I thought I'd start a PhD thread. I'm sure it will be mostly me and Fe grumbling about things.
The article below is good news, it's nice to see the powers that be aren't being fuckwits when it comes to higher education (in my experience 4 years is a much more realistic time than 3 - barely anybody finishes in 3-3.5 years. If I had 4 years of funding, I'd be done by now).
From the Australian:
Funding extension 'will improve PhDs'
Bernard Lane | February 06, 2008
AUSTRALIA could turn out better PhDs if Labor goes ahead with a new proposal to extend the term of scholarships, according to the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations.
“You could see an improvement in quality because students would feel less pressured to supplement their income in other ways during their candidature,” CAPA president, Nigel Palmer, said today.
In a speech prepared for the Innovative Research Universities Australia forum in Adelaide today, Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr said the Government hoped to extend the maximum term of Australian postgraduate awards from 3 1/2 years to four.
The proposal is not expected to be worked out in time for this year's budget. Labor has already promised to double the number of APAs by 2012.
Universities say they are struggling to attract quality PhD candidates in key areas of research.
Mr Palmer welcomed the minister's proposal, saying: “It makes sense for the funding of scholarships to match the (four-year) term of (PhD) candidature”.
The current APA term is three years with the possibility of a six-month extension.
Mr Palmer said there was anecdotal evidence that universities were “less and less willing” to go along with a six-month extension.
He said that if Senator Carr's proposal went ahead, universities would be well advised to extend their own matching scholarships in order to attract PhD candidates.
So would I. Full time working and postgrad study are not a useful mix
Pretty Huge Dicks BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
...no, seriously.
I just managed to finish mine in the 3.5 years but four years would have made it a much better piece of work. Also seen many people who needed that extra time, didn't have it so ended up taking five, six years or just buggering it and submitting a masters or nothing at all instead.
Or getting employed by the Uni before submitting *cough*
One day..... it is my Holy Grail.
Great idea, especially for those doing a field based PhD. If anyone is thinking of doing a field based PhD, drop me a line and I'll do my best to talk you out of it!
Is a field based PhD what you do after your Ag Science degree?
Anything biologically based is a fucking joke to finish in three years.
What did you do mcclap? And what's your field based PhD runoutgroove? I'm curious as to what people study.
I got the six-month extension, but I would have had grounds for a twelve month extension if they offered them.
Sometimes. If you were looking at something like insect pests of crops/livestock you could have your project messup by bigh change in weather/environment. I've had friends whose field sites were destroyed by bushfire or floods!
ha, we should have slurred our way round to this sort of talk at vegas last wee Mod :) Hilly - are you doing yours by publication, or ye olde chapter writing? Before my current one I started a PhD that ran out of steam when facing the task of conceptualising such a massive undertaking. I'm finding the idea of half a dozen peer reviews over a 2.5-3 year span a lot more manageable. Pragmatic or cheating? Or a bit of both? The fucken edits I'm on for the first round of revisions for my latest peer-review are driving me a bit mental, must say. Oh, and apologies fpor this rambling prose, still drunk on Trans Am. Got to make a $6 beer last eh?
If I was sober enough I would have certainly spoken at length on the topic.
Other things that put the brakes on your completion may include (but are not limited to):
This reminds me of why someone I know refers to PhD as Piss head Degree
Ye olde chapter writing, frenkyboy.
I could have done it in 3-3.5 years if a) I knew exactly what I was going to do when I started and b) my experiments worked out to plan and it was easy to find the participants I needed. So basically, I could have done it if I already knew the answers to the questions I was asking. In which case, what's the point?
mines done thank god. the process of writing up, editing, correcting and resubmitting a 400 page thesis was one of the worst experiences of my life but that said, I turned my PhD project into a job so it was worthwhile in the end.
Dr Hillbong on yr credit card, of course ;)
Thesis by publication is an interesting idea, anyway. I would think it's better to have a full-on big fuckoff book on your desk though, means you have time to more comprehensively do a literature review and put together theories, which you tend not to be able to do in the space allocated in most journals...or does that not matter too much in the end?
Haha, that's true. Also, you get to wear a stupid floppy hat for a day, right?
I've been on a couple of PhD project review panels and something that does pop up pretty regularly is that students can get so possessive of their topic areas that they just don't want to let go of the project. They are continually finding little tangents to follow and the project grows and grows and grows.....
I had a high school teacher with a PhD in carnivorous plants.
I also had a client who was doing a PhD on porn created by women - she never finished it though.
