Overview of pm133

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Depression, PhD, being a wife...
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What I am getting from your post here is that you are thinking about his needs an awful lot (exactly what you want from a balanced relationship) but you don't talk about him reciprocating in any way.

Let's cut to the chase here. The problem is not you by the sounds of it - it appears to be your husband's behaviour.
Mental illness or not, his behaviour appears to be at the root of your unhappiness.
The question is whether he will seek help for this or not.
You going to therapy alone isn't going to help, in my opinion.
Does he know the destructive effect his behaviour is having on you?
If so, has he agreed to get help?
Your marriage seems out of balance and that needs urgently recitified before it becomes serious.
As a husband he really owes you this.

All marriages go through imbalance from time to time when one person starts to lean heavily on their spouse. I've been there myself many times over the years. When that leaning starts to actively destroy their spouse however someone needs to say "Enough" and the other needs to listen and react positively and constructively to re-establish the balance. In that sense you are probably not going through something millions of others haven't been through as well. You do need to get on top of this though by talking to him. Be tough if you need to. The alternative doesn't sound particularly appealing.

Is a PhD with a 2:2 and a pass at Masters possible?
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I know I am in the minority when I say this but I would not recommend that you take on a PhD with those grades.
In all likelihood you will find someone willing to take you on but consider this. Over two degrees, you have not shown any technical excellence and in fact have demonstrated in your exams that you have consistently only learned about half of what you were taught over presumably a 4 or 5 year period. This is not an encouraging place to start a PhD from. The process is hard enough without having to relearn half your degree. Leaving aside the technical aspects, the essential soft skills of resilience, determination, drive, motivation etc are usually demonstrated during the degree as well. Can you show evidence of those? High grades are very strong indicators of all of them so you will need to look to your extra curriculum activities for that.

If you have neither of these I would urge you not to go down the PhD route. There is a very high chance you either won't make it or you will run out of funding.

Of course, i am not telling you what to do. You are welcome to disregard my advice but if I were in your position personally i would not be considering a PhD.

Second supervisor pressure
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Quote From Bibo:
Hi all,
I need an advise on a current situation I am in. I am in my third year of my PhD, my first supervisor, who is an angle, is leaving the university to another university. I have been offered to move with him, however I have not taken my decision yet. On the other hand, my second supervisor, who is higher up than my first supervisor, is pressuring me to take my decision by tomorrow. she has given me a WEEK to think about it and she has been forcing me to take the decision. I believe that in no way she can force me to rush and take a decision just because I am on a university scholarship. I have been under a lot of stress, and this is affecting my work. Is there any regulation or acts which I can refer to when emailing herthat she does not have the right to force me and rush me into a decision and that I should take my time since this is not an easy to decision to take?

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.


Is there a specific reason why you need more than a week to decide? How much time would you have wanted?
Also is there a reason why this is not an easy decision to make?
You are at a crucial time of your PhD and you really must make a decision now.

PhD interview
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Quote From Tudor_Queen:
I wonder why they invited you to interview and didn't tell you that by email...

It would also be really useful if you could see some examples of research proposals - especially ones from your field. Do you have access to any?

Best
Tudor


They might have wanted to give him a chance face to face.

PhD interview
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Quote From bignige:
Had the interview and was politely told that the proposal was not of the required standard.

Since then I have had two more Universities email me and say that I have been rejected as my proposal is not of doctorate standard.

I have been recommended to read some books which discuss research and how to write a PhD proposal so it's back to the drawing board1

N


Is there a way you could post your proposal on here to let us get a feel for why you are having it rejected multiple times?

all my mistake or a shared responsibility?
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That's a good point ToL about learning how to ask the right questions.
I also don't think it is the supervisor's responsibility to ensure the student has no omissions in their work or to even tell the student about them. I always saw it as my responsibility to find out what was expected from talking to other students etc. and researching online. I know some supervisors are very hands on but making that an expectation is risking the student abdicating some personal responsibility and ending up in this situation. The student is therefore wasting time and energy trying to figure out how they can apportion blame to their supervisor when really they need to be focussing on what they need to do to recover the situation. IMO that latter action is what separates a good researcher from the rest of the flock.

