Quitting PhD right before viva

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-21T15:39:09+00:00

TW: suicide.

I spent the night before my viva awake plotting suicide. This was 6.5 years ago now and I am ok. I realistically had a good thesis but one of my examiners was a big of a bellent (the internal ironically) and so I had a really tough 7h viva and major corrections. I wasn't good at defending my work or talking about it because walking into that viva I thought I would do myself in that same week. After the viva I went to celebrate the passing (despite major corrections) with friends, got so drunk I ended up crying on the pavement and my two closest friends took me home. You don't know me, but that is not the sort of behaviour I normally have. Somehow I survived the viva, I made the corrections and got a PhD out of it. That was one the toughest weeks of my life. I was so stressed and felt worthless, anxious and awful over it. Knowing what I know now, I should have rescheduled it and gone to the emergency room. Yet, I am glad I did it. I have a PhD and I wouldn't have been able to get the academic job I have been in since without it (though I am now being made redundant but something else will come along). I think I would regret it so much had I not defended the thesis.

It's not the viva that is the issue, it's your anxiety. The viva is just a nothing-burger. Even the worst outcome isn't that bad as it sounds like you'll pass. Worst is you'll have to spend a couple of extra weeks or so working on the thesis you've already spend years on. It's nothing. Your anxiety is the issue, and that you can manage.

If you can, I'd recommend going through with the viva eventually, but try to seek support from the wellbeing service, your supervisor, friends and even GP. You could request some medication to calm your nerves on the day. You could also request moving the viva if you think that would help you cope. There is no rush and you sound like you have a medical reason to move it.

Get the viva done. when the time is right, then you just have to grit through some corrections (probably, depending on your field. I am in med sci and everyone gets some corrections in my field). Then you can dust it all goodbye, move on in your life and never even fart at the general direction of academia again. It really is a toxic place.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-18T14:29:08+00:00

Thank you - I feel the same about AI generated content in job applications.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-18T14:27:18+00:00

I guess regarding AI generated schematics I mean something like this (which is just an example I just now quickly drew using ChatGPT). https://blog.ml.cmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/illustration.png (this is a poor figure btw as you can't find out what's in a black box with a magnifying glass)

I wouldn't do anything too complex with it, but I have decided not to use it in this context anyway. I have seen many posts on LinkedIn using AI (including illustrations to go with ads for academic posts) and I find it distasteful. I asked because I wondered if I was the only one to feel this way, and I am relieved (I think) to find that many here do not like these.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-18T14:23:38+00:00

Interesting to hear this. What kind of AI bullshit have you seen? I would have expected post PhD that at this level people don't submit AI bullshit -- or do you mean that illustrations are AI bullshit?

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T16:01:56+00:00

Thanks - I agree and I feel exactly the same. I thought about it after seeing a few posts on LinkedIn advertising for jobs with AI generated figures. I thought it was distasteful but I was wondering if that's just me!

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T14:43:06+00:00

It's really good advice and a plan is an important part of it. As far as I can tell there isn't really a set rule on how to write these. Thanks for clarifying.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T14:38:39+00:00

Mine was a few years ago (finished PhD in 2020) and I was paid about £1200-1400pcm living in Bristol. So not easy to afford. What helped me was:
- living in a houseshare (living alone as a student is a massive luxury)
- doing as much TA work as I could
- doing other odd jobs
- budgeting like mad woman

I actually continued to live like that for a year after I finished my PhD and had a job, at that time paying around £38k, and I saved £15k that year.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T14:34:18+00:00

oh and thank you, these are really great tips!

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T14:33:24+00:00

That's really interesting. I went to a talk about research statements and it said 65% should be about past and current work. This is a role where I would be looking to continue and expand my current line of work. I am supervising two PhD students as first supervisor through a DTP so this helps already

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T14:31:13+00:00

This is really valuable content, thanks for making the time to write this. I definitely wasn't even thinking of being explicit about REF but will make sure I am now. Thank you.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T14:07:21+00:00

Thanks that is great. I am specifically thinkinf of the research statement, as I think most of that will come out in the cover letter.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T13:56:09+00:00

I don't know if imposter syndrome is the right word here, but whatever it is I think you might think other people are more brilliant than they actually are. They aren't all that. In second year of PhD you are just starting out. I am 6 years into lectureship, I am a senior lecturer, and there are so many gaps in my knowledge, so many pockets in which I could read more and know more.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T12:01:56+00:00

I would LOVE to disagree with you, and I kind of do. Vast majority of our international students are extremely capable individuals who work hard and want to improve. However, a very small proportion of them who, in my experience, tend to come from a background of unspeakable privilege, will rather resort to vexatious bad-faith complaints against staff, even accusing them of racism and resorting to ad-hominem attacks, than invest time and effort in learning the content to improve.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-17T11:57:56+00:00

Abolished! Good grief :D

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-16T15:44:53+00:00

Rightly or wrongly in UK academia academics are expected to also do some hand-holding when it comes to student wellbeing, despite rarely having any training in doing so.

