Hope.for.the.best

It will take some time for you to adjust. I also came straight from my undergrad and got into PhD without working elsewhere. Things may improve a bit when you settle down in a lab, but you just can't expect that your classmates will be as supportive as those from your undergrad or part-time job. Most likely you will be supporting each other only in the academic aspect. You could freely criticise your professors among your classmates at undergrad, but it is disastrous to do so among your grad classmates. That's why I use this forum to seek advice/vent out any issues with my advisors. I second telkanuru's suggestion that you develop social network outside of grad school for emotional support. But then there's another problem - friends outside of grad school don't always understand! It is common that they can only say "good luck", "I know it is hard" etc. So I actually see a psychologist regularly, who is a PhD graduate herself. I have not been diagnosed with a mental illness, but I am prone to stress and anxiety. My anxiety symptoms are not the typical ones like insomnia, overeating etc. They are always unusual and crippling, like afraid of the wind, aversion to a seemingly innocent daily smell etc. My female advisor always uses the same perfume which I am okay with the smell. However, when I was stressed out, that smell just made me feel sick and any meetings with her were hell. I know it's weird, but my psychologist always understands and her words are comforting. I think it is down to she has experienced grad school herself. I only told her that I was writing up my thesis and she could immediately reassure me by saying that, "Undoubtedly you will need to revise your writing a lot, but ultimately you will be produce a good thesis." It really makes a difference to have someone who really understands!

Yes, I felt the same too when I was in my first year of PhD. I am also much younger than most PhD students in my program. Your social interactions at grad school are going to be very different from those at undergrad. I can talk almost about anything with other students in the same undergrad program. We are truly friends. However, at grad school, it's more like in a working environment and your classmates are your colleagues. I get on well with them, but I have to be cautious with what I am sharing. I can't help but have to mention my nosy PhD "friend" here again - she is nice and friendly but whatever you tell her will be known by everyone the next day. I hate that she loves to dig into others' relationship status and history, which I don't think it is appropriate to share with her, and hence everyone, at work. She sees it as a way to bond with others because she does that with her sisters, but that offends me a lot. Anyway, I will only talk to her whenever I am struggling with experiments. Other colleagues seem not to be that nosy, but I don't wish to take any chances. As a result, I feel quite lonely at times because I cannot openly share with others how I feel. It is good that you enjoy what you are doing. I suggest that you plan something interesting after work each day, e.g. watching movies. Finally, enjoy your peaceful days. As you get along with your PhD program, you will have more and more to do and your chaotic life will come back in no time. I don't mean to scare you, but personally I find that my life in PhD is way more chaotic than when I was in undergrad!

You are right that you are worthy of love. Be confident of yourself. Just because it is not happening right now does not mean it will never happen. Have faith that you will get to know the feeling of love at some points in your life

I totally understand where you are coming from. I am about your age, and I am also from a very conserved and outdated culture that "women who are capable turn men away". Right from I decided to pursue a PhD, my aunt (my mum's sister) immediately "reminded" my mum that I would encounter difficulties with finding a partner. My mum's colleague also asked if she would worry about me being single forever. I was quite taken aback by these reactions. I was not surprised that my grandma had thoughts like these, but I could not imagine women who are active in the workforce would think so. You know, in good old dates, women were not supposed to work at all! I had relationships in the past, but I would rather not have them. I don't mind sharing a bit here, as hardly anyone knows my romance history anyway. I met my first at a very young age. We were frantically in love with each other and talked about getting married. However, we were too young to balance studies with dating, so both of our parents stopped us. Today, we live in different countries. I am pretty sure that even if we meet again, we will not be together anymore. The reason is we just loved for love and we don't really know each other well enough. I met my second during undergrad and it was love at first sight. However, things went terribly wrong when we got serious, i.e. when both of our parents were involved. We simply have very different values (actually opposing in some aspects) and will not work out without significant compromisation, e.g. giving up important life goals. So we broke up in pain. It's another case of immaturity, because we just fell in love before knowing each other well enough. I learnt my lessons and when I met "someone special" again during my PhD years, I told myself to calm down and get to know more about him objectively. He was also a PhD student back then (now a postdoc) which I thought we would make a good match. However, his personality is not quite different from my ex, so I gave up after a few dates. I am about to finish my PhD (hopefully) and I am still single at the moment. Speaking from my personal experience, I am glad that I do a PhD, because I get trained on viewing things objectively and with speculation. This ensures that I don't madly fall in love with someone before getting to actually know each other. I don't think our risk of being single forever is higher with graduate studies, because so many people who remained single for lives did not have graduate degrees! I simply don't buy the idea that you have to be less successful to get a partner, as someone who truly loves you will accept you as it is. Actually, it is not uncommon for grad students to meet their partners in grad school, so just stay positive and be yourself. Everyone's life is different, so it is meaningless to compare. In other words, enjoy your life!

