These are views after having talked to several people that I know who have obtained PhDs and struggled to get a decent job. Requirements for a PHD are a minimum of 2.1 (first degree) or 2.2 with Masters. Is it worth the extra years? In some cases yes and for some people not. PHD is worth the extra hard work if you want to become a researcher, want to teach as a professor or work at higher level for the government or NGO's. Although the private sector also employs people with PhD’s one must consider all the facts before starting a PHD because after completing it you will over qualify yourself for most jobs and some employers don't like ...  Read the complete review

Oh come on Brits, 3 years is nothing for a Ph.D. In the USA and most other places in Europe, we do 5-7 years for the Ph.D. So why are you complaining about a measily 3 years? 3 years is like a masters here in the USA. Average age for a Ph.D. in USA is 30. I see plenty of Brits over here age 25-26 who call themselves postdocs yet don't know what the hell they're doing in the laboratory. To all Brits who are thinking of getting a REAL Ph.D. with REAL challenges, I suggest you go to graduate school in the US. Trust me, after your 300 page thesis with 300 references, years of teaching, 6 papers, and 6 years of graduate school, THEN I'll call you a ...  Read the complete review

I thought that some of you might be interested to know how things panned out. Skip to the end to the part marked *UPDATE* if you’ve read the rant from before. A wisened old PhD graduate once said to me "you never make up the money you miss while studying for your PhD". After three years I can tell you, he was absolutely right. So what's the deal? Science PhDs are usually funded by one of the research councils. They pay your course fees and a maintance grant of around £6500 tax free. This is a quota award. The actual grant varies between research councils and it is rumoured to be going up (however, this has been rumoured for the ...  Read the complete review

I have read some of the excellent ops in this section and felt that one more wouldn?t hurt. I aim to give an overview of the whole PhD process and I will illustrate this with my experiences throughout the course of my PhD, some humorous, some not? Anyway, I think the best place to start is why do a PhD? I think the majority of people go on to do PhD?s after they graduate because they see it as a natural progression in their education. For example, I did biochemistry and probably about one third of my year went onto to do PhD?s. This was probably because short research projects in their final years had whetted their appetite (that was the case for me). In my ...  Read the complete review

Why do you want a PhD? Prestige, financial gain, academic pleasure or just because you couldn't think of anything else to do? None of these are valid reasons. So we are back to the original question - why? I chose a PhD because I enjoy research, I enjoy university life and quite simply, I wanted a PhD. But there does have to be something else there to drive you when the going gets sticky (and it will). All I can tell you is my story... After finishing my university undergrad course, I decided that I wanted to go on and carry on some interesting work I had been doing at the previous uni. I chose my new post-grad place rather at random (luckily worked ...  Read the complete review