of progress and delay your graduation significantly.

Saying that, PhD students are complaining about the lack of interaction at my university as well (granted my university isn't great). So other universities might not be much better until after social distancing restrictions are lifted. If you want that social PhD experience you might have to wait until after COVID, or even take a suspension of studies at your current university until things are better. COVID has severely damaged everyone's PhD experience and by quitting or staying you are losing something. It might be better to just finish on time and move on from your PhD completely.

Heeeeeyyyyy,

I saw your unedited post last night but couldn't reply. From what I remember you saying, are you getting any good data? Exploring new methods is fine but data is king. I wouldn't be worrying about trying lots of new methods if you current methodology is getting you enough results.

Done

As you say it will depend on person to person. Though I would guess a week or two depending on how much you have already done. Personally, I have used templates extensively for tables, graphs, text, headers etc. I format a few pages and save it as a template and then apply it to the entire document. It can save a lot of time and makes everything consistent without much effort

Hi Disloe,

Congrats on getting funding! I would, read the funding the conditions, as external funding usually explicitly states who owns the equipment from the project. In the UK, if the equipment was entirely externally funded it most likely belongs to the principal investigator (or equivalent). If any money came from the university, they own a percentage of the equipment and you might have to buy out their part of the equipment.

Out of curiosity where did you find funding that PhD students were eligible for to buy equipment?

I AM NOT A LAWYER and in no way is this legal advice.

Sorry about the delay.

What you are feeling is extremely common and you are not the only person who has lost all confidence in their ability. I had massive impostor syndrome hen I started my PhD and can fully sympathise with you. I think the trick is to realise that you are over-estimating your peers and forget don't realise that they are going through the same. It is so easy to focus on what you can have done better or small failures. However, no-one is perfect and if you focus on the little things you did it will outweigh the negatives. A PhD is a marathon and not a sprint, if every week you can look back and say that you have progressed in some small way, then the week was a success. The little things could be as simple as read an interesting paper, tried a new method (who cares if it actually worked) or completed a lot of admin stuff. By focusing on the success you can rebuild your confidence and stop feeling like an impostor.

I hope that helped

I am currently on a suspension of studies from my PhD in order to work as a research assistant on another project, with my supervisors blessing. Before I started my suspension I asked my university if I could include the extra research in my thesis and they said yes. I think their attitude was they wouldn't know if I did the research during my PhD or during the suspension, so they might as well allow it. It also helps I am still talking with my supervisor regularly. Your university might be different but they might have the same indifference as mine.

Honestly, it sounds like you have the dream career. That is a massive achievement in this economy and the number of PhD students that fall at the hurdle of getting a job is significant. As abababa says, if you don't need a PhD in your career or for the rest of your life, you shouldn't worry. Yes, you have a put a significant amount of tine and effort in but you have got the end result already.

This might sound stupid but since you have a book already published could you just submit that as a thesis? It is obviously novel and a significant contribution but not in the correct formatting but you might find some examiners might just pass it. What I have learned recently is that some examiners will pass anyone with published work and that the thesis quality matters somewhat less than the published outputs.

I love how one university can cut costs by reducing conference bursaries and another introduce it because it is so cheap.

Talk with your supervisor. I don't think the university will have any copyright claim though you would be expected to mention your affiliation. The bigger issue might be that once you publish it you can't copy it in further work. If you want to develop those essays later into more rigorous academic research you might find self plagiarism issues which can be an utter pain.

I usually don't answer these sort of questions but what is NTNU and UiS?

Also, a surprising number of international conferences are run at a profit or have to pay the organizing staff. More local or national conferences are usually cheaper because the organizers volunteer their time for free.