Hi Parent Trap, I think you misunderstood my situation. I was trying to hide away from the admin of my school, not my advisors. The admin is required to organise an academic meeting regularly until students submit their dissertations. In those meetings, students and advisors meet with a panel of academics who don't involve in the research projects and update how the PhD is going. The panel are required to explore any issues that prevent students from submitting on time. I did have advisor issues that delay my dissertation. Although these have been resolved, I don't wish to be questioned by the panel why my submission is delayed. I have had too much anxiety for the dissertation already and I don't want to add more. I was worrying about involving the admin to get my studentship because she would find out that I had not submitted and hence organise an academic meeting. For my parents, I was just expressing my concerns over that meeting so I would not get the money straight away. They value money a lot, so they were upset about that. If they were to be involved, they would need to make an expensive international call plus they don't speak much English, so there is no way they can contact anyone at my school. Anyway, I just find out that I only need to correspond with the graduate school office. My advisors were not sure how to fill the form, so they got the admin involved last time. I keep a copy of the previous form, so this time I can perfectly bypass the admin. I have already turned in the form and will get my money soon!

I don't know about your country, but someone with a minor criminal offence that happened so long ago is generally considered clear. Since you have successfully got many other jobs before, it should not be something that is so destructive to your career. However, no one can tell if your criminal record affects you getting your dream job. Unfortunately, you will need to be patient and wait. Are there any other jobs that you are interested in? If so, perhaps start working on the applications, so you can turn to other jobs if the current one rejects you. I would still think it is good of you to be honest though, because honesty is highly valued by employers. It is especially true in academia.

Totally agree with what jrockford27 suggests. Personally, I find making a daily schedule of what needs to be done very helpful. My advisors asked me to do that at the start of my PhD (and they actually checked it). At first, I just found it tedious, but it did help me to make good progress. Don't fit in too much on schedule though and allow flexibility. Say you have 5 tasks to complete. You don't need to do them sequentially. You can do task 2 before task 1, or even multi-task if it is possible. Another thing is to avoid procrastination and perfectionism. I tend to delay writing because I don't think I can do it perfect, as my advisors always indicate a lot of problems. My strategy is to break it into small parts, e.g. I write a small paragraph in the morning, another one in the afternoon, then one more in the evening. I don't get obsessed with logical flow and grammar in my first go. I just make sure I finish with what I need to write. Then all I need is actually a day or two to tidy up the loose ends. I do set deadlines to get my writing drafts in to my advisors and stick to them. That way I ensure that I don't spend more time than I need on the writing. My writing still needs more work, but I am getting better and better. Regarding your issues of being late for classes, have you reflected on why? Could it be that you do a lot of unrelated things before you get out of the door, e.g. pay the bills, feed your dog? Prioritise what must be done before you get out of the door. Or could you be forgetful and leave your car key somewhere and you need to go back look for it? Put all things you need in your bag the night before, so you don't need to spend time looking for things. If there is a traffic problem, get out of the door early. Even if it only takes you 20 min to get from your home to school, spare 40 min for that. It will make sure that you don't run late even if you are caught in traffic.

