Hi all,

I need your advice. My university is hiring several teaching fellows and I am interested in submitting one job application. The job advertisement states that newly-hired teaching fellows are mainly responsible for teaching undergraduate courses. But I am not familiar with some of the courses because I never took any of them at all. I would plan to read through some of the courses that I am not so familiar with from the university website so that I have a general idea of what to cover in those courses. What else should I do to prepare well for my interview? Do you have any useful tip or experience to share with me? Thanks a lot.

Thanks for your reply, lawlin. The next semester starts next week. I hope that I will receive a reply from my former supervisor soon.

Thanks a lot for your replies, Anne1987 and rewt. I will wait until the next semester starts.

Hi all,

I need some advice from you. I am now doing a Ph.D. and will be graduating next year. I will also begin my job search very soon. As we know, most academic positions require applicants to have referrers. I have already emailed my current Ph.D. and former MPhil thesis supervisors, asking them if they could act as my referees. My current supervisor has replied to me with a 'yes'. But my former supervisor has not still replied to me yet, and it has been almost a week since I emailed my former supervisor. Should I send my former supervisor another email again? or should I assume that my former supervisor does not want to act as my referee?

Thanks a lot for your help. Happy new year, everyone!

We have similar problems. I feel guilty too if I spend a day without working. But I think we have to learn how to strike a work-life balance. Phd is just a small part of our life. In our life, there are many other things we can do like hanging out with friends, watching movies, swimming and going shopping. We still have two more years to go! Dont give yourself too much pressure!

Coarvi, so sorry to hear what you have gone through. Actually, I have similar problems to yours. Not sure if you have read my recent post. I am losing my motivation for doing my PhD. I have started to feel fed up with my project. I am still working on my proposal that i have to submit next week. I am really under great pressureand i have never had that feeling before in my life. Sometimes i force myself to think about the positive side of doing my phd.. But that doesn't work. What i do now is to work out for a while every day and talk to my friends and share my feelings with them. That helpes me ease a bit of my pressure. No matter how busy you are, you should spare some time to do something you like - something not related to your project. That will help you.

Thanks for your replies! I am feeling a bit better now after talking to some of my friends and sharing my feelings here. I think I will submit what I have done when the deadline comes - Unless my boss lets me extend the deadline (but i would rather she wouldn't give me any grace period because I really need some rest.)

Hi guys,

I need help!

I am under great pressure right now! I am a year one PhD student. I am currently writing my proposal which is due this month. I am losing my motivation for doing my PhD. My boss has always asked me to revise the proposal. Actually i have finished it already. Although it is not the best piece, it looks fine enough as a proposal in my opinion. I do think that I can submit it for internal examiners to assess. But my boss is so demanding (or picky), always requesting me to do a lot of rewriting. I have been working non stop for months from 10 - 10 . I feel exhausted. I cant sleep and eat! I start to think that doing a PhD is not suitable for me.

What should i do? Anyone with similar experiences can give me some advice? How did you get through this difficult time?

Thx for your help!

You are right! I think I would want to do a PhD if I was not doing it. I will keep thinking positive!

Yes.I still have a few months to familiarize myself with the topic before I submit my proposal. I will try my best.

Thanks, Chickpea. I know my supervisor is trying to help me develop. Because I am working on a topic that I am not familiar with. I need to do a lot of reading, which makes me feel great pressure and mentally exhausted.
I hope that I will get used to his supervision style.

Thanks, Tudor_Queen. My friend who is doing his PhD told me that he has very little guidance from his supervisor. Perhaps I am lucky to have one who is willing to spend time talking to me. But this creates much pressure on me because I am worried that I will give him an impression that I am not a competent student. He is also a bit demanding, always pushing me to think critically. This is something I am not very good at. I am beginning to be anxious and think that I should not have decided to do a PhD.

Do you have pressure like what I feel during your PhD study? How do you ease your pressure? any advice?

I am a year 1 phd student. I am curious to know how much guidance you usually get from your supervisor? How often do u meet with your supervisor? What do u usually do in the meeting? Does your supervisor always challenge what you said?

I usually meet with my supervisor once a month to discuss my progress. But sometimes i dont have much to report to him. What is your supervision experience like?

I am in the first year of my phd study. I have just started for three months but I feel quite a lot of pressure. I am now writing my proposal on a topic that i am totally not unfamiliar with so I need to read a lot of prior literature, and this makes me very anxious. When I sumbitted my first draft to my sup, I got a lot of critcal commemts. These comments make me feel that i am not good enough as a phd student. I was also asked to revise and resubmit the draft. After i submitted the second draft, i got another set of critical comments and was asked again to revise it again. This process seems never ending and makes me have the strong feeling that phd is not suitable for me. I am tring hard to make myself think positive but the feeling of inferioritiy always remains. I still have two years or so to go. How can I make myself feel better?

I agree that phd work is never ending. We need to teach, read a lot, publish papers, attend conferences, and write our theses. It is really hard to strike a balance between work and life.