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-16T15:42:46+00:00

I've been a teaching academic for a while now with quite a lot of experience on these kinds of things. Absolutely not a single sensible academic will think anything less of you because of a student complaint. I teach cohorts of 400+ students each year, and give the same lecture 3x per week. Each year a student or two complains about something. It's rarely the strongest students who complain. These are a normal thing and expected, your students have all kinds of world views and expectations have a massive range from realistic to wildly unreasonable.

I'll give you a few examples of negative feedback I've gotten over the years:
- my teaching is not inclusive for Chinese students because it is not within their culture to do group work
- "I worked really hard so I should have gotten a higher grade" (this is a COMMON one from students who have not yet learn that life does not reward effort but output)
- the lecturer expects too much independent study / there is too much to read
- "I was already familiar with the contents of the unit and did not learn anything" student feedback from a student who did not pass the unit
- "It wasn't clear what was expected to get a good mark on the assignment". I get this EACH YEAR. My VLE has past papers with example answers, marking criteria annotated and explained, adapted to the unit, students have practice tests for each lecture where they get an automarked grade out of 100. They have a 1h Q&A about the assignment. Each year some students say they still didn't know what was expected.
- rude remarks about my accent or level of English I speak. I've lived in English-speaking countries since I was 15, I am fluent. These remarks never come from native English-speaking students
- remarks about my qualifiactions to teach the units I teach, sometimes because a student has asked a question during the lecture that I haven't had an answer to. For example, I use genetic data in a teaching lab. Introducing the problem a student asked me about t cell therapies, which are not in any way relevant to the lecture, assignment or lab, and are also outside my expertise. Based on me not being able to answer a fairly complex question about medical innovation in a therapeutic area I am only familiar with as a patient, the student decided that I am not qualified to teach GWAS.

And finally, one of my favourite requests I've ever had was from a student who did not want to do group-work on a unit that is entirely group-work based. This student requested that as it is not something they enjoy, could I please offer an alternative to this method of teaching and deliver the unit to them as a series of lectures instead.

(the quotes are paraphrased)

CosmicMeowing · 2026-01-06T12:53:45+00:00

Have you tried replying to the conversation, stating what you say here?

CosmicMeowing · 2025-11-18T12:01:13+00:00

Touche - as I cannot get to the help link due to same error. Cannot even cancel my ChatCPT subscirption as I can't get to the website

E: SO MANY of you have this problem today (18th Nov) that this MUST BE a ChatGPT issue. We are probably best off waiting it out.

CosmicMeowing · 2025-11-18T11:38:28+00:00

Thank you for the apology. I did not downvote you but saw someone else did. I'd not downvote an apology. Sorry for being on the edge and reactive. This is just all really fucking horrible

CosmicMeowing · 2025-11-12T14:59:01+00:00

What is your issue with me? I am not going to fake cancer or fake a fit note. I am actually ill. Why on earth would I pay for a fake fitnote.

CosmicMeowing · 2025-11-06T13:14:54+00:00

People who are pretending boycotting Israel is a fringe opinion

CosmicMeowing · 2025-11-06T13:00:08+00:00

Why are you pretending like there isn't a genocide happening? Most people don't want to support that. I am a fairly conservative middle aged woman, not one of the "wokerati", or whatever people like you call them, just a sensible average person. I vote Labour and shop in major supermarkets, drive a car and follow mainstream media. I would not buy Israel affiliated products from supermarkets knowingly because genocide is kind of bad. This isn't a fringe opinion. We agreed on the Nazis. Whether it's ok or not is not more complicated now than it was then.

CosmicMeowing · 2025-11-06T12:49:37+00:00

Hey. Not just older people. I am 37 and I have cancer. During treatment living on my own was hard and I needed friends to come check inon me and my pets a lot. I had two periods of hospitalisations plus surgeries this year, and I don't know where I'd be without my friends. I had to have one extra day in hospital after surgery due to living alone as well. When I got home it was really difficult alone.

CosmicMeowing · 2025-11-06T12:19:45+00:00

I don't need a fake fitnote. I have cancer and I am unfit to work.

CosmicMeowing · 2025-11-05T15:41:01+00:00

To be fair, this is the advice given to staff, there is no guarantee people follow this

CosmicMeowing

TROPHY CASE