Hi Jaded,

Funny thing is I was sitting at my desk feeling exactly the same as you are right now, wondering if any one else did! I have my upgrade next week and preparing for it seems to have sparked off a complete loss of confidence in myself and my work. My supervisor has blithely recomended I get upgraded but to be honest I am not sure how much of my work he knows as he hardly ever reads anything. To add to that, one of his comments on my submitted manuscripts was that he didn't want me to get too far into the area I have done most work on. So I am in exactly the same position now, having no idea what I am supposed to be doing or what to be looking at. I don't really know whether this is just a blip or not or whether I will still be doing a PhD in a few months but I am going to hang on just a little, give it one last try and see what happens.

I'm sorry but you are being, to be polite, a complete fool.

You are quite correct in your statement that you dont need to publish to gain a PhD in the UK. However, I laugh at the idea that you seem to believe that such a qualification could get you a job in academia. In reality, post-docs in most places require a good record of publication and you know what *shock horror* over here we don't force people to do anything like that here because we have such a thing as personal responsibility for their careers!

If you can't handle that then fine, don't do a doctoral degree here.