Thanks rising_star and TakeruK for your kind reminders. I am not in Canada or the USA, but a country that commonly uses English. (Sorry I have to keep it secret as I use this forum to seek advice on advisor troubles.) It is uncommon to have a contract drawn up for situations like these in my country, unless I am engaging with a copy-editing company to review a series of books. However, as I said in my previous post, I would request her to formally write to me on the nature of editing, turnaround time, price and confidentiality, before I proceed to the editing. Email correspondence is sufficient for situations like these in my country. Of course, that is based upon her good records, i.e. she did good edits to many PhD dissertations in my department within a reasonable timeframe and price. Otherwise, my advisors and I would not consider her in the first place.

In my opinion, it is never too early to plan for a PhD if you are into it. I worked in a lab part-time over the summer during my bachelor years and that's how I met my current advisors. I mentioned to them on several occasions that I would like to pursue a PhD. At first, they seemed not to take me very seriously, but they knew I meant it when I still caught up with them regularly after the summer work. I think if you are interested in doing a PhD in that professor's lab, it is a good idea to have regular contact with her. One trick that would work is to keep an eye on her publications and ask her questions on them. Don't be afraid to tell her your thoughts and suggestions. That way you will demonstrate to her that you are indeed into her work and you will also have a good background on your project when you start your PhD.

Thank you for your kind reminder. My friend is very weak in English writing and my advisor always struggled to understand her writing. Although my advisor kindly fixed some grammatical mistakes and clarified some sentences, her dissertation was still difficult to read. The copy-editor did only one edit to my friend's dissertation, and my friend passed with minor revisions (unrelated to grammar)! My writing is not that bad and generally well-understood by others, but obviously not in perfect grammar. I heard that examiners will start to be critical when they spot grammatical mistakes in a dissertation, so I'd better get my friend's copy-editor for some polishing.

I am so sorry to hear your situation. Not every pregnant woman can work till delivery, so it is uncaring and discriminating of him to think you "belong to" him and make you teach classes when you don't feel well. Some adjustments need to be made given your circumstances. Are there any equity offices in your school? There should be one in most universities. If not, how about you raise it to the graduate research school with supporting documents of your pregnancy? Your welfare should be better taken care of. I don't know how it works at your institute, but my uni offers maternity leave for up to 6 months, and scholarship to any PhD students who fall pregnant during their studies. I have not seen any PhD students got pregnant in my department though, but these policies are in place to ensure good welfare. Your health is the priority and you should not compromise with him if you cannot. Have you spoken to your doctor about your anemia? Iron supplement can be helpful for your case. Being anemic is just not good for your baby!

In echo with Primula, there must be good and bad areas in a large city. Even for the uni I am in, some parts of the campus are notoriously known for robbery, even during the day. My family always express concerns whenever they read about robbery at my uni, but it always happens in those bad areas. If you are going to a large international conference, the organisers should have liaised with the hotels nearby to offer discounted accommodation. You should find a list of the hotels they recommend. However, my friends and I often find that it is cheaper to book directly with the hotel than through the conference organisers (mine was 20% less). It is also worth checking for holiday packages offered by your local travel agency. Sometimes you can save a good deal by booking one of the packages (air tickets plus hotel). Since you know when exactly you will travel, you can request the travel agent to watch out for you. I found a holiday package for my conference trip and I saved another 5%!

What I meant is I am not going to work out a long legal contract with my copy-editor, which makes everyone's life difficult. Of course, I will still request that she writes a formal email confirming the nature of the editing (grammar only), turnaround time, price and confidentiality. That would be sufficient for my purposes. I would not worry about the quality of edit, because my PhD friend had her dissertation edited by this copy-editor, and my main advisor (also her main advisor) and her examiners were pleased with the English.