Any other interesting study topics?
Having finished a thesis and also had a few publications, I must say putting together a concise thesis is probably a little easier. I reckon one of the difficulties with publications is that it can take around 4-6 months to have a manuscript accepted for publication (then add another 3 months or so for it to actually appear). You'd rarely have the opportunity to go into either discussion of results or lit review in a paper compared to thesis unless you could do a review paper of some sort (not out of the question).
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LOL - yeah.
atrouser - Yeah that was 2 months ago and it wasn't that great - I didn't present cos I didn't have it ready; I only have Wordpad on my computer, and even if it was set-up properly I would've needed more time to get my work ready. On top of that I felt sick and went home early. My supervisor said if I was lucky there might be someone able to understand my thesis and there was. We exchanged emails - she sent me something, but when I replied I got nothing in reply. :-/ Anywayz, not to be discouraged. I think it is good if people don't know what you're talking about then you will acoid any tough questions. OK not so good if you want some good cosntructive criticism. My friend who I did honours with would've had an interesting question or 2, as I did for him. Best of luck with your conference! I think being Aussie may work in your favour - the novelty of it!
He said that he wrote a 1K words a day for a month! Even for philosophy that is insane. But speaking to him that is kinda how he works; he had to go and put in the quotes. I pretty much read and write as I go along so I couldn't do that. Speaking to him I realised I only have to write a 1K words a week to finish it in 2 years! I can't believe it didn't occur to me earlier, but then I was never that good at maths... :-P That is still a fair chunk, but as my co-supervisor said I'm quite prolific, which is true - at least when I put my mind to it.
My current problem is that I'm writing some stuff about neuroscience, but I will have to relate it back to my thesis on psychoanalysis. But that is the fun bit for me; I like to use disparate sources. I hope 'The Sopranos' makes the final cut, but we'll see.
Anyone brave or st00pid enough for a thesis swap?
Yeah, go on then! Sounds like we might be overlapping a bit Trammy. I've been writing a bit about neuroscience too (since I'm studying psychoneuroimmunology), and it's hard not being a doctor though as I get out of my depth really quickly and I feel like a bit of a fraud, citing references I can barely understand. This is just for my Masters though, just 15000 words. I managed 1000 words a day last week, but I'm down to about 700 a day now it seems.
Jetlag, buddy. Srlsy. I landed on a Wed, spoke on a Sat and still had to speak on an hour's sleep. Very much on autopilot. Luckily (for me, unlucky for my research) I didn't get asked any questions I hadn't been asked before. Next year I'm landing a week in advance.
I've had a pretty good year. Spoke O/S, did some lecturing and also am submitting articles as co-author for my RA work. I am now am at this really, odd spot where I know where I'm going, but have no fucking idea how i'll get there and am ok with that. I know, right. If I could bottle whatever was instrumental I would.
So my own deadline is submit by Meredith 2012. That weekend is going to be the data dump to end all data dumps. Aunty Meredith will bring out MBV and that calypso street band that plays transmission. I will join in. I apologise in advance.
atrouser - I know what you mean by feeling like a fraud; I know bugger all about it this stuff! to make me feel even more like a dumb-ass this guy (Gerard Edelman) knows more about my discipline (philosophy) than I do. Maybe that is why he has a Nobel prize and I don't (lol). Interestingly, I like his work cos he says a lot of the same things as Mary Midgley a philosopher whose work is forming the basis of one of my chapters. My co-supervisor says the same thing, but that he says a lot of similar things to Merleau-Ponty. What is even more interesting is that he is helping me understand various issues in philosophy of mind; a curious case of wagging the dog. I've written about 17K words and I haven't said very much at all- just feels like the groundwork for it.Yeah maybe do a thesis swap- maybe just a chapter or something, or even an abstract. The basics of what I look is so basic to me that I forget that it is difficult for a lot of people, and entirely beyond many people; I forget that cos I more or less think about it all the time.
basil - I am comfortable with my subject, will get there. I am doing it part-time; would love to do it part-time for 2 years and then do it full-time; I wouldn't waste my scholarship unlike what a lot of full timers seem to do- they seem to take it for granted.
THIS! Totally how I am feeling today. As I near the end of my first year, I am feeling like I have just wasted all my time because I think everything I've been looking into has been wrong. On the plus side, feeling very motivated. Fear of failure will do that to you, I guess.
shines - I hope it isn't as bad as all that. I will go out on a limb and say you probably aren't the first person to feel that way. I should add the stuff I know bugger all about is neuroscience not philosophy which is what my thesis is in. Given that my sister is a (budding)-scientist who had trouble reading some stuff in philosophy I shouldn't feel bad it goes the other way as well. I guess I don't need to delve into neuroscience per se just as much as is needed for my thesis.
