I'm inclined to agree. It might also be worth understanding why the supervisor is moving from the German institute to the Saudi one.

It also seems to me a little irresponsible of a supervisor to take on new students if they know they are moving in the near future. It's not that fair on existing students, so to take on new ones seems odd to me.

It's virtually impossible to guess without knowing what your field/the field of the PhD is. But in general terms it would probably be something that tested up to masters-level skills (if a Masters is required) that are relevant to the role.

Would you consider an MSc/MRes in bioinformatics? Or some short courses? It is one of those disciplines where a Masters (or equivalent experience) probably would really help. I can't really see there being many technician roles.

Edited to add:
Out of interest, having had no prior experience in the field, what is attracting you to it?

I left a UK research council funded PhD halfway through. I only had to pay back a small amount of money and that was because we used to get paid in advance so I had to return the money relating to the remainder of that period that I would no longer be working. I was not asked to pay back any money from the time I was working on it though.

What kind of work will you be doing? Lab work, field work, library-based, only computer-based? It has a bearing on how inconvenient or otherwise living a distance may be.

I am sorry to hear of your troubles. Do your friends and family know how you are feeling. Do you have access to other sources of support such as a counsellor?

It is hard to offer you specific advice on finding a job without knowing what you studied and what kind of work you are looking for. Can you tell us more about that?

Depends on
(a) your field e.g. funded or not, science PhD students will rarely have free reign to choose any topic as there are usually constraints on the available equipment, samples, databases etc. Arts and humanities students are generally more able to put forward their own proposal and tend to do so whether funded or not. Also worth bearing in mind that science/engineering topics requiring experimental lab work will be incredibly costly (one may need to cover lab costs of up to £1000/month depending on the type of work).

(b) your reasons for doing a PhD. If your primary aim is to immerse yourself in a topic that fascinates you and you're not fussed what happens afterwards then self funding may be an optimal way to increase your control over your topic. If, however, your primary aim is a career in academia then be aware that a PhD (funded or not) is an investment with a very poor rate of return, thus a self funded PhD can be incredibly costly with little benefit.

Also worth bearing in mind that PhD theses rarely end up up looking like how anyone imagined they would at the beginning of the process. Also, the steer one gets from a supervisor in a different direction is often there for a reason (supervisors aren't always right but if their vision from a project differs from your own you need to think very carefully before ploughing ahead regardless).

I'm not sure of the value of doing a MOOC on university teaching specifically, as it is probably something where institution-specific and face to face training is more appropriate.

But in general if there's something you fancy learning a bit more about and have the time, they can be a good way of doing that without too much hassle or commitment. As to whether they will enhance your CV will depend on who is reading it. But I don't think that should be the primary motivator for doing one.

It would probably be best to email the journal for clarification.

The best thing to do would be to check with the lab in question as they may have funds for this. However, I would anticipate that the cost burden would fall on you. Depending on the nature of the experimental work, it might be in the region of £1000 a month in reagents, equipment and other bench fees. Cell culture can be particularly costly in terms of reagents.

In the UK at least it's quite unusual for experimental science PhD students to self fund, for the above reason along with others. Personally I'd recommend holding off until you have a funding offer, with a different department/uni if need be. I'd also be a little skeptical of the motives of a lab group which was willing to take on students without funding.

Just to add... Twitter can be a fantastic tool for academics, particularly with respect to networking and staying in touch with your field. But it does require a bit of patience, both to learn how it works and develop enough of a network to make it interesting. I'd say that it probably starts to get interesting and comprehensible once you've got about 20 or so followers and you're following 50 or so others; before that it can be a bit like talking into an empty room.

Are you using it for professional or personal purposes? Some people mix the two but I prefer a bit of demarcation myself.

>I've so far learned that if people follow us, we are (supposed to) follow them (if appropriate)?
You're not obliged to. It can get a bit unmanageable if you do that. Maybe focus on following individuals whose bio suggests you'd like to read their tweets. If it's someone you sort of know, do follow back though.

>does anyone know how to do a twitter chat?
Do you mean publicly or via direct message?

>and how do i find all the chat messages later?
Hashtags may help, but it depends on your answer to the previous question

>Also, how often do you look at your twitter?
More often than I should!

>Do we only look at notifications?
Your choice - you can tweak your notification preferences, or just read your timeline/feed

>TBH I can't look at my phone all day, or simply jump up whenever it goes BING!
Nor should you.