Totally agree with what lemma suggests. It is always good to have curiosity and come up with new ideas, but you just need to voice them appropriately. Your leader was trying to explain to everyone what needed to be done, but somehow he got interrupted by your questions of "Why not such and such?". Understandably, he got a bit annoyed. You get annoyed too when someone keeps "challenging" you while you are talking. Personally, I don't see that as miscommunication. I think the best thing to do is to shut up and listen when he is explaining what to do. He may ask whether anybody has questions afterwards. It would be your time to ask any questions. However, if you do have a lot of questions/suggestions of alternatives, then it is best that you make a time with your leader and discuss. If you indeed concern that you made your leader upset, then I would suggest that you clear that up at an appropriate time, e.g. when you bump into him in the pantry/common room and he appears not in a rush. Note: Don't email him or book an appointment for that. The idea here is causal chat. You can apologise and explain to him that you are simply curious and have a lot of ideas, and that you did not mean to challenge him or make his life harder. He should take that well. You should then ask how he would like you to ask questions/make suggestions. That way you two will work better.

Thanks, Sigaba! I definitely won't work out a contract with the copy-editor. As long as she confirms in email that she will keep things confidential, I will be okay. Email will be sufficient as a proof. I am sure her service does not breach any school policies. She only fixes grammatical errors and makes sure that the writing style is consistent. At least my friend got her dissertation edited by her and had no problem. My advisor and the school approved her dissertation. I know there are other students who turned to her for copy-editing and so far nothing bad happens.

Thanks, TakeruK! I am actually thinking the same, just wonder how I should phrase myself politely. Instead of asking "Will you keep my work confidential?", should I ask "Could you advise what confidentiality measures do you put in place?" It may actually be a good thing that I communicate with her via emails, so I can readily produce proofs of correspondence. She is a reputable professional and I trust that she keeps things confidential. At least my friend and other students who got their dissertations edited by her had no issues. My friend said she simply sent over the dissertation without a second thought, because the editor is not a researcher and the information in the dissertation is not of any use to her job. However, even if my copy-editor has good ethics, things like her computer gets hacked by others can happen. Since I have not officially submitted my dissertation, anybody can rip off my name and claim that to be their work. Strangely, my uni does not quite encourage students to get professional editing, so I can't officially record the copy-editing. I would love to do so if that is possible. The last thing I wish is to have my hard work stolen by others!

My sister has travelled to France for holiday and nothing bad happened to her. She was travelling with a female friend though. If you will travel by yourself, I suggest that you book a reputable hotel (not budgeted and shared accommodation), preferably close to your conference venue. It may be more expensive, but your safety comes before that. That will decrease your need for wandering on the streets, and hence the possibility of street harassment. As a rule of thumb, you should never go out at night or to very quiet places alone. If that is possible, try and see if you can find someone to go with you. It doesn't have to be someone going to the exact same conference. It can be friends or even family members. Not only will it make you feel safer, but also you can do more sightseeing. Basically, ladies in my department go to international conferences with their partners, some even plan a honeymoon trip! Unfortunately, I am single, but my mum took her annual leave and joined me to an international conference last year (somewhere in Europe). We booked the hotel down the corner of the conference venue, so I just needed 2 min to get there. We worked out a plan for sightseeing together and we had a good time. The only "bad" thing that happened was getting lost in the city while it was raining heavily. Thankfully, we found our way back to the hotel by asking passersby. Hope that helps

