Hello all

I am currently writing a press release about the new forum, so your feedback on it would be greatly appreciated. It would be great if you could write a coment about the forum, eg. what you like about it, how it has helped you, etc. If you were also here in the days of the old forum, any comparisons would also be useful. It would be much appreciated, and some of you will be quoted in the press release. Feel free to write as much as you like, and I will select bits and bobs to quote. Your feedback will also be passed on to the entire PGF team, so it will also be used to inform us of your opinions on the forum, and not just as a source of quotes!

Thanks in advance,
Caz

It helped me impress my head of research;-); I responded to a journalist's request for students to discuss their relationship with their supervisors, for an article in the Independent. Two weeks late my ugly mug (and my supervisor's less ugly mug) were in the student section of the paper extolling the virtues of our department, which went down well. All thanks to the forum! And a very nice journalist.

Other than that, I like it cos I feel connected to a lot of people; even though we've not met I know they're always on here(up).

My favourite thing about the forum is knowing that whatever your problem is, there will be someone else who has gone through it before you! So if I'm in a panic about something this is the first place i look to calm me down, and it almost always works :-)

Quite agree with Juno, it's as good as having cyber-office colleagues to support you and share the PhD ups and downs together, only without the office politics. I've been posting on here for 2.5 years (6 months before my PhD even began) and have travelled the road together with a number of posters/virtual friends who've certainly kept me going.

Now that the off topic messages have been restored to the Latest messages board, it puts the fun topics back among the serious ones which helps the community feeling and seems to encourage additional traffic than when they were separated. During that time, the board became very serious and whilst most of us still offered advice as best we could, it took the fun out of it. This is like the old days but with a raft of new exciting features!

One question, where did all the extra smilies go?

I think the forum is good as it brings together people from a variety of disciplines which can be useful when you need advice as you you can get viewpoints from a totally different perspective. Also people are all at different stages of the PhD process which again is useful when you want advice or help. As the Phd process can make you into a bit of a loner or make you go out of your mind, it's nice to have a forum like this where you can see that you are not alone!!

I agree with everything the others have said. This forum is invaluable to me at present, as I'm in the final writing-up stage of my PhD and it's the most isolating thing I've ever done. It's inevitable that it's just you glued to your computer all day at this point in the process, so to be able to pop over and see how others in the same situation are getting on is proving far more supportive than I thought it would be. It's a great alternative to the days I don't want to physically travel into college, and it's just as helpful as my 'real' colleagues. I think it's also stopped me boring my friends and family to tears about PhD stuff, which they don't really understand anyway, so they're pleased too!

The forum is really good for hearing about PhDs in other fields. I am in the biological sciences and I don't know anyone that is doing a PhD in the arts and humanities field, so it is really insightful reading about how these PhDs are written up, researched etc... and it is quite comforting to hear that we all have similar ups and downs and so on... It is also a great place to ask questions that you may be too embarrassed to ask your friends and colleagues !

x

I think it would be helpful to have an academic (or a group of academics) on board to advise students, rather than peer advise: might be in danger of the blind leading the blind. It would be interesting to see how the people we are having problems with respond to our plight.

There are also posters who already hold a PhD - and these posters give great advice based on their experiences.
(Which is the best anyone can do...since there are often no right or wrong answers to a lot of the threads that get posted)

hey.. never say never... we may organise meets some day. now that would be something else...lol :p

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More emoticons would be nice!! (We're never happy, are we?)

The spell check doesn't work. It keeps saying there's an error in rapidspell and then says there's no mistakes even if there are.

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============= Edited by a Moderator =============
The spell check is back up and running, the main spell check component had become corrupt.

Star awarded for quality feedback. Thanks ;-)

Hi as there's now an university jobs section in the website, there should be a forum for it too. It would be great to chat to other university staff.