Academe. Nutshell.
Gave a presentation to the group about my work two weeks ago, I'm working on modifying a certain group of minerals, and at the end of it my supervisor suggested I look into another group. So I had a read around, found it interesting, and filed it under low priority as I've plenty going on with my current train of thought.
I just got an email from my supervisor saying we're having a visitor from someone invested in the other mineral on Thursday, and that we're to have lunch with him to discuss the opportunities we envision. I also have to prepare a short presentation for him. I don't really know what this group of minerals is about at all other than that it's a problem. Interesting.
I foresee sleepless nights.
I'm sure you will look back on these times fondly (lol).
I did about 500 words today, but that was admittedly on some easier stuff (I did cut out a quote that was in there, but I will probably paraphrase it and put it back in). The good thing about living with a full-time psychology PhD is that if I write anything I feel so prolific next to him. smug I've written enough for an honours thesis without straining myself too much so I feel pretty good. That said, I would like to be disciplined to write more so if anyone has any tips that'd be great.
I can't remember which famous writer did this, but basically they set themselves a word limit, or a reading limit each day, and once they achieved that limit, they took the rest of the afternoon off to drink martinis. Reckon that could be a very fun and much less stressful way to do a PhD, if you have the discipline, which I doubt I have but I'm sure some of you must have.
I'm not sure what it's like for the humanities, but for me, I go into work each day with the aim of achieving something, anything. Whether that's synthesising a compound, or purifying a compound, or characterising something, or researching a certain area of interest, or writing that down...even if I aim to do a two hour synthesis, that's an achievement...and I find that just setting out to achieve that one thing usually means I'll achieve something else without meaning to...I might find a new reference, or learn something about a certain purification method. Small targets tend to work for me, but with the Sciences there are lots of small things to do to work towards something I imagine, rather than exploring things through a more inward kind of thought process?
Lots of ppl swear by the pomodoro technique. It's basically forcing yourself to focus on writing with no distractions for 25 mins then taking a 5 min break... & repeating over & over again... plenty online about it.
Also the thesis whisperer is a good site for tips on writing/productivity.
... but maybe I've actually just given you another means to procrastinate.
what do you do for work, son?
I'm doing a PhD in Chemistry...the work is kind of convoluted and unfocused at this stage, but the overall scope is using ionic liquids to modify layered molecular structures, so I'm anchoring compounds with specific properties to solid supports. So you can replace what would normally be liquid compounds with a solid product that is easier to deal with environmentally. At the moment I'm working with clay as my solid support, and anchoring antimicrobial agents to them, but I'll probably move into applications like catalysts and removing metal contaminants from ground water or waste water, trapping components of nuclear waste...kind of depends on what sort of products I make and their properties that will dictate the direction of the project.
Which means I sit in the office and talk about dicks on these forums while something stirs over a hot plate in the lab.
winter- Ha that's cool! I don't think I could do it, but maybe if I was full-timing it.
ghoti - Yeah it is a more 'inward process', but can still set tasks; could be reading a chapter, or today I had a small bit to write out (which I didn't complete -lol). I think the idea of small tasks is a good idea - e.g. finish writing and presenting Edelman's bit on the rejection of functionalism. The problem is that I find the more I write the more it leads to, but that is probably for all disciplines...... ;-)
Thanks for that link Limecat, some good stuff at Thesis Whisperer. I'm going to try joining their Shut Up and Write meetup on Friday morning.
Handed in my incredibly convoluted Melbourne Uni PhD scholarship application form on Friday. I'm trying for an APA and an MRS. My PhD topic shifted quite a lot in the three days between writing my department pre-application form and this one, but apparently that's OK.
Best of luck trousers!
Of course I will (not-so)secretly hate you, but that's another story (lol).
Translation:
Oh and thanks Trammy, you're good luck wishes paid off. I've been offered a place at the Centre for Health and Society at UniMelb and a scholarship is looking likely too. Though thesis external examiners took so long marking my thesis I missed the deadline for international PhD applications. Which was annoying.
atrouser - That's awesome! I saw my mentor/co-supervisor for a coffee- more of a social thing really, but she said I should get back to work and she is right. She said I should definitely ask my supervisor about thesis confirmation and not let it go by.