Hi all, I am glad that my copy-editor can proofread my dissertation in December, as it can be hard to find someone at the year end. One of my PhD friends (also my main advisor's student) got her dissertation proofread by this copy-editor and my main advisor is very happy with the outcome. My PhD friend's written English is way more terrible than me and her dissertation was in perfect English after editing. Her examiners were pleased with the English. As a result, this copy-editor is very popular among PhD students in my department, but she is not hired by my school. She is just a freelance editor with employment elsewhere, but she has a business number for billing purpose. That means I will need to send over my dissertation to her for copy-editing. Obviously I will need to send her chapters by chapters, because the whole document is just too large to be sent in one go. I am quite concerned about confidentiality. My PhD work may be published in a top journal and I worry that my work will get stolen by third parties during the editing process. I don't mean to distrust her, but I do have reservations towards sending my dissertation to a complete stranger. However, I simply don't have a choice, because I don't think my written English is good enough. It is readable, but I am sure examiners will make comments on it. I know copy-editing companies have very strict procedures for confidentiality, e.g. all copy-editors signed a contract and agreed to keep everything confidential. How about freelance editors? Would I be very rude if I expressed concerns over confidentiality to my copy-editor? I could have sent my dissertation to an editing company, but I simply have no idea about the quality of editing. Since she did good editing to my friend's dissertation, she is the best person to turn to. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Thank you, fuzzylogician! Of course, I will only stick to the facts in the event I need to attend that meeting. I was trying to explain my advisor drama, which got my dissertation delayed by that much. I know it is bad to speculate, but I am confident that most of my speculation is true, based on my knowledge after working with him for years. He is never a gentleman whom I will describe as "unpredictable, moody etc.". He had always been a passionate and easy-going scientist in my mind. I will still try to procrastinate the meeting if possible though, because the responses of "unforeseeable circumstances" and what fuzzylogician suggested will not satisfy all 5 academics. I have met them for years, and I kind of know how they will approach such situation. Some maybe okay when they hear that I will submit by a date and show them my drafts of dissertation, but some may wonder if I can actually make it because I have a record of not making it. Especially for that "aggressive" questioner - If I tell him that I finish my dissertation but awaiting some final reviews by my advisors, his focus will turn to "How many % have you revised for chapter 1, 2 etc.? How long will you need to revise chapter 1, 2 etc.?" I can respond to him by saying that "I don't know. I trust my advisors etc.", but I can foresee other members may catch up with other questions. Revision can take a long time, added my record of delayed submission, things don't look very convincing to them. They may not interview me for 1 hour, but I do have to be prepared for that. My anxiety is slowly subsiding but still lingering. I don't wish to revert to the state when wind makes me difficult to get back to the office etc. If the admin comes to me, I will request her to schedule a time when my dissertation gets to the copy-editing stage. If I tell them upfront that my dissertation is being copy-edited and I will submit after that, they will only meet me for 5 min at most. They will not thoroughly investigate when they know I will certainly submit soon. It is actually helpful to keep myself calm while getting the last bits of dissertation done

It is definitely no harm to ask for another referee just in case the professor you contacted doesn't get back to you. Have you checked that she is in the office? Usually people will set autoreply when they are away, but it is possible that they don't, e.g. sick leave. Since you only emailed again yesterday, you'd better wait for a few days. If you still hear nothing, then maybe ring her up and see if you can get to her over the phone. However, I would not recommend going to her office without notice during office hours. To her, writing a recommendation letter may not be the most important thing she needs to attend to right now, so she may not like when someone chases after her in person when she is terribly busy. Some people are okay with that, but some will see that as impolite (it really depends). The last thing you want is to leave a bad impression to a potential referee. Well, you may need her to write a recommendation letter for other purposes (Who knows?). If I were you, I would simply turn to another referee if I don't hear back within a reasonable time frame. If she gets back to you afterwards, you can explain politely that the school requires the letter by a certain date, so you turned to someone else. Don't forget to thank for her time and say that you will turn to her again if you need a recommendation letter in future (even if you will not)!

