What are your worst fears about your PhD?

H

Quote From chickpea:
Another fear I have is that my supervisors' feedback is out of line with the examiners' opinions, and that what my supervisors think is a finished thesis is judged to be anything but! My supervisors are relentlessly positive and enthusiastic, which is lovely, but I keep thinking all it takes is a nitpicky examiner and I'll come unstuck!


This is probably my greatest fear. Supervisors think it's close to perfect, and examiners think it's rubbish. Sigh.

Z

I think that if we stick with it for the full 3-4 years we will all eventually get the degree.. whether it's with minor or major revisions is another story!

I'm scared that my work will not be of publishable quality in terms of results :(

P

The hugest fear of course is getting to the runway but crash-landing, so to speak. It would be the worst thing ever to fail at the end after so much work.

But I have so many fears.

One is that there are serious flaws in my methodology that my supervisors either won't point out/will point out when it's too late to fix them.

One is that I won't be able to write up my findings in any logical order (questioning already whether the two experiments I have actually fit together in any meaningful way).

Perhaps the most deep-rooted fear is in fact a fact: my topic, which was a proposal before I was even in the department, is a hybrid which was cobbled-together by two researchers who know nothing of each others' areas...and don't care to listen/remember things I tell each of them about the other aspect of the work...

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