Which is more important to you? I would not continue on your current path or you're not going to be able to do justice to either.

Some people do work part-time during PhD out of financial necessity, however, I don't see how you can make time for both a full-time PhD and a full-time job. One or the other needs to be part-time to give yourself the best chance.

The time commitment required from me was extremely heavy, especially towards the end. I personally could not have continued in a full-time job (probably not even a part-time job) and done justice to my PhD.

Ian

So is anyone else able to offer a little extra help to the Geordie lad asking for assistance or is he going to have to be satisfied with the help of a Mackem? :-) :-) :-)

Ian

If you manage to get in, so be it. I was a 2(ii) ages back (I'm known to freeze in exams) but with two Masters (long story involving health issues - health affected first one, thought I'd failed, started second one, found I'd passed the first one after all), I finally got into a PhD and obtained it with minor corrections quite a while ago.

At the time I got my first degree, my understanding was you could do post-grad study with a 2(ii), but you were not likely to obtain funding unless you had a 2(i). My Masters studies were done without funding from a usual source (parental help with the first, compensation for an accdient for the second). Since then, 2(i) or degree (usually 2(ii) or better) plus masters had become a lower benchmark, this arguably down to the much highernumbers of people entering higher education and thus more choice for potential supervisors.

In your situation, if you are finally accepted with a 2(ii) then I would find this very surprising and especially somewhere like Cranfield. Cranfield is a post-grad only Uni. with a reasonable standing, which is why I'd expect them to ask you for an additional Masters qualification.

The above suggests one of the following:

1) They are considering your application as per their regulations and thus the point where your 2(ii) is questioned has not been reached. I would be prepared at this stage to prepare yourself for rejection.

2) The other possibility you have not made clear is you might have applied for a 1 + 3 route, in that you do a year of masters then progress to PhD. Even then, I'd usually expect 2(i) to be considered minium for this to be funded.

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On the basis of what you have said, is not to raise your hopes just yet and mentally prepare yourself to be rejected. If you really do dream of doing a PhD, I would start looking at Masters as a step towards this.

Ian

Cuagan,

Sorry to hear.

I pick up on your comment you feel you wern't prepared going into the PhD. I'll answer that by saying no-one knows how to do a PhD until they have done one.

You also comment on it going wrong. How did it go wrong? Was it a viable project to begin with? If viable, what happened that stopped the project being viable? Did it transpire later the project wasn't viable? Could you have done things differently? Could others have acted differently in supporting the project?

In asking these questions you can build a case as to what you have learnt from you PhD attempt and what you would do differently to make a future project a success. This can include your approach, your interactions with others, your approach to methodology and experimental design, etc., so you can present yourself in a more positive light in interview.

You want to remain in an academic environment, thus I would present this PhD as PenPen suggests as not being for you. Don't say PhDs in general are not for you, as you may in future have the opportunity to study a PhD part-time alongside a future Research Assistant position.

I note Dr. Jeckel's comment on not mentioning it was a PhD attempt, rather an Research Assistant position. It's a sentiment I understand as I know it has been suggested elsewhere that leaving a Phd (successful or otherwise) off a CV can make a job candidate seem less overqualified. However, I'm wary of such a claim as whilst some will be understanding of this position if they later find out, it can also be seen as dishonesty by others.

Ian

Is this to offer funding for people pursuing PhDs who have not found a funded PhD or is the loan model meant to replace bursary funded PhDs as offered by charities and the research councils?

This may be for now a rhetorical question as I'm suspicious of the statement "These new loans will be available in addition to existing forms of PhD funding and will be designed to compliment support from research councils, universities and industry."

It would be good if on reaching Year 4 (as most us did, have done or will do), a loan could be obtained to pay the bills whilst we finish writing up. However, I have strong opinions about loan funding for higher education in general (i.e. I'm opposed to it) and sense possible creep towards loan funding being the standard model for all UK post-grad education.

Ian

Although supervision and environment was good, my supervisor kept chopping and changing until the beginning of write-up. My one annoyance with the project, you could say.

Ian

I'm not decrying people who've done well or served their community as many thoroughly deserve some sort of honour.

However, whilst I appreciate the honorary award is being bestowed for such outstanding achievement, there are people who've worked damn hard for 4 or more years to obtain a qualification demonstrating excellence and original thought in there chosen field. That is not a claim an honorary doctorate can make.

If we are talking about the UK, there are Freedom of City awards, etc. to honour local, non-academic achievement. At national level, there's the Birthday's Honours List.

Ian

This must be the first time I've said this on here, but queue twenty pages of rants about devaluing real doctorates. :-)

Ian

I agree with HazyJane. If this is a UK sxience project, it seems very unusual for there to be no funding in place unless you have proposed the project yourself.

I know of one case where someone was offered a science PhD without funding in place at a top University. When they were offered a suitable project at another university with very good funding terms, the top University PhD place at that time was obviously left unfilled.

Costs if they'd taken this PhD? £9,000 a year for 3 years min, £1,000 min a month in lab consumables for 2 of those years min, making it £51,000 before living costs and accomodation were even accounted for. For a self-funded science PhD, that comes to £75,000 total minimum.

I'll add that once you start withoutout funding, I seem to get the impression rightly or wrongly that some organisations might be less inclined to offer funding, the thinking being you've the resources to continue and thus you're data will be available at the end (electronic repositories, access via the British Library) without them having to pay a penny. There is the counter-argument, however, that if you show interesting early results that this may encourage someone to step in with at least partial funding (the operative word being partial).

I would strongly advise you waited for funding to look for a project you're interested in with funding in place. You do not want to find yourself say almost a year in, the project going well and have to withdraw with nothing to show due to lack of resurces and significant debt.

Ian