PhD money whilst writing up

[Deleted User]

HI there

I am hoping that you could share some of your experience re: funding life when your stipend is over.

little bit about my situation: I am writing up my phd thesis and I have recieved my last stipend and things are getting tough (as I am sure some of you found too). My partner is also a student doing a pgce and her payments end in June, but she will be on the course until december (Do not ask).

My uni, will not provide me with student status for council tax, I have no income, I have nearly 5k credit card debts and no savings. I seems that I can't claim JSA as I am not available for work, I cant get tax credits as I do not work (and cant work as I want to hurry up and finish and get a postdoc), same applies to OH. I have asked student services at uni, not elligible to recieve ALF or Hardship as not FULL registered student. Really not sure what to do here. Any advice?

Please share your stories about funding your write up period.

regards

Red_Cat

I am surprised that you are not still a registered student. At my uni, to submit your thesis, you had to be one, so essentially that meant during writing up, you would be one too, even though you would pay a reduced rate as you would not be using uni facilities.

Most of my peers when writing up had either taken a temp job, or a part time one to be able to keep afloat in the situation you describe.

I would ask your supervisor to draft a letter declaring your still full time education, which would get you a council tax reduction. Otherwise can't you get a Uni ID card or NUS card to use as proof?

[Deleted User]

http://live.cgcu.net/news/1738

just to show how write-up unfriendly they are here. Took the courts to decide, what a simple letter from the uni would have achieved.

Cardelia

At Southampton we were placed in nominal registration which conferred some kind of 'semi-student' status on us. It was unclear exactly how we were classed for things like council tax - rumour had it we no longer qualified for the student exemption, but as far as I know nobody was chased by the city council for the money and I don't think they ever asked for proof of student status.

As for writing up, it depends entirely on your motivation. If you have a real drive to get the thesis finished and submitted, it doesn't matter if you go out and get a temp job to tide you over - it will get finished quickly. If you have a lackadaisical attitude towards it, then it will take months and months even if you are able to write all day.

Just to give you an idea, when I finished my experimental work, I had enough overdraft left to enable me to write full-time for 1 month before I had to get a temp job. In that time I wrote almost half my thesis. I submitted my final version before people who had had a year's head start on me, but they messed around and didn't have the motivation to write, so it took them ages. It doesn't really matter if you have to get a job as long as you have the personal motivation to finish quickly.

Voyager2002

Cardelia, no need to be so judgemental about people who take longer than you do to write up their work. The process of writing up a thesis in experimental science can often require little or no thought. In other disciplines (mine for example) the writing-up phase was far and away the most intellectually demanding part of the whole degree, and required engaging with a new body of literature and re-thinking the significance of everything that I had done up to that point in the light of the new ideas.

Voyager2002

OP, many students in your position do get some kind of temp job. Therefore, you can in good conscience tell the job centre people that you are looking for work and are available for work, and so in the meantime claim JSA. Although the process of claiming JSA and satisfying the various requirements to get it probably consumes more time and energy than a part-time job.

masterkay

Cardelia wrote: »

Just to give you an idea, when I finished my experimental work, I had enough overdraft left to enable me to write full-time for 1 month before I had to get a temp job. In that time I wrote almost half my thesis. I submitted my final version before people who had had a year's head start on me, but they messed around and didn't have the motivation to write, so it took them ages. It doesn't really matter if you have to get a job as long as you have the personal motivation to finish quickly.

I'm a little surprised at that comment. That's the kind of comment I expect from someone who hasn't done a PhD (not implying you haven't but that is where I have heard those comments before).

To quote Einstein, "If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research would it?"

To me a true PhD is finding a topic, obtaining an excellent knowledge of that specific area that you are interested in or is worthy of your time, finding a project within that (something novel), doing that quite often revising your original thoughts, performing some rigorous research to prove/disprove it and moving the field on and obviously writing it up. To say that can be done in 3 years and say it's lack of motivation or attitude that causes it to take longer is just not accurate (though in instances it may be true). You don't know how long things will take before you start.

I know some science subjects have to have well-defined projects due to needing equipment and therefore people walk into a PhD rather than discover it and I can appreciate that it would fit better into a specific time but not all are like that.

Back to the real topic. A part-time job is the way forward, something with regular hours such as 6-10 or 9-1 so that you can get into a routine and fit your PhD writing and meetings around it easily. I also suggest nothing that uses too much brain-power as you will not be wanting to do any PhD work if you've already had a mentally challenging day.

Also don't think I'll get a job and come back to it in 6 months. I've seen so many people do that and not finish up.

Any RA positions coming up? Many universities take on people writing up as RAs and are rather kind about letting them use a little time to write up.

masterkay

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Cardelia, no need to be so judgemental about people who take longer than you do to write up their work. The process of writing up a thesis in experimental science can often require little or no thought. In other disciplines (mine for example) the writing-up phase was far and away the most intellectually demanding part of the whole degree, and required engaging with a new body of literature and re-thinking the significance of everything that I had done up to that point in the light of the new ideas.

That happens in sciences too though not as often as it should.

[Deleted User]

cheers for the comments.

Let me just get this clear, I am still 2 years under my three years and I am about half way through my thesis, so I think im doing pretty well, and I am working on it pretty solidly. I will only over run by a two or three months at the most, so its not a case of lack of drive or effort, my post was made to get a grasp on how I can potentially see myself 2-3 months of editing and submitting and waiting to hear back for a viva date etc etc.

I will be looking for RA positions but in my field its rather limiting, so tesco it is I think.

In all fairness I just want to knock it on the head ASAP and get a postdoc and that would be awesome.


Anyways thanks for the motivation.

cashpoortimerich

Not sure who you are funded by but since 2004 EPSRC have given money to departments to provide funding for six months extra writing up time. It's all a bit vague, but essentially it is at the discretion of the department how to distribute the money. Our department decided to make it available to everyone still knocking around at the end of the three years, and to make it available for a maximum of six months each (rather than me getting nine if you only take three). My job doesn't start until October so I am still finishing off at a leisurely pace and going to conferences etc.

My official university registration card expired in April, but my department happily stamped a letter for the council tax exemption and I have had no bother with them.

If you live with your partner and she has a low income (is she classed as employed at all?) then you may be eligible for income based JSA but it might start to get tricky depending on her student/employment status. You also have to attend the jobcentre every fortnight and show how you have been looking for work. Best to just say you are looking for high level graduate type work that they won't be able to help you find.

Unless you have been earning at least the lower limit threshold in the last two years and paying Class 1 NI then you are not eligible for contributions based JSA. I think housing and council tax benefit is not dependent on NI history, but is dependent on your joint income if you live together.

Cardelia

masterkay wrote: »

To me a true PhD is finding a topic, obtaining an excellent knowledge of that specific area that you are interested in or is worthy of your time, finding a project within that (something novel), doing that quite often revising your original thoughts, performing some rigorous research to prove/disprove it and moving the field on and obviously writing it up. To say that can be done in 3 years and say it's lack of motivation or attitude that causes it to take longer is just not accurate (though in instances it may be true). You don't know how long things will take before you start.

I think you have misinterpreted what I was saying. I wasn't for a second suggesting that the whole thing must be done in 3 years, my comments were specifically aimed at the writing of the thesis. And I stand by them - if you take a laid-back attitude towards writing the thesis, it will take you longer than if you focussed your mind on writing and didn't let yourself get distracted. It's just common sense, really.

Voyager2002: My post was not judging other people. It was there to give the OP an idea of what can be accomplished if you put your mind to it, and also an idea of what can happen if you let yourself get distracted. It wasn't in any way a "if you don't do this you're a bad student" type of post.