I agree with this,Tree. My viva was horrible and it is still affecting me a year down the line - it is at least partly the reason why I've gone off in a different direction and not pursued academia since. I lost my faith in the system after realising you could have years of constructive feedback on your work and then get to the big exam at the end of it all, only to have someone go on an ego trip and kick all sorts of holes in you and your work just because they can. It wasn't character forming or whatever people say these experiences are meant to be, it was so brutal that I forgot about doing well and just focused on getting finished and out of there, and still the external kept kicking. I don't post much about this because we all have our own ways of getting over things, and I don't think it's necessarily helpful. But I agree that when someone's in the first throes of being upset at what is a major life experience, it's not helpful to tell them to get it into perspective.

To the OP, my outcome was the same as yours. The external apparently had all these major concerns about my work and wanted screeds of it rewritten, yet wasn't fussed about seeing it again and delegated that to the internal, who didn't share the concerns. I don't know if this is helpful, but my opinion now is that there was a lot of bluster from the external - if their concerns were so genuine, how come my thesis passed on the day and they didn't need to see it again? In the end, the internal helped me to minimise the changes needed anyway. Good luck with your amendments.

I agree with the others here - I've never heard of anyone being asked to leave at this stage, rather than being given a chance to improve. Is your uni aware of your dyslexia? If not then it sounds like an important thing for them to know.

It sounds like you need to clarify this with the university, as it's not clear from the two paragraphs what their decision will be. I would make it really clear to them that you're quitting for health reasons, and it may be worth seeing if there is any advice available through student services before you do this.

Hi Iwan, I think the outright 'fail' rate is something like 1 or 2%, assuming you submit your thesis. Of course, there is a range of other things that can happen, including various types of corrections, resubmission or the award of an MPhil instead of a PhD - it's worth looking on your uni website to see which types of outcome they use. But assuming you pass the various stages along the way (like the one you have just passed - well done) and manage to write and submit your thesis, failing should not be something you expect. I don't think it is normal to repay a stipend either.

Just a casual enquiry really - anyone know how long it takes for your thesis to appear in the searchable database Ethos, or your university's thesis database? I haven't put any restrictions on mine and would rather it was visible than not, but I can't find any of the theses from my department listed anywhere, even going back to people who graduated when I was in the early stages of my PhD, so I'm starting to think my university doesn't play ball with this stuff!

The quants side of my work was a bit of a mixed bag - couple of significant things and some non-significant. The non-significant stuff was quite useful in terms of generating suggested tweaks to the models I was testing and further research ideas, and to be honest, it was hardly mentioned in the viva.

I also agree with the above.

I agree that you should be first/corresponding author in this case and that the student should also be an author. Agree that research is teamwork and I never really understand why people leave students out (assuming they've made a meaningful contribution), as publication is going to be vital to the student if he/she wishes to progress.

Haha, yes the humous was made quite soon after submitting the corrections :-) Hope you have good news soon about yours!

I wrote a short summary of my responses to the corrections, and included a table with the corrections listed in one column, and the changes/page numbers in another column. Sounds pretty similar to your approach. I think as long as you make it clear what you've changed and where to find it, you should be ok.

There can be a few advertised throughout the year. I got mine in June and started end of Sept. www.jobs.ac.uk is worth tracking as they generally appear on there when they're advertised.

I would advise you to run it past the BPS (or someone who knows about BPS eligibility, maybe the prospective PhD supervisor), if you are intending to register as a chartered psychologist after doing the PhD (most Psychology academics are chartered psychologists). I think if you will be able to use it to become chartered then it should be fine, but I would want to clarify that first.

If anyone has the energy to enter into this decades-old debate with pm133, you're a better person than I am.