Don't let this get you down, the vast majority of papers get an R&R and it's really rare to get one accepted outright!! The paper I published from my phd was rejected from the first journal after review, and then I got an R&R from the 2nd journal, before it was accepted.

Now I work in medical communications - we have a team of around 12 phds/highly qualified scientists and writers working with top experts, and nearly every week we get rejections or R&R's. I've been here three months and none of the 20 or so papers submitted in that time have been accepted straightaway. So don't take it as a rejection, take it as an opportunity to make the paper even better after input from experts in your field (i.e. the reviewers), and as long as you do the changes they suggested then the chance of acceptance is high. They wouldn't bother asking you to revise it if they didn't think it was going to eventually get published - that would just be a total waste of everyone's time.

So chin up, and you are most definitely not a loser :-)

Never, but there were lots of times I really wanted to. I often cried after meetings with them, or sometimes just reading emails they sent me made me a bit teary!! (yes, I am probably a bit too over-sensitive!!) Sometimes it's just really heartbreaking to have them destroy a piece of work that took you hours, and I think they were mostly tears of sheer frustration. Bet it happens more often than you'd think, so don't feel too bad about it. At least it shows a bit of passion for your subject ;-)

Can't be any help about the Kobo e-readers, but I have a Kindle and I LOVE it! In a typical week's holiday I can get through about 8 or 9 books so it has been a godsend - I can now take more clothes ;-) and I never have to 'ration' my reading as I will never run out of books! (last year I read a whole novel just on the flight out so I used to get really annoyed at the prospect of not having anything to read by the end of the holiday)

Something else I also find really handy - the kindle can read pdfs, so in the run up to my viva I filled it full of all the papers I needed to read, then carried it with me wherever I went. Then if I ever had a few mins spare I could read a paper, or look up something I couldn't quite remember. So much easier than carrying 20 papers around with me! I even had the pdf copy of my thesis on there too so I could read bits of that.

Not really sure how I managed before I had a Kindle, it's by far my favourite gadget!

======= Date Modified 04 May 2012 10:19:42 =======
3 years, 10 months and 2 days after I started, I have finally submitted the final copies of my thesis, and so I am now unofficially bowing out of the forum.

I will pop back in now and then to check on everyone's progress and hopefully be of occasional help to people, but the time constraints of working full-time mean that this forum is a distraction that I just can't afford!

Best of luck to everyone who is still on their PhD journey

Dr Smoobles

I tried - my uni is on the list but it still didn't give me access to that particular item, sorry :-(

I agree, your company should deal with for you, as you are not self employed but an employee of theirs. If you earn less than around £8000 per year, you won't pay any tax anyway as you come under the threshold for UK taxpayers. Seeing as you work for them already, they should have it sorted already but I would have a quick word with them.

The info you need should be on the HMRC website, here is a link to get you started, although I repeat, your employers should be able to sort this for you, all you need to do is check you're on the right tax code once you get your first pay slip:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/students/work_in_term_and_hols_9_1.htm

Whilst I like the idea of all PhDs being by publication (in certain fields at least), there are unfortunately quite a few problems that are outside of the student's control.

For example, a paper I recently had published was originally sumbitted to the journal in January last year; they then took nearly 10 months to peer review it. No particular reason, they were just really slow! Fortunately it still got published within the timeframe of my PhD, but only just. I have other papers in preparation, but these couldn't be submitted until the first one was published, as they kind of followed on from it, as many PhD student's papers probably will. So if every paper took this long to get published, my PhD would have taken me about 10 years to complete ;-)

I do think the idea has a lot of merit though, as essentially that is what a thesis should be - a series of chapters, each one a publishable piece of work (in the sciences at least, it may well differ in other fields). For my thesis in particular, each chapter developed upon the previous one, and so the papers would be sequential rather than standalone pieces of work.

Hi all,

Was just wondering if anyone had ever sent their thesis off to be bound by an online company? I need to get the final copies of my thesis bound and handed in, but working full time means that if I get the uni library to do it I would need to take a day off to go and get it printed and bound, and then another to collect it and hand it in. Have seen a couple of places on the internet that print, bind and post copies to you (eg. mythesis.co.uk, ethesis.co.uk), but am a bit wary of them so wondered if anyone had any experiences?

Thanks in advance :-)

Found it!!

http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=22114

Answers seems to range from 6 - 18 hours per week paid work allowed by the university, although for me personally if I'd have been working 18hrs alongside a full-time PhD I'm not sure I would have managed! Seems a huge workload to me. I guess a couple of nights a week and a bit at the weekend working in a bar or somewhere might be doable, but at certain times, when deadlines are approaching etc, you might need to cut back the hours. Thinking about it, I was running a car throughout my 12k studentship and my PhD, so maybe without a car I would have had a lot more spare cash!!

Firstly, living off just 9k a year after you've paid the fees sounds pretty tight to me... I lived comfortably off a 12k studentship for one year (no fees to pay) but I think anything less than 10k would be really tough. Obviously this depends on what part of the country you are in, for example in London it would be impossible but in the North it might be manageable.

