Well both are similar reputation wise so you would be best to visit both and see which you feel is better for you personally.

Hey Pineapple, keep battling away, it WILL be over soon. I remember what it was like and then just how good the feeling was when I sent off my final version... try and keep that end goal in your thoughts, you're on the train to the end journey station!

"it's nice to feel popular"

Do you know what modesty is?

I've never heard of a completion bursary. Do you mean bribe?

It's end of academic year, lots of academics on holiday / at conferences so they probably can't get answers about exact start dates or work space issues, getting you logins and computers set up etc. I wouldn't worry about it too much , it sounds as if they just need to sort out all the admin stuff at the uni sorted.

To be honest you'd be better asking them directly, we can only speculate!

Okay I have a great idea for a PhD Topic :

"D I Y a P h D : how to think for yourself and not get other people to do what you're too lazy to bother finding out for yourself"

I thought it was maybe some creative writing student testing out an idea for a play or a film script.

As much as I hate to be the voice of dissent, I would think very carefully about what you do.

If you want a future academic career, forget it. Academia is a closed, tight knit world and don't expect to ever get a job in it if you make a complaint like this. I'm not saying it's right or justified or whatever, it sucks big time, but this is life.

You yourself have seen what happens and will probably follow the same fate - if you follow through with it, prepare for consequences, as they'll be there. Again, not right at all, but it's how it is sadly and won't change any time soon.

Keep committed to your PhD, show your supervisor you are focused and interested and avoid this toss*er as much as you can. But you need to think about your future too.

(Yes I know, I'm a gloomy voice but I'm old and jaded about the reality of life!)

At the end of each year of PhD we had to do a mini write up and one of the things I did in my first year was quite a comprehensive lit review. By the time I came to my third year I, like you, looked at it and thought - who on earth wrote this rubbish? Oh, I did?!?!?

The only good thing was it meant all my references used then were at least already in my database!

And it's a good thing definitely realising how you are improving!

A very thorough review of the literature and searching will help to identify whether anybody hasn't done it already, but the real issue is other people doing the same thing at the same time.

However, it's not necessarily a bad thing and won't necessarily affect your PhD - as long as you can show your work is independent then it's fine. Yes, okay it's annoying and gutting but this is life unfortunately!

And it doesn't always turn out badly - what I was researching in my first year, I suddenly found a paper that had been looking at the same problem. Whilst their method was very slightly different to what I was doing, the conclusion of the problem was ultimately the same and wouldn't have been a novel enough difference in approach. It was nice to know that my idea and results were showing what someone presitigious in my area had found, but gutting too. However, it meant I gave up looking at that problem, chose a different one which I really enjoyed and did some novel work in and got my PhD.

It depends what you want to do. Given that most masters are pass or fail (with merit/distinction in some) then generally employers don't care. As long as you pass it, then you'll have it. Employers generally don't give two hoots if you passed a masters scraped through or got full marks. They just see it as a masters degree.

For a PhD it is seen quite differently as they'll often ask about specific parts of the masters and may even use it as entrance requirements for the PhD. However, rather perversely, it isn't always necessary to even have a masters these days to get onto a PhD (standards slipping? cynical, moi?). But if you didn't declare it then you may need to justify what you've been doing since finishing your undergrad degree.

Ultimately I would say if you're going to at least pass it, even if just to scrape through, you've invested the time and effort until now and it will then be there for you to say you have done and can move on from.

So "a masters is a masters" - largely yes.

I don't know the area but I would guess the World Bank position is probably more competitive to get into so early on and would be great experience for later on in life. Maybe in time they would even sponsor a PhD part-time for you anyway?

Hey Chrisrolinski, glad to see an "old timer" come back to say hello! And sounds great what you're doing - I really regret not going to teach English abroad between my undergrad and phd as I planned... Sounds like it has worked out really well for you!

Wow great to hear from you ! Glad it's going well so far, will be really interested to hear how things develop and the positives/negatives!

Sadly Dalmation we have those here in the UK as well (example here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-16052301)

I do wonder about the actual success of internships nowadays. It used to be they were a good way for employers to get to know people coming into their business and then decide whether they were good a fit to be offered a job at the other end. Now they seem to be little more than free labour and it's getting rarer that anything comes out of it. So much for that "vital work experience" it offers, when everyone else is being forced to do the same it means there is no differentiation anymore.

Not that I have a solution, I do just really wonder where it's all going to end.