Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

misskool

Nikkster wrote: »

I wish I had had the intelligence not to start one! Or at least not to get into the ridiculous situation I am now in trying to finish up The wall is many things - it started off as a reluctance to prove what I don't know/ understand by committing it to paper (and that's before thinking about a viva), and has picked up having a lot of data to pull together, a feeling of nausea thinking about anything to do with the thesis and a bit of every time I make a re-start something crappy happening.



Well said lir (as per usual), viva you are pretty incredible - and your literature searches would be second to none

well, I did say I would help to read whatever you had and I was sort of in the same field!

I am also of the thought that you should finish it and I have seen some people who didn't fully deserve PhD's finish it and then getting a degree awarded that wouldn't further their career (ie technicians who were guided and didn't have much independent thought and can't really do a research career but obvs a student is cheaper than a technician...)

Anyways, long winded but I think you are better than those who have finished so I would very much like you to finish as it would be fair.

In the way that my strange and twisted mind works.

Been to the big smoke for a day and have eaten too much dim sum and too much wahaca

zagubov

Nikkster wrote: »

I wish I had had the intelligence not to start one! Or at least not to get into the ridiculous situation I am now in trying to finish up The wall is many things - it started off as a reluctance to prove what I don't know/ understand by committing it to paper (and that's before thinking about a viva), and has picked up having a lot of data to pull together, a feeling of nausea thinking about anything to do with the thesis and a bit of every time I make a re-start something crappy happening.



Well said lir (as per usual), viva you are pretty incredible - and your literature searches would be second to none

I'm geting all nostalgic for when I used to live near Nikkster. My literature search at the start of my project meant I had to turn up at the campus library late in the evening when the satellite link opened up to a massive supercomputer in a Roman university.
My search terms had been entered and suddenly there was a massive staccato burst and the paper basket started filling with an endless printout of hundreds of titles of papers.

Years later after a change in direction I tried to finish it at a uni in London who were brilliant. However getting full-time work slowed it down and eventually I got overtaken by a team of scientists in Wales working on it full-time.

I just wondered if I'd remembered that wrong or my ever-dodgy memory was letting me down but a quick google reveals that I didn't. I relaised I was still ages away from producing enough original work.

I did think later on about turning in my work for a masters va the CNAA who older posters will recognise as the degree awarding bodies for Polytechnics, but I later studied for a Masters in humanities instead which I would never have dreamt of ten years early.

I think if you've got a potential degree in you, you need to do it. If you've got a potential higher degree in you you still need to do it, even if it's a couple of decades later. I'd be tempted to give it a go Nikkster, but whatever you decide we'll all support you!:beer:

lostinrates

misskool wrote: »

well, I did say I would help to read whatever you had and I was sort of in the same field!

I am also of the thought that you should finish it and I have seen some people who didn't fully deserve PhD's finish it and then getting a degree awarded that wouldn't further their career (ie technicians who were guided and didn't have much independent thought and can't really do a research career but obvs a student is cheaper than a technician...)

Anyways, long winded but I think you are better than those who have finished so I would very much like you to finish as it would be fair.

In the way that my strange and twisted mind works.

Been to the big smoke for a day and have eaten too much dim sum and too much wahaca

What is wahaca please Misskool?

We ate mussels.

Nikkster

lostinrates wrote: »

What is wahaca please Misskool?

We ate mussels.

http://www.wahaca.co.uk/

I made a tomoto/veg soup with meatballs, think I might have a little bit of ice cream for dessert

Nikkster

misskool wrote: »

well, I did say I would help to read whatever you had and I was sort of in the same field!

I am also of the thought that you should finish it and I have seen some people who didn't fully deserve PhD's finish it and then getting a degree awarded that wouldn't further their career (ie technicians who were guided and didn't have much independent thought and can't really do a research career but obvs a student is cheaper than a technician...)

Anyways, long winded but I think you are better than those who have finished so I would very much like you to finish as it would be fair.