Additionally, there are usually conditions attached to a studentship stating how many hours a week you can work. In fact, there was a thread about it not so long ago - if I can find it I'll come back and post the link!! I did some teaching part-time during my phd. I only did the odd day here and there, some weeks 2-3 days, most weeks none at all, and to be honest any more than that and I feel it would have detracted from my studies. I earned roughly £1000 per year extra from this work.

The PhD system is far from perfect, but I don't think that warrants it being abolished altogether. I agree with the majority of tweaks suggested by Mackem_Beefy, particularly surrounding the viva process. It does seem pretty unfair that your academic fate rests on the opinions of just two people, and the suggestion that you should meet with the panel during your PhD is a really good idea.

Generally, I see the PhD as an opportunity to immerse yourself entirely in your own research, and to make a contribution to knowledge. Anyone who enters into it as a career move is probably going to be disappointed. However, I don't see this as a bad thing, and I also find it hard to believe that employers are actively shying away from PhDs. In some fields, relevant experience will always be more important than academic success, but in other cases the transferable skills gained during a PhD are just as relevant. Perhaps students should be given more guidance on how to really 'sell' their skills to future employers, and as mentioned before, more career and CV advice in general should be made available. My only worry is that too many compulsory courses, career guidance, meetings with a panel etc. may make the PhD too structured, and therefore it becomes less about independent research and more like a formal structured course, and so a balance needs to be reached that takes that into account.

Finally, I didn't expect my PhD to make me happier than other people; what I did expect is that it would give me a variety of skills, increase my confidence at working independently and trusting my own ideas, improve my communications skills and leave me feeling academically fulfiiled. It did all of these things and more, and I don't regret it for one minute, even though it hasn't given me the amazing boost up the career ladder that some people still seem to think it will.

In my field the answers are:

1) 3 years (although the plan is to make this 4 years, ie. 3 yrs research + 1 year writing up - I was the first student in my department to be put on this new pathway)

2) Between 3.5 to 4 years - most people are under financial pressure to finish as soon as possible as they are only funded for 3 years - this is why they are trying to shift to the four year programme

3) There is an official deadline - I'm pretty sure it is 5 years but can be up to 6 years if the student has extenuating circumstances (illness etc.)

Those are the figures for full time - double them for part time students.

PS. I am in the sciences if that makes any difference!!

Hi,

I did an MRes in Bioinformatics (not at Imperial though) and found it to be a really interesting and thoroughly worthwhile course. I finished mine about 6 years ago and am no longer in bioinformatics, so I'm afraid I can't give you any specific advice about the presentation. However, what I would say is that the interviewers are going to be looking for enthusiasm for the subject, so have a think about why you want to do bioinformatics - was there a particular part of your undergrad degree that sparked your interest? Did you do any bioinformatics modules in your course that you can mention in the interview and point out why you found them interesting? Read a few recent articles, not just the one you do your presentation on, so that you are aware of the directions the field is moving in and what the applications of bioinformatics are (I wouldn't spend too much time on this aspect by the way, but just being familiar with the common terms/applications could be helpful).
Additionally, any prior experience you have in the techniques used would be useful, so any programming knowledge (not essential by the way so don't panic if you haven't) should be mentioned, or knowledge of microarrays etc. Experience with things like pubmed is also relevant (not just the basic search for papers, but things like the BLAST tool, conserved domain database etc which you may have used as an undergrad?), so any literature searches you have done in previous projects etc might be asked about. If you are not familiar with them have a quick look around the pubmed website and learn a bit about them. The description of the specific course at Imperial might give you some hints as to which resources you could look at.
I wish I could be more specific about the questions they might ask, but back when I did my course they were depserate for students to take the course as it was a relatively new subject, so my interview pretty much consisted of: Interviewer: (who was a tutor on my undergrad course so I knew him well anyway) 'Do you want to do bioinformatics for a year?' Me: 'yes please' Interviewer: 'Good, you've got a fully funded place then'!!
Best of luck
(up)

Congratulations Dr Dalmation!! I was hoping to hear good news from you this week, well done :-)

Well here we can find a point to agree on - the PhD system is fundamentally flawed. However, in your position I would be trying to work with my supervisor, rather than butting heads with them. What do you think the chances are of getting them to revert back to your original plan? Could you produce an outline for the publication you have in mind and see what they think? Sometimes being proactive and taking some of the work away from them can work in your favour.

I agree that it seems unfair to have to submit to their way of thinking, even when you disagree, but let's face it - they are the experts, you are the student. Therefore, sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and do what needs to be done. Maybe one day you'll be the supervisor and you'll see it from their point of view! I'm not saying you shouldn't have an opinion, I just think how you voice that opinion and how far you take it needs to be carefully thought through, or you could be creating problems for yourself that will have implications way beyond the publication of this one paper. Also, you don't know for certain that they intend to have someone else as first author - maybe if you make your voice heard strongly enough and make it clear that you are happy to write the paper, then you will be made first author anyway?