Thanks for your responses. Sorry if my previous post was unclear. I can only clarify by saying that things are a bit different in my country without explaining further. I have to be extremely carefully not to reveal too much here in case my advisors find out I post about them. I don't wish to take this risk, but I am really desperate and have nobody to turn to. The panel I mentioned has nothing to do with my dissertation submission. It is up to my advisors to decide when I can submit. If there are any issues that prevent me from submitting my dissertation (e.g. advisor issues), the panel will work out how me and my advisors can address the problems, so I can finish within a reasonable timeframe. Nothing very bad will happen to me if I were to attend that meeting, it would probably be some discomfort due to intense questioning. However, the idea of being questioned by 5 academics why my submission is late is just too overwhelming and stressful to me! I have had enough stress this year and all I wish is to write and submit in peace. I don't wish to blame my main advisor, but he is indeed the culprit for the mishap. I told my family everything I encountered without judging, and they all agree with me. Actually, he was the one who insisted on that experiment which I could not handle months ago. He was actually persuading my co-advisor very hard to do that experiment, because someone did it and published in Cell. That explains why he said the experiment was doable, when he asked me to focus on writing prior to that. That also explains why he was hesitating to discuss with my co-advisor when I said I could not handle. He kept saying that he would support me etc., but what he was conveying appeared to be the opposite. That escalated to my other advisor in the end (let's call him B), who stepped in and supported that I should get my dissertation done first. Finally, they all agreed that I worked on my dissertation. Unfortunately (to me it's fortunate), my main advisor ran out of funding and was not successful in getting any, and same to my co-advisor, so that means I will need to work for B to complete the manuscript. B is the one who has funding. That also means B will become the senior author of the manuscript, because he will contribute a lot, i.e. take over the project, from now on. Right now, it is my main advisor who is the senior author. I can see my main advisor is upset, because he could potentially be the senior author of a top manuscript, but it all goes to B in the end. Since then, my main advisor got mad at me a few times, when apparently I did nothing wrong. He was slower than usual in getting back to me about my writing, probably he wished to delay me until the next round of funding is released. He also made a very negative comment about B (which is untrue) when he got mad at me once. I brought that up to my co-advisor and the whole thing was well-resolved. However, that means submission of my dissertation is delayed by that much. I know my story is not that uncommon, but how could I ever explain that? Other than saying "unforeseeable circumstances" and what fuzzylogician suggests, I don't know what else to say if the panel decide to "thoroughly investigate" why I cannot submit as planned.

As you may aware, I am finishing off the last bits of my PhD dissertation. In my school, there is an independent panel of academics who keep track on how I am going with my PhD. They meet me and my advisors regularly to make sure there are no issues, and that I can submit my dissertation on time. I will not need to meet them once I submit my dissertation. At our last meeting, they were all delighted to hear that I generated very exciting data in my PhD, and they believed that I would not need to meet them anymore. At that time, we aimed at getting everything done by August. However, without going into a lot of details, two big drama occurred between me and my advisors, which somehow delayed the writing. They wished me to complete a manuscript before doing the dissertation, but my weakness in writing finally got them to change their mind, so I totally focused on my dissertation. I should be finishing by this year, but that would mean I have to attend another academic meeting in November. The admin was meant to schedule it by the end of this month, but at the time I planned to submit on the date she indicated, so she did not schedule any meetings. She indicated two potential dates in November, but asked me to get back to her if I submitted or not so she could organise. Well, I really wish to avoid the meeting at all costs. Last year, one of my PhD friends got into trouble with that panel because she fell behind her PhD. She could not submit as planned because her advisor thought she needed more work. The panel interviewed her and her advisor separately for more than one hour. She was crying when she left the meeting room. She finally submitted in July this year though. I start to worry that I will have the same fate as her at the meeting. The panel have always been nice and friendly to me. They themselves are advisors of other PhD students, so they should understand things do not always go as planned. Unfortunately, they will need to explore why I will submit by the year end when I could make it by August. My strategy will be not to keep in touch with the admin, in the hope that she forgets me. I can easily apologise for my "forgetfulness" if she finds out. However, it is possible that she will find out shortly. My advisors kindly extend my financial support till the end of the year and I need to turn in a form to that admin. Unfortunately, she is the only admin in my school, and she will know that I am not done yet when she sees the form. I am trying not to turn in the form until it's late November, so she cannot organise any meetings. However, that got my parents upset. They don't see why I would delay getting the money that I deserve only to avoid a meeting. They don't understand that I may have a difficult time if I need to attend that meeting, and I will get myself too anxious. Anyway, one of the panel members is very nice but interviews students aggressively, like "How many % have you done for the first chapter? How many for the second, third etc. How long will it take for you to finish chapter 1, chapter 2 etc.?" I know by then I will finish the whole dissertation, just awaiting some final looks by my advisors, so he should not question me like that if I tell him upfront that I finish 100% (hopefully). I know "unforeseeable circumstances" is the term to explain for the delay. However, what else should I say if they decide to explore why my submission is delayed by that much? The meeting will be recorded, so I cannot tell them my troubles with advisors. It is just pointless to bring up issues that have been resolved, plus my advisors will be angry. Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