In the way that my strange and twisted mind works.

Been to the big smoke for a day and have eaten too much dim sum and too much wahaca

And you might still live to regret saying that! Its not even that I'm bothered about people seeing what I have written, I can't even get that far as I don't like committing to paper!

I've pretty much decided I would like to finish (or at least I would like the end result so trying to finish is unavoidable). I just need to work out how the hell to get myself to that point. I think the main bit is keeping pushing when things start to feel uncomfortable. I've done it plenty of times for other things, so just need to manage it for this.

Thanks for the encouragement (all the NP) - it means a lot to have so many people I respect on my side

misskool

lostinrates wrote: »

What is wahaca please Misskool?

We ate mussels.

Wahaca is Mexican street food. tacos are good. proper corn tortillas, none of the flour stuff (but you are experimenting with that you can eat at the moment, so commiserations).


I am still too full to think of food but would entertain the thought of a light seafood platter

Nikkster

zagubov wrote: »

Years later after a change in direction I tried to finish it at a uni in London who were brilliant. However getting full-time work slowed it down and eventually I got overtaken by a team of scientists in Wales working on it full-time.

I just wondered if I'd remembered that wrong or my ever-dodgy memory was letting me down but a quick google reveals that I didn't. I relaised I was still ages away from producing enough original work.

I think the focus has changed a bit now in that a PhD is more a training in how to research than the primary focus being having to show prove new (though obv just repeating what is well established wouldn't work. I hope so anyway as there is no way (or chance really) I am doing any more lab work for it. What I already have will have to do - or not.

zagubov

Nikkster wrote: »

I think the focus has changed a bit now in that a PhD is more a training in how to research than the primary focus being having to show prove new (though obv just repeating what is well established wouldn't work. I hope so anyway as there is no way (or chance really) I am doing any more lab work for it. What I already have will have to do - or not.

Yes there has been a bit of a shift I realise now that in the US a PhD means tons of formal training and qute small bursts of research. Also that this is more universal now. In my day you did one big project and asked your workmates for informal info on how to do things.

Thick theses were the rage.:(

LydiaJ

Nikkster wrote: »

Have been thinking that just writing whatever then worrying about editing it is the way forward. Will definitely give that a go. Once I am up and running I'm pretty sure that I will manage to be very focused, I just need to 'trick' myself into getting there rather than being too strict.

If getting started is the problem, can you pick one little piece of it that feels marginally less scary than the rest of it, and try to forget that the rest of it exists while you just do that bit? "The whole thesis is more than I can contemplate, but I could manage the diagrams for chapter 2, so I will do those." And then you pick another bit, etc.

I was hugely struck, after I had written my previous post, by how applicable most of what I had written was to my own situation of needing to sort my house out. I have ludicrous amounts of clutter (some of my own but loads that came from LNE's house too, and a whole load of the kids' stuff) that's lying about in boxes (and a few piles that aren't in boxes) and I "want" to get it dealt with so my house can be a nice place to live and not a chaotic dumping ground. But I don't seem to "want" it enough to make myself do it. It feels overwhelming to me, so I don't begin. Sometimes I find enough energy to do, say, the pile of boxes in the corner of the living room between the two sofas, if I don't think too much about the rest of the house. The timetable strategy of "this is what I do all day on Saturdays" that worked so well for my thesis isn't working at all for me now. Maybe that's because back then I had a husband who was happy to do almost all the domestic stuff to free me up to get my thesis out of the way, whereas now I have to do it myself.

lostinrates

Lydia,

If the kids are ok to let to of stuff could you eBay some of LNE's stuff and either divide the money up for the kids (do they have a uni fund?) or agree to spend it on something they both want? (Maybe the dog you want on the future....a bed etc for that?).

If its not dealing with old stuff, but prepping for stuff for the kids or your family in the now and future the weight of the past can be lightened a little?