Not sure what I'm expecting anyone to say but just feel like i need a safe space to rant......apologies, it's long.
I've been an academic for 7 years but worked at my uni for 18. I was headhunted from another department to teach on a specific course. I was immediately put on a part time PhD and the pressure to complete on time has been pretty intense.
In that 7 years I've progressed quite rapidly. I started out as a lecturer but i'm now a director of education in my faculty. I suspect that this has got some old school academic's backs up but it's never really bothered me as I'm good at my job and have track record which supports my progression. I've earned it.
My PhD experience hasn't been very positive. I've had 7 different supervisors and my last two ( who saw me through submission) have been pretty disinterested at times. However, I submitted on time and was pretty happy with what I'd done.
I had to wait 7 months for a viva which is an issue in itself but there wasn't anything I could do.
I had a mock viva two weeks before with my supervisors and it went really well. Both said they were really confident about the outcome and although we identified some weaknesses in the study we discussed strategies to address these in the actual viva.
Viva day arrived - it didn't start well. We had to move rooms 4 times and my supervisor didn't bother to turn up.
However, I thought i performed well. The external examiners were lovely and although they asked challenging questions there wasn't any suggestions that they didn't like what I'd done, how I'd done it or what I'd found.
My internal examiner was someone from my faculty and he was really, really harsh but i felt i handled myself well.
My verbal feedback was a bit of a disaster. They were complimentary and said I'd found something really interesting but that they wanted me to make a few changes - no new content just a bit of restructuring and strengthening. Nothing that would take too long. However, I didn't realise until I left that they hadn't formally informed me of my outcome ( minor or major amends) but i thought I'd see what my report said as it didn't seem too bad. I was pretty pleased with myself if I'm honest.
Later that day my internal examiner visited my office and proceeded to give me loads of additional feedback on my thesis - basically he didn't like it. Not one of the points he raised were discussed in the actually viva itself. I asked him what my outcome was and he said a full re-write!!!
I've not received my official report yet but I'm absolutely devastated. I genuinely feel blindsided as that outcome does not tally with my experience. However, as my supervisor didn't bother to turn up i have nobody to tell me whether i completely misjudged the situation. I think i've probably got grounds for complaint but it would mean complain abut my own department at at time when there is a lot of shit going on with redundancies. .
Not sure if its relevant but my internal examiner has been an academic for 20 years but this was his first time examining a PhD and he's only doing it because he wants to get promoted to professor and you need yo have a certain number of examinations competed to be able to do that. I'm more senior than him but 20 years younger. It makes for an odd dynamic.
Well done if you got to the end!