all my mistake or a shared responsibility?
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Quote From marigold:
hello,
Your expert opinions needed please! I made a mistake in my analysis (science but I cannot be more specific, sorry!) which has resulted in me failing my 1st year review. This has shocked me, I had not expected it at all. The mistake was omitting something in my analysis which is usually a very standard tool to use. I omitted it as I thought it was justified not to use it in a pilot study, and I intended to use it in the 'full' study after the pilot. My sup was fully aware of all this.
I take full responsibility for my mistake and feel like a right plonker. However as I came out of industry to do the PhD and have spent 1st year adjusting to being a student again (at age of 35+) I am unsure if the mistake is truly all mine, in which case I may not be cut out for research, or if the sup must bear some blame as sup gave me no indication whatsoever that this omission would make me fail. Sup tends to be very indirect when thinking they are being direct. I am rubbish at guessing what sup's hints really mean, but assumed hinting was normal because at PhD level we don't get spoonfed (and I don't want to be spoonfed anyway). Please tell me your opinions, as it will help me decide whether to stay or go. Thanks very much indeed :(


This seems very odd. You could easily have made the first year report about the experimental setup and presentation of the data with no analysis at all and comfortably passed. This is what I did. There is clearly something important being missed in your description of what went wrong. Can you provide more detail? You would have had to demonstrate either insufficient progress, that you had not personally done the work or that you had demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the theoretical background of your work. I have seen people fail because of all three of these but I cant believe you would fail a viva because you made a simple mistake analysing data.

Do real jobs with real salaries exist?
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There is no point complaining or sounding bitter. That is just a waste of time and energy. If your skills are not attracting the job you want then you need to retrain. It's as simple as that and it doesn't matter what age you are or what qualifications you have.
I am not sure what you mean by a real job. Cutting grass is very much a real job in my book.
What is it you actually want to do, what skills do you have for that job and what have you tried so far to obtain that job?

Struck with a severe case of 'imposter syndrome'...
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Virtually everyone suffers imposter syndrome at some point.
I forced myself to stop caring what other people thought of me because I realised I couldnt control that.
You might want to stop white knighting your supervisor as well. These people are not as intelligent as you think. No human is. You are psyching yourself out.

Partner in prison: what to tell academic colleagues and friends?
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Agree with the above. I am not sure why anyone would want or need to know this sort of thing.
I would certainly never talk about my wife to that extent with anyone.

No motivation, always procrastinating - is there any hope?
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Congratulations on making this decision and getting a job offer.
Your last sentence tells you that you made the right decision.
This was never about "failing" or "giving up".
It was simply about recognising that you were doing sonething you didn't enjoy.
It's great to hear that you feel so much better now.
Good luck for the future.

Balancing Teaching with Research
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Quote From Kahn:
Hello All,

From September I have been teaching as part of my scholarship. I am required to teach for five hours a week. However, this is my first time teaching and I am teaching quite a difficult course. Although I understand the material I am a bit rusty because its quite technical and not directly related to my area of research. I have found that I am spending way too much time preparing for classes and this is really taking away from my research time but I can't afford to go infront of a class unprepared. There are also no solutions provided to the classes so I have to go through and verify everything myself. Is this normal for first-time teachers?


I'm a little confused. You talk about "solutions not being provided".
Are you teaching or are you running tutorials?

Final year support thread
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Quote From Pjlu:
I have just submitted! So happy about this. My second supervisor raced through the final chapters in record time in the last couple of days once she had managed to work her way through some responsibilities and I made the corrections every time I received some feedback. Worked round the clock in the last day and evening and it has been uploaded and officially submitted.

Whew!! I will let people know of outcomes/corrections when it's marked. Most likely at least another 3 months or so before I even hear, but ah well. Best of luck to all on this thread-its a great feeling to be here at long long last. Just under 6 years to the day of starting the PhD as a part time student :) :) :).


Wow, that was very quick for a part time PhD.
Congratulations on submitting.

What to do when examiners have no experience?
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This is a risk when anyone takes on a new role where they have some power.
I certainly would never have wanted a new academic in my viva but it doesn't mean they are all like this.
New academics should have to go through training with an experienced person in the viva with them until they can be trusted to do the job properly in my opinion.

What to do if I suspect that my supervisor falsify data?
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Quote From MissUCA:
I would like to ask for advice for what are the most appropriate actions to take if one suspects that the supervisor is falsifying data. My suspicion arise when some figures I send to my my supervisor does not look the same as in the supervisor's figure files. In one figure "the low responding" values in the treatment group are gone, error bars altered and some outlines gone and the control group. In another figure the control values are identical to those I sent but the treatment group are altered showing a difference to the control group (which my experiments and my graph does not do).

Of note the same supervisor has on several occasions been reported to HR for bullying behavior, including bullying against supervisor's own group members.

What would you advice me to do, and what would be expected of me to do since I know and are aware of this?

Many thanks in advance!


You need to talk to your supervisor and ask him to explain his reasoning behind the things you don't like. Don't give him your opinion yet. Just ask him to clarify. Then try to reason with him if he is deliberately attempting fraud. If you can't get anywhere there you have, in my opinion, nowhere else to turn but the head of department for advice.