what happens when people drop-out from a PhD . Do they have to pay the fees and grant back ? or just hand in what they did and hope to gain a MPhil for the work, if its up to that standard.

are you considering quiting?

Consciously no! but somehow it just crosses my mind. mostly I think its due to supervisors constant demands to come up with a workable PhD plan and my doubts to whether I started on this journey too soon.

i'm not sure about this. i didnt sign anything that made it clear to me that i would have to pay back grant payments if i fail/quit. i think that if you quit your university will be given slightly less money for students next year.

If your PhD is funded by a UK research council you will only have to pay back any money paid to you in advance. So if you're paid three months worth of maintenance grant in October and you give up after two months you'll have to pay back 1 months worth of money.

thanks, I will keep that in mind.

Sheena, my two supervisors were not very nice with me initially. One really shouted at me when he was reviewing my work and the other one sayed he'd rather not discuss my work at times. So, the first one, i ask to calm down. I also pointed out that it is quite discouraging when i do the required work and then i spend an hour getting shouted at about small mistake, e.g. a missing footnote!! Anyway, the supervisor doesn't shout at me since. We have a descent discussion these days. He said that he thought that was what usually worked for students - shout at them, then they do the work. The other one, i told him that what he does is quite discouraging and he since takes an interest in my work. So, maybe you shouldn't quit. Just ask them to ease up on you. The pressure for me initially was working within their deadlines, so we decided I would hand in work as and when I had it ready and i find that has really motivated me to be more passionate about my PhD, coz i feel that am doing it for me & not for my supervisor.

Strangely enough my supervisor said the same thing about students repsonding by giving them the "talk" but I think that it's just because he's scared them to death! He was talking about undergrads!