[Closed] 2 weeks from PhD thesis hand in...

What is the subject?

I found my degree thesis recently. It was utter, utter rubbish. 😕

The guy can't have read it as it passed.

Hmm. You get to fill space with 'figures' and 'tables'.

I suppose you'll be building you're bibliography with a bunch of 'joint-authored' papers next.

The luxury of a social sciences PhD! 😉

You'll just end up working in Mcdonalds anyway so pack it in now and take to the hills with your camera and a flask of tea

"Without a deadline
I do nothing
With a deadline
I do nothing
Until the deadline is upon me
Then I panic
Which is doing nothing quickly
When the deadline has passed
I begin work
On my excuses."

- Simon Munnery

What is the subject?

Carbon capture and storage ([url= https://vitaminccs.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/whats-my-phd-all-about-part-1/ ]blog ramble[/url]). So somafunk isn't far off the mark given that the Govt. recently canned the £1bn that was going to fund a commercial scale UK project.

...and I really can't be **** anymore!

Amazing if you got this far and that's the only time you've thought that! I found it was all peaks and troughs, just gotta work through it.

And try to forget that getting a PhD can be quite well defined as becoming the world expert in something nobody else cares about...

Conclusion: The butler did it.

I've had a pretty enjoyable PhD on the whole. Got paid to travel to a few 'kin awesome places. The most stressed I was during my PhD was when I was writing a report on a commercial contract. And when I had to sleep in the office to look after experiments.

I found the last few weeks the hardest. It wasn't the writing of it, it was the "what comes next". In the end, I cancelled all engagements, took time off work and battered through it. By then I knew it was good enough to pass and it was just about time on task. When it was all over, I walked away from the field and never went back. Ime, those who have done a PhD tend to downplay it and just see the faults in the work and resent the time spent on it. It's taken me a few years to actually feel good about the experience and see the positives in the work and in myself.

Take a break.

Write a list of things to do.
Do them.

Hand in.

Go ride a bike.

Good luck!

I could not believe how thorough the examiners were in reading. Fair play to them I couldnt even be bothered to look at it on the train from London up to newcastle for my viva. They found all the faults!! My honesty in admitting which were the shit bits and which were the better bits seemed to scupper most of their grilling though!

Haven't looked at my PhD thesis since I submitted it, just went through the bits the examiners were interested in and that's that! Did a couple of post docs but given I'm currently unemployed can't say it helped much

given I'm currently unemployed can't say it helped much

Of course, as we both know, PhDs are not now, nor have they ever been, about employment.

They are supposed to be about knowledge and... dare I say... wisdom.

Philosophia and all that.

I don't for a minute think a PhD will land me a job, but it's certainly been a damn good experience. You can read into that what you will 😉

Almost there, good work! I remember struggling through the final weeks of mine, all I wanted was to be shot of the thing... but people kept helping me 'improve' it. To be fair I do think I submitted the PhD thesis with the greatest number of typos.

The feeling of walking home at 3 am on a summers night after finally, finally, finally finishing still lives with me as the absolute definition of relief.

Keep at it, it's worth it just to not have to do it.

i'm in the same boat. Gosh, I'm looking forward to christmas

You got the Viva and corrections to go...I was in the same position as you 19 years ago...:)

Corrections here, also hoping to be done by Christmas.
At the moment it seems like the main benefit to finishing it will be knowing that I don't have to do it any more!

I handed in my thesis when it was finished <does not understand title>.

What is the subject?

Carbon capture and storage (blog ramble). So somafunk isn't far off the mark given that the Govt. recently canned the £1bn that was going to fund a commercial scale UK project.

Sorry the moneys already been spent -

[url= http://www.firebox.com/product/6437/Flatulence-Underwear ]Flatulence-Underwear[/url]

I bought myself a new bike when I finished mine. That's how excited I was.

Oh, those were the days.

I bought myself a new bike when I finished mine.

You had money left? 😯

I ended up in a similar situation to the OP. I actually swapped house with a mate, into a room with no distractions, and a new set of housemates I did not really know or have an association with. Really helped me to knuckle down and finish. However, of course, we did not have internet back in those days. Heaven knows how I would have finished if we had. Having literally taken a completely different track with my life since doing all that stuff 20 years ago I sometimes have a read of my Thesis and cannot believe I am the same person who wrote it.

