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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hong" data-source="post: 1912260" data-attributes="member: 537">Geez.More and more, I get the feeling I really lucked out on my PhD (ANU, computational statistics). It was 3 years of a combination of C hacking, working any hours I wanted (which meant 2am-1pm a lot of the time), socialising with a great bunch of people at my residential college (Bruce Hall), and rediscovering the joys of beer and 80s rock.Mind you, I took a rather idiosyncratic path to the degree, compared to most grad students. I was already employed full-time with a big company, and they were willing to keep me on half-pay while I went off to uni (!). This alone meant I didn't have to scrounge for scholarships and teaching positions while I was studying, and being in the Austrian education system means I didn't have to pay huge fees either (not even HECS). I also had a very hands-off supervisor, so I had a lot of freedom to do my own stuff. I get the feeling he was quite happy with this arrangement, as it meant he was also free to get on with his own research (and he does a HECK of a lot of research).Really, I can't think of anything in my PhD time that would count as a horror story. The closest might be how the examiners wanted to hold an oral exam (not common in Austrian circles), but even that turned out to be a breeze.</blockquote>