You are right tricky, often you also have to do a post doc in there too in north america. But if you can publish enough and get enough teaching/reasearch/contacts/experience while doing the phd, you may get to the associate stage faster. We'll see though, I still got a year left with the phd.
P.s Sorry Moomin about the "man" thing. Moom made me thing of man.

Its not often the case that students jump into professor positions after phds (maybe my long hours will pay off). There are different levels of professors over here. As mentioned way before, most students do 3 year masters here and as somebody else mentioned they can therefore be more established in their phd.

Hey Moomin man.
Nice comment bout the boyfriend. No problem getting em, infact, I have a problem getting rid of men. I broke it off with a serious boyfriend cause i'm in the process of applying for positions as a professor, so it's likely i'm moving away and unfair to continue on something if they are planning on staying where i'm at now.
And to Piglet. Yes my supervisor was serious. I am in the 4th year of the PhD, so of the last 4 years, I've actually done lab work on 2 Christmas Days.
But I am not complaining, i enjoy what i'm doing, and it was necessary to do work those days.
P.s year 4 and i'm still doing lab work. I'd love to hear what i should have studied to get it done with in one year.
Crazy, good for you!

Taking that much time off and you can still finish in 3-4 years!?

It was suggested to me by one of my supervisors that I only take 2 hours off on Christmas and the rest of the day should be spent writting papers. So needless to say, the longest time I spend away from my research is a weekend everyonce and a while... And conferences if those count.

another comment, i really didn't mean to start a argument about different institutions. More so, I am just discuraged that even in my own school I see people "relaxing" and having a "easy time" getting a phd.
But that is life, there will always be people getting handed things. Hard to get used to.

Thanks Bobby, that could make some sense. I don't know much about BSc's elsewhere. Our undergrads are definetly very course intensive and we do cover lots of topics. They are suppose to be finished in 4 years, but most take 5 years due to financial need, ie working on the side. Or students complete co-op programs where they get work experience.

Added info, class work is not required for phds in canada.
Also, i'm sorry to have offended anybody. Basicly I just wrote the original comment to get some feedback on whats required of PhD students in other countries.

I am a Canadian PhD student, and reading some of the posts on this site bother me due to the immature nature of the comments. Dont people have better things to do... like work on your research! Also, I feel like PhD are becoming undervalued due to the high volume of students skipping masters. Additionally, I question the quality of PhD's in other countries. For example, i think it's nuts that in Europe a PhD can be obtained in 3 years ( I could be wrong about that fact) In Canada, you are lucky if you get a masters in that time. Most PhD students here take 5-7 years to complete a PhD, and it's not because we take our time either, it's because of the high expectations and demands. On a regular basis I worked 14 hours/day in the lab.

Does anybody else feel the same fustration!?