Funny how life turns out 🙂

I'm still wondering why you're in latex? Kinky git! 😉

Just think yourself lucky, it took me about 10 years to finish my PhD, but unlike others above it was actually one of the things that got me my current job... well, along with being a mountain biker!

I bought myself a new bike when I finished mine. That's how excited I was.

Dr North bought herself a Rolex. Bit of a cheek given I funded her writing up year...! (10 years on I still wear a Seiko.)

Good luck Kit. Just nail yourself to a chair and get it finished!!

Bloody hell finished my first one with nearly three months too spare lol. And when I did my degree in marine engineering I had something like five months before it was due!

Pull your finger out son and get it done.

Well technically I have until April to submit, but the cash has run out now so time to get it handed in 🙂

Paul - I'd make a good full-wall image for your bosses office 😉

250 pages... pfttt.

266 actually 😉

Submitted today, woop!

Thesis just submitted and you're still in a fit state to post on STW? Must try harder!

Congratulations!

Anticlimax?

Mine was.

Wait till your viva for a bigger one.

Also - well done, go get pissed and puke on your supervisors car. Or mine, that would be nice too.

Dr. Greg.

I liked the feel of mine in the temporary binding. It looked so... complete.

Revel in the satisfaction of a job completed (if you can call a mere 266 pages - with pictures no less! - completed 😉 ), and have at least one beer.

Well done!

Dr SR

Good look for your viva!

I have 4 months left to submit...been going for nearly 5 years now.

Still enjoy it but can't wait to be finished.

Just dusted off my 1997 vintage...it's also, coincidently, 266 pages- excluding appendices etc., a mere pamphlet! Well done!

its such an anticlimax handing it in. You think you've done a big deal yet the woman over the desk just says thanks and have you filled out the correct forms. What got me was the depression that happened afterwards as you're life suddendly becomes empty.

If you actually know your stuff then the viva will be a peice of piss to get through. mine was 3.5 hours and it flew by.

266 pages is on the meaty side, do you have lots of pictures, tables, appendies? My uni library has stats that show you how many times your thesis has been downloaded which is pretty cool.

266 pages is on the meaty side, do you have lots of pictures, tables, appendies?

Really? Mine was 300 pages (or 100k words). No tables, diagrams, maps, or illustrations allowed.

EDIT: Come to think of it, a colleague just finished hers in the field of English Lit, and it only had to be 60k words. I'm not trying to diminish it, but I always thought of 60k as being MPhil length and 80k to 100k as being PhD. Have standards changed in the last 10 years?

It's been 21yrs since I handed mine in! Blimey. I never did around to binding my own copy and threw out the unbound copy a few years ago. It was a great feeling of relief to pass more then anything else but I've been more nervous about the viva for PhD students that I've supervised since then. Good luck OP with the viva.

but I always thought of 60k as being MPhil length and 80k to 100k as being PhD. Have standards changed in the last 10 years

actual length is not what makes a PhD thesis although at Glasgow you are limited to 250k words not that mine was near that ha ha ha ha. also depends on the subject too I would imagine.

actual length is not what makes a PhD thesis

I know, but to treat an original question seriously in anything under 80k I would have thought very difficult.

Anyway, I don't mean to hijack the laudatory purpose of this revived discussion, so ignore me...

I've seen some pretty short thesis but these were just the published papers from the PhD together with a short intro. You see these more in Europe than in the UK in my area.

Op,

Does that mean you going to be unemployed now?
Or
Are you going earn tonnes of cash now?

What's your PhD on anyway?

Most of me mates are getting paid peanuts with pressure up to their head just trying to publish some "shite research" in social sciences ... well their words not mine. Some of them keep hopping from Uni to another every 3 to 4 years citing better pay or getting away from pressure ...

Once one of them tried to explain his PhD title(passed without correction), research into public sector, to me ... I just burst out laughing coz he was researching ZM bureaucrats using some fancy words ... FFS! What a load of shite. We ZM bureaucrats know exactly well those research means F all to us because we are better pen pushers.

😀

I know, but to treat an original question seriously in anything under 80k I would have thought very difficult.

Which, presumably, is where the pictures help - what with them painting a thousand words and all.