This thread will close on Friday 27th August at 1pm

For a career in academia you should be prepared to be flexible about where you live. Having said that, particularly around Cambridge, there are a large number of people working in research. There are more jobs in biology than chemistry, but as you're working between the two it should give you a lot of opportunities.

We're not sure if your postgraduate diploma will be suffiecient. We would expect that you would need to enrol on a Masters degree programme in the USA.

Some universities do offer some scholarships towards Masters degrees, but there are very few. You can't qualify for a loan form the Student Loans Company.

'Career Development' or 'Graduate' loans available from high street banks aren't as good as an undergraduate student loan, but they do provide deferred payment options and good interest rates.

Yes. In fact for most people an average of an 8 hour day will be normal for majority of their PhD. But, like other jobs you will find that the work doesn't always stop when you go home - on occasion there may be papers to read and most of the time you'll be thinking about your PhD.

You may also find that the structure of your working day is governed by experiments, rather than meal times. Most PhD students work very flexible hours, long days are followed by short ones.

See the 'How much work?!?' thread for other comments

This is a forum for asking about postgraduate research, not really for conducting research. Search Google for 'constructivism e-learning' and you'll find any number of articles relating to this.

Some PhD students hapilly spend months at a time without seeing their supervisor - others see them every day, it depends largely on the nature of the subject, but also what other support is available (in science other lab members will often mentor PhD students). The other two factors are the student and the supervisor.

Having said this your situation does sound particularly bad and you should act now to sort things out. If there is nobody other than your supervisor at your university that you can talk to then I would suggest getting in touch with the National Postgraduate Committee here in the UK for advice - [email protected]

Although horror stories of people ending up with less than they thought exist, they are actually quite rare. To approach it tactfully phone or email the supervisor and ask him or her to confirm the scholarship details, as it is a higher one than you've been offered elsewhere and wanted to check that you'd understood it correctly.

A bad or poor PhD student is a drain on the resources of the whole research group. No supervisor will appoint a student that they feel is incapable of acheiving a PhD, or that they think is likely to become a pain. Take your appointment as a compliment, there are many factors which will have governed your appointment, being a home student is just one of them.

Northern Ireland is recognised by the British Council as having one of the lowest costs of living in the UK. You should check with the international office of university you wish to attend, but around £7000 per year should be enough for accommodation, travel, food and some leisure activities.

True or not, getting a PhD studentship is not the achievement you should be focussing on - it's getting the PhD. What does it matter if your supervisor only picked you because they were desperate as long as you produce good research and get a PhD at the end you've proved yourself worthy of the studentship.

As has already been said, you are unlikely to be 'sacked' from your PhD - removing anyone from a university is a long winded process. As you have implied he may well retort 'if you don't like it you are free to leave', but as a rule most academics will go out of their way to avoid losing a PhD student.

If you are worried about confronting your supervisor with your concerns you should speak to your postgraduate advisor (these people are there for precisely this problem).

If your department does not use a postgraduate advisor system then speak to the departmental postgraduate tutor, the head of postgraduate research or the head of department. You are in the best position to judge the potential reaction of your supervisor to you concerns, but remember it is polite to air your grievances directly to your supervisor before complaining to his colleagues (particularly senior ones).

A PhD by distance learning is a posibility, but the criteria are very strict. You will need to be involved in an approved research project in your home country, which probably has strong links to the institution in which you'd like to study. The Open University may be a good place to start your search. If you are thinking of doing it alongside a full time job be prepared for it to take a very long time. Most PhD students work hours at least equivalent to a full time job - it is not like an undergraduate degree.

Things vary from subject to subject. As you are thinking about the pharmaceutical industry I assume you are interested in life/biomedical sciences. In this area academics often complain of the difficulty in recruiting good postdocs. This is either due to the inadequacies in the PhD training system or because of a brain drain into better paid positions in industry (probably the later). As long as you are prepared to relocate you should have little difficulty in securing a postdoctoral position.

After this lectureships and/or research fellowships are a much more difficult proposition and can be a lot harder to come by. However the pharmaceutical industry will still be interested in you after one or more postdocs.

The FindAPhD Team are former PhD and Masters students who spend their days engrossed in the intricacies of postgraduate education. The replies we give on this forum come from the experiences of not just ourselves, but of friends and colleagues still working in academia or who have moved into industry, as well as students currently undertaking postgraduate (PhD or Masters) education. We are always in contact with the postgraduate tutors and recruiters who advertise on the site.

Having said that, much of the factual advice comes from on line resources such as HERO and Universities UK. In cases where we are unsure of the facts we can find in our library or on-line we contact the funding councils or university graduate schools directly.