Whoops, just seen genius responses to Squiggles' thread below, which seem pertinent to my own situation. Think I'll take that advice. Sorry for time-wasting (up)

Hi all - I'm relatively new to science. My A-levels and first degree were not in science, but I did a conversion course in psychology, scraping a Distinction.

Lack of science grounding means I felt that doing this MSc would really help the path to PhD. Obviously I read journal articles during my conversion course, but JEEPERS...

I just seem to spend so much time 'translating' the bloody things, before I can go anywhere near being able to critique them. Very slow process. Is it something that you've noticed speeding up during your studies? I ruddy hope you say yes. :p

Cheers Verypoor

Good to know other humans have experienced this kind of thing! (up)

Actually, I'm considerably less euphoric now than I was :p

Cos now we have our first assignment to do, and I'm bumping against the current limitations of my critical analysis powers. It's like boot camp for the mind. Oh well, that's what I came here for!

Happy research, everyone! :$

Just enrolled on my MSc this week. As it's an entirely new course, the staff: student ratio is incredible - 4 of them and 5 of us! They say they plan to take us to conferences, offer individual careers advice and have contacts in the US re: funded PhD programmes there. It feels as though they're going to take us seriously. This is amazing compared to my (two) degree programme(s).
Sorry to sound smug/gushing but WOW!

Hope others are feeling good about their forthcoming Masters programmes... :-x:p

I second that - I was looking for supervisor.exe in the Processes. It has a very plausible name....

I geddit...:p

Hi everyone

Well I looked at the Task Manager and decided to uninstall Windows Defender and the whole McAfee package. Then I went to that filenet page recommended by you, Tricky, and decided to replace them with Spybot and AVG. I've heard before that they are superior and free.

I've also defragged, Hazyjane. So far things do seem to be running faster. I'll see how life goes with AVG.

All your advice was very welcome as I didn't really know what Task Manager was for!

I don't really know my computer's specs - today it seems to be using 652MB of 1054MB.

I am a typical layperson when it comes to computers. No idea how they work. So thanks to you guys I am now less naive. Will try out everyone else's recommendations when I have a bit more time.

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All your replies are excellent. I haven't had time to try them out today, but I'm going to do so tomorrow as I can see there's a fair bit going on on Task Manager.

Will report back tomorrow!

Thanks you kind people (up)

I've deleted a few programmes I don't need and still no change.

I'm wondering whether it's the anti-virus software on it that's so unwieldy. Maybe I should uninstall that and download a 'smaller' equivalent.

Maybe I just need a new computer.

Any ideas? :-)

Ah yes, forgot about THAT impending apocalypse... what the hell was I worrying about a recession for?

Ah well, it's been nice knowing y'all...
;-)

Well all of these are very comforting thoughts (up) as I'd like to go into lecturing!

Perhaps the government would pump a lot of money into economics and criminology research.

Of course, during the actual Second World War when times were tight, there still had to be people doing 'pointless' things to keep morale up. I'm put in mind of the Entertainment Corps in It Ain't 'Alf 'Ot Mum.

Showing my age....

After the alarming recent headlines warning us of an impending recession/depression/apocalypse, I was wondering about the possible impact it might have on our little corner of the world.

Do people think it would affect the amount or types of funding available, for example? I'd imagine academia as a whole would not be priority for government.

There's certainly no precedent for such (non-wartime) economic problems in my 35-year-old life, if the headlines are to be believed. Does anyone well informed have any ideas about what could happen? Wild speculation from the ill-informed also welcome! 8-)

Hope not too depressing an enquiry... :$

Quite apart from the financial benefits, does anyone think that working part-time could be a useful way to maintain one's sanity while studying full-time?

It would give people contact and also make sure that the remaining time is used wisely, rather than in procrastination.

Any thoughts/experiences?

To cheer myself up I watch this rat on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4dYE-R-yjU

So now it turns out that my references arrived at Admissions 7 days ago but they haven't made their way to the course convenor's office yet - hence the delay. What kind of swirling vortex do they meet on the way?!?

Also, my friend got an e-mail 2 weeks ago telling her she had an MSc place and that she should just arrange a time to bring in her references and certificates. Since then she has had NO reply to e-mails or voicemails when she tries to set up the appointment. And she's handed her notice in at work on the strength of the e-mail!!!!!!!!

I know it's Clearing time and universities are very busy, but these are POSTgraduate Admissions Offices we're dealing with! Such poor quality service!


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