Noone asks me when I'll finish - rather they ask so 'have you finished yet?' and 'are you a Dr yet' and 'you've finsihed haven't you!' It really annoys me as right now I'm bang on 3.5 years and due to submit the full draft at the end of May. Grrr!

I'm at Darwin which has a really friendly, non-competive atmosphere. Everybody on my course is also super friendly and we all help each other out - perhaps more so because of the sink or swim attitude of some of the academics. I lived in college accommodation for 2 years but it wasn't on the main site and did have (minimal fight the neighbours for it) parking. If you are looking for couples accommodation it will probably be off-site. I have never had a car in cambridge. Now I live further out of town but still use my bike everyday and sometimes catch the bus if the whether is bad. Cambridge is so tiny you don't need a car inside it. You'll probably find good buses + car shares going out to the institute you're at.

I know nothing about that programme so it may do more of what you need than Audacity. I basically used Audacity becuase it was free, a friend recommended it and because it allowed me to convert my tape files relatively easily (yes I know using cassettes is not exactly 21st century but it was all my faculty could offer and I was too broke to buy digital equipment). Have a look and see what you think.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

That's exactly my timing too - I'm aiming for a complete draft late May/early june then official submission by 30 September. I nearly have four draft chapters, another two then conclusions to churn out. Each chapter feels like a tiny island. I think I'll a bit of work to do drawing everything together at the end to make sure my thesis tells one coherent story but I'm trying not to get too bogged down by that at the moment. It's good to know others are at the same stage!

I've just finished transcribing and analysing over 30 hours of data. Tedious! I used Audacity to play my recordings on my laptop - can speed up or down which was great as one of my recordings (made on cassette) initially sounded like martians talking!. I could edit things and found it really good and easy to work with. I just downloaded from the web and taught myself how to use it. Then it was jsut painstaking transribing. NVivo can be good to analyse data but I coded and qualitatively analysed everything myself. Good luck!

Congrats CC!!! Hope you are enjoying a well-deserved break now and have lots of celebratory plans.

This has made me laugh out loud. Thank you!

I agree with Smildon - I know people who have changed supervisors and all have got agreement from a potential new supervisor before they've broached it with the current supervisor. I think that over the 3-4 year period everyone has moments when they want to change their supervisor - is it worth spending more time thinking about?

Hey there espresso. I know how you feel. I'm working (almost full-time) and am also completing a full-time PhD. I feel unable to do either to the very best of my ability and it has been a huge lesson to me - the key I think is knowing when 'good enough is good enough'. It's been valuable in stopping some of my perfectionist traits and being more pragmatic with both. Funnily enough because I have less time on my PhD than some of my friends, I'm more focussed and don't over-analyse my data and the theoretical aspects of my PhD in the way that some of them tend to. SOunds strange but I think this has actually helped me. Also some of my friends have collected so much data that they've had to discard a lot of it whereas I collected less but can use it all.
Good luck to you!

cheers kronkodile - am trying to find out the regulations but kept getting passed from pillar to post. Will keep at it!

well I would have thought so. She's off to a third world country and doesn't think she'll have reliable e-mail.

Does anyone know what the rules when your supervisor is on sabbatical? Mine seems to think that I won't get any supervision and that it's just tough luck! According to her, noone else will have time to supervise me and she won't be able to on sabbatical as she's out of the country. The problem is the 6 months she has planned is the last 6 months of my write up prior leading up to my submission date. I'm worried about having work checked! Thanks.

Well done cc! Hope you are relaxing - you deserve it.

Interesting that everyone's are so different. Mine is intro, lit review, theoretical framework, methodology, 3 chapters of analysis and discussion, conclusions.

I had to re-write all my lit & theoretical stuff (2 chapters!) at the start of write-up and I know I will have to do further editing and tinkering once I have a full draft. I really hated doing it and am already dreading the final tinkering so I can sympathise. I don't know why but I've found this the hardest bit to do. Writing up analysis and discussion has so far seemed like enjoyable (well relatively speaking).