There must be some way outta here

Over the course of the last few posts, I have outline the reasons for and feelings associated with leaving my PhD studies. This final post could be considered the legal proceedings: a what happens next in order to take me from the maths department to the Real World™.

Recall that the three years of the PhD are actually split into two, almost distinct parts: the MPhil and the transfer to the PhD (an MPhil being a Master of Philosophy, as opposed to their PhD counterpart, the Doctor of Philosophy). Usually, the transfer — as highlighted before — takes place between 12-18 months of study and is designed to be a "halfway-house" between three full years of study and the possibility that it may all end in tears. The transfer is (usually) a formality, though small changes within the department of the University of Surrey — also highlighted before — mean that the work required to attain an MPhil has increased (mainly in order to reduce the burden of the final year work of a PhD when ideas are generally free-flowing).

Clearly, this new status associated with the MPhil is ideal in relation to my own circumstances: since I have completed a reasonable chunk of work and would like to leave my studies, the obvious alternative to leaving with little to show for the last two years is to work towards an MPhil. As such, I have something to show for two years, my supervisor has another thesis written by one of his students (albeit an MPhil thesis) and everyone, as they say, leaves happy.

The plan is as follows: the work we are currently grappling with has one very nice natural extension whose solution would make for a very fair contribution to the field of symmetry analysis. The idea is to work on this idea with the aim of completing the work, a paper associated with the work and the write-up of my MPhil thesis in time for the earliest (and most convenient) submission deadline, which is the start of July. As such, I am very fortunate that my funding will continue until the end of the (postgraduate) academic year, which is to say the end of September, the time over the summer — assuming I submit on time — being the period in which I will be examined for an MPhil degree. Such examination will take the usual form of a PhD examination, namely the destruction of my thesis my an external examiner, a presentation of the work and a viva.

Now that all of this is out of my system, I intend to continue keeping this diary, focusing once again on those aspects of my work that translate readily to a kind of generic research postgraduate experience in the hope it will be of use to someone (as well as a record of my own experiences for future reference).