3rd Year PhD Students

Deadlines for each of the activities described below appear in the Postgraduate Timetable.

Your tasks this year continues to fall into several key areas:

Research- at the direction of your supervisor.
Teaching- for those of you who commit to teaching tasks.
Physics Graduate School- formal physics training at an appropriate level.
Doctoral Skills- Progress Monitoring, Doctoral Skills, and Seminars and Colloquia.

You will need to balance your time between these tasks, remembering that some are more concentrated in university term time.
Specific tasks for the Third year of PhD include:

Doctoral Skills

The Physics Doctoral Skills Programme is laid out in full detail on its own page.

As described on that page, its tasks fall into four compulsory categories: Essential training, Progress Monitoring, Doctoral Skills, and Seminars and Colloquia.

All tasks should be uploaded to Moodle.

Essential Training

This covers the key compulsory short training courses required for all students and staff at the University of Warwick and in the Physics Department.

Essential Training

Update Project Risk Analysis

Progress Monitoring:

Progress Report and Research Plan (week 4 of term 1)

As in the second year, students are asked to produce a short research plan at the start of the year. It should consist of not more than 2 pages (500-1000 words), outlining progress to date and a plan of work, including appropriate milestones, a gannt chart and a refreshed budget. Any problems that threaten to delay thesis production should be highlighted together with proposed solutions.

This plan should be agreed with the supervisor and uploaded to Moodle by Week 4. Submission of the plan will be taken to mean agreement has been reached between student and supervisor. Where there are issues delaying progress or the plans are not satisfactory the Director of Graduates may require the student to also attend an interview.

Thesis Plan (for students funded <3.5 years or self-funded)

If your studentship is funded for <3.5 years or you are self-funded, students need to prepare a thesis plan and submit it via SkillsForge approximately six months before the end of their funded period. If you have funding for 3.5-4 years, such a thesis plan is due at the start of your 4th year.

As with the progress reports and research plan, the plan should be agreed with the supervisor and submitted via SkillsForge. Submission of the plan will be taken to mean agreement has been reached between student and supervisor.

The reason for producing a plan are to demonstrate :

there is suficient material to write about
the student has thought about the structure of the thesis and the approximate length of each section
the timescale for finishing

The thesis plan should contain:

a list of chapter headings down to sub-section level
a rough indication of the number of pages for each section (see note on thesis length)
the state of each section (e.g. % complete, in draft form, data awaiting analysis, experiments completed, experiments failed because …, more experiments needed, not thought about yet)
for the incomplete parts, especially experiments, an estimate of when they will be done should be included
a schedule of work, indicating a timetable for completing the thesis
expected submission date

The length of the thesis plan is not important compared to the information contained. It will probably be more than one side of A4 but less than 5.

Students who do not expect to submit before the end of their funded period will also need to consider how they will be supported and must remember that the thesis must have been submitted by the end of their registration period which is at most 4 years after your start date (regardless of funding period).

Doctoral Skills

The Doctoral Skills category consists of a list of tasks on Moodle that should be completed throughout the year.

Doctoral Skills Module details

Doctoral Skills Module 3

The submission deadlines for these tasks and reviewer information can be found in the following link:

Submission Deadlines and Important Dates

Thesis Writing & Submission

Thesis Writing Guide Forms for submission of a research degree

The most significant single piece of work for your PhD is the completion of your thesis. To see examples of previous theses from students in the Department please look at the WRAP archive here.

For most PhD students in the Physics Department, the training and research has been designed around 3-3.5 years of funding and full time students are expected to submit their thesis close to the end of their funded period. The maximum period of registration, regardless of funding, is 4 years. This deadline is absolute and students will not normally be allowed to submit at all after it. You will have received a letter that clearly states your intended submission and funding end-dates to make sure you plan according to this timeline. Note that the Doctoral College is rigorously enforcing the rule that students must submit within 4 years. Students will be withdrawn from the course if they cross this line even by a day.

Exceptions to this require truly exceptional circumstances. Please refer to the Doctoral College web page for more details.

Departmental Colloquia and Research Group Seminars

Physics Colloquia are open to the whole department are held each fortnight during full term, on Wednesday starting at 4:30pm in PLT. These aim to bring a wide variety of cutting edge research from high profile speakers to the attention of a general audience of physicists. The level is suitable for all staff, postgraduates and final year MPhys students.

Attendance at these colloquia is compulsory for all PhD students as part of their general training programme.

In addition, the various research groups have their own seminars and it is usual practise for PhD students to attend.