It is difficult to comment on the academic aspect of your application, as I have no knowledge of the schools you are interested in. As a very rough guide, any research experience is helpful, so you should put emphasis on any skills/techniques you gain from it. Your age will unlikely be a concern of the admission committees. Many people in my lab started PhD in their late 20s. There are 2 colleagues in my lab whose started theirs in their early 30s and they just finished fine. However, one problem of doing a PhD at this age is balancing family commitments with your work, particularly if you are married and have kids. The workload of doing a PhD can be very intense, and it is the case for chemistry which involves a lot of continuous experiments and long hours in lab. At some stages, you may be working till late or on the weekends. So along with working on your application, I would suggest that you work out how you can strive a good balance between the two.

I totally feel your pain, except I am an anxious person to start with (friends describe me as "paranoid")! The stress of getting my PhD is making my anxiety the worst it is ever. The overwhelming stress kicked in towards the end of my PhD. I am about to finish (hopefully), but I haven't been feeling well for the past year. I had a couple bouts of anxiety during my course of studies, but these were nowhere near what I have been going through the past year. Feel free to look at my other threads if you are interested. I had the options of going to medical school vs graduate school. I am actually very into becoming a physician, but due to circumstances, I ended up in graduate school. I enjoy doing research, but I feel that doing something that is not what I wish the most somehow impair my performance a bit. Maybe it's just imposter syndrome playing up. Anyway, I generated exciting data and my advisors all think that I could aim for very top journals. I was selected for a small oral presentation when I only asked for a poster presentation at a conference. However, my writing is just hopeless and my advisors were somehow shocked that I could not 100% understand and remember their published work (which leads on to this project). At first they kindly asked me to look at how published papers/dissertations were written. I did, and I tried, but I just could not write like them. My advisors initially thought their advice was fallen on deaf ears, but then they realised that I simply could not get to the standard without extra help. They finally stepped in and pointed me to the right direction, e.g. you should consider this and that. In general, my advisors are very helpful and supportive. They understand my struggles (after I finally got the courage to tell them that I cannot take it more) and agree that I should get my dissertation done before working on experiments for the big manuscript. Even though they all cheer me up by saying that "you will get there", I somehow wonder what's the point going through this agony when that is not what I wish the most in the first place. I could not offer very great advice here, as I am going through that myself at the moment. I wish to let you know that you are not alone. I heard many postdocs saying that "life will get back to normal after PhD", so let's hang in there and see. Good luck!

As others pointed out, it is not an easy question to answer. It really depends on which field you are from, and whether you are after a poster or an oral presentation. Speaking from my field, as long as you submit an abstract that can be easily understood and fits with the conference theme, you will be selected for a poster presentation as a minimum. If your work is outstanding enough, then you will be selected for an oral presentation. Conference organisations earn a great deal from registration fees, so they tend to accept abstracts if possible. If you are keen to present or it is a requirement for your program, I would suggest that you have a list of other conferences handy, so you can apply for others if your application is unsuccessful. Hope this is of help.