My experiences as a PhD student

BubbleFrogette

BTW - I wish you all well with your research. You all sound hard-working and passionate and that is 99% of the battle.

It's a very personal thing, a thesis and something to be proud of - so ignore the likes of bigdavieh and feel good about your continuing achievements. You will get there in the end and when you do, the glory will be all yours!

SugarSpun

You can do it!

I'm correcting my PhD thesis post-viva at the moment, difficult because I already have a real job in my field that barely overlaps.

It took me four years, during which time I took two holidays, one of ten days and one of five days. I worked all through Christmas, New Years and all other times when people could reasonably be expected to take time off. I usually worked from 9am (8 if I was working at home) till 9 or 10pm, six days a week, and Sundays I only worked maybe 3-4 hours.

It was commented on in the viva that I'd completed the thesis unusually quickly.

NicolaJH_2

Somewhere between three and four years in quite normal I think. At the university I was at you had to have a jolly good reason for going over four years and I think your supervisor got a black mark if they did. Funding for me was only three years so I was self funding for the final year. Although I have heard that is changing and funding for four years is coming in.

I can't complain about working long hours as I didn't, mostly because I didn't enjoy it and had little motivation and also outside working hours most of the equipment I had to use, wasn't supposed to be used for health and safety reasons.

Expectations are different from university to university on what qualifies enough to fill a PhD. I think some may continue longer than they perhaps need to but most probably do what there supervisor tells them. I remember that I was told by the department that three papers worth was enough for a thesis.

I also had to correct my thesis whilst trying to settle in with my new job in a new place. Fortunately they weren't too onerous.

celyn90

I think it is true it is very personal and does depend a huge amount on your lab and what is expected of you. I've worked in four different research groups, two industrial laboratories and spent short periods of time in four additional research groups through links with my collaborators. All of them worked in very different ways.

My current supervisor is exceptionally demanding. I'd honestly write a book about my experiences if I thought anyone would believe me. The synthesis that I mentioned earlier could not have been pre-empted or planned for as the project wasn't mine to start with - it belonged to a post-doc who had left. My supervisor told the collaborator that we had the stuff - then realised out we hadn't. I was told to sort it out. The only reason it got done was because I worked like crazy in an exceptionally organised way, carrying out all the arms of a convergent synthesis simultanously. On bank holidays he comes and sits in the group office and works downstairs so he can see who is in as we "don't work in a bank".

My partner works in a medical reaseach lab and his supervisor is lovely. They start at 10 am and work until they are done. No pressure at all, and they are still productive.

Edited to add: If I'm on here it's because I'm using the HPLC again and the fraction collector isn't working, so I'm changing tubes manually as well as typing I'd really love to go and do something else, but my stuff will end up in the waste if I move :rotfl: Not slacking, promise

Edited again: we also do four years (not through choice as we are told it is compulsory). Our final year is also self-funding. He also tries to get us to "suspend" for a term in the middle (to make it four years plus three to six months) which we would be expected to work through - as if we overrun past 4 years formally the department gets slapped. It is very true you just do as you are told, it's not like we have any rights as students.