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PhD

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited March 27 in Work & Study
To anyone that cares, I got an offer to start a PhD in mid-IR optoelectronics at Lancaster uni. Wooo! I've been waiting for this for about 5 months now - I'm so relieved :)

Anyone else doing/thinking of doing a PhD?
Post edited by JustV on

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I want to do one, and the course im on at the moment leads towards it (and MESci, with the last year being current issues and research skills style stuff).

    But im still only a fresher so who knows what could happen in the next few years.

    Congratulations though!
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I wanna do one as well, but I reckon funding for arts fac students is hard to get (unless you're a genius). What I wanna get into is lecturing though, and I'm a bit worried about doing 8 years at uni and then not being able to get a job doing what I want... :(
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Funding is difficult and I certainly wouldn't have considered doing it with my own cash unless I was filthy rich. I was lucky in that my supervisor had applied for a grant that was awarded at the end of last year and because I did well in my Master's project I was deemed suitable to start a PhD.

    Unless you get at least a 2:1 BA or BSc then you'd really need to do a Master's degree to be considered for a research degree. Best thing to do is ask your tutor or director of studies what they think - after all, they've been there and done all that.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah, I;ve asked about and they've said I really need a minimum of a 2:1, but preferably a 1st... Ho hum... And it's impossible to fund yourself unless like you say, you're filthy rich. Even if I do get a 2:1 or a 1st, I still need to do a masters for the 'research' and then 3 years at PHd, so I'm looking at at least another 4 years...
    :( Well done in getting it by the way :thumb:, I know how much of a pain it can be (even though I'm not there yet.)
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Very Well done, my flatmate started his Phd at Lancaster last year but moved to Sheffield with his tutor this year.

    Hopefully I will be doing a Masters next year and after that i don't know, if I do well and can get funding then maybe......

    Did you get research council funding? Do you have much idea how competitive that is?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I got funding from EPSRC, which is for engineering and the physical sciences. It's fairly competitive but then there was no competition in my case - my supervisor hadn't planned to advertise unless I didn't want it.

    A Master degree helps a lot, especially if you don't get a 2:1 or a first in your undergrad degree - generally you have shown that you can conduct yourself usefully in a research environment. It seems like a good time to be studying the sciences at the moment too - chronic shortages of scientists and engineers at the moment.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    CONGRATULATIONS :)

    That's fab news
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Wow!
    I'm very impressed.
    I'd love to do a PhD, but think it's something I may have to come back to in later life, as it'd be difficult to get funding, as I'm an arts student (and don't think I'm clever enough for a scholarship type thing). Am currently doing a 3yr BA, so dependant on finals, I may stretch to an MA. One more year of debt can't hurt ;)
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