lol Stu, I sense extreme aggravation....

Don't you believe in Karma?

To Doodles,
If you like it, please tell to your friends. I hope my diary is useful for myself as well as help me gain more knowledge, not only for my research area, but also for the research life!

a budget for equipment, but in both our cases there isn't - that's the problem. It's also really hard to approach the department as a student and be taken seriously - you have no chance without supervisor support (but I'll work on it). The grant I was talking about (which looked really hopeful at first) completely excludes students (not sure why) - it says something like the money my supervisor applies for must not be used for a student's research! Crazy!

Good to hear from you again Isil - even though you're still stuck. I don't think I can get my e-bay money back - no-one sells what I bought as 'guaranteed working' because they're difficult to test unless you are actually in a lab. Everyone advises me not to buy one without a manual etc, but I don't have any choice! I've ordered another from e-bay, and if this one fails I've got some really desperate options like building a really basic one myself or making a software version! Dragonfly: there SHOULD be

The internal teaching course I think Ann's talking about is the PGCHET (postgraduate certificate in higher education teaching?) New lecturers 'have' to do this course or they don't get a permanent contract (but I get the impression this isn't very strict)

...I reckon it's the same in most areas of work though - how many people can you think of who are quite happily NOT doing their jobs properly? I've just accepted that nothing is going to change in my time as a student, so I've learnt to live with it. If I was a bit less 'uptight' I'd say 'if you can't beat them, join them' and start doing my job badly!

Yeah - it is nice to hear from you Paddy. I think there needs to be a lot more accountability in academia. Problems go unnoticed because there aren't strict boss-employee relationships (or that's how it seems). Who is my supervisor's boss? Bad supervisors SHOULD be weeded out, but unless there are major structural changes in universities I don't think that's likely to become a regular thing...

Hi, I'm not sure about a specific name - I just ready that in most cases there are no tuition fees for postgradua
tes :)

thankyou for sharing that with us abin.........

why don't you find out for yourself? hmm??

Thanks Ann...I wasn't sure if there was an equivalent of the UK PGCE or PGCert to teach at universities.

hello i am surya i want to do my pg in life science in uk so kindly give the details of universities starting courses in feb 2006 semester my emal id is [email protected]

Probably still worth trying to get some kind of academic reference. An ex-tutor or lecturer will be able to write one from your student records. Good luck with your application.

Who are your referees? If it is a long time since you did your previous degree then a reference from your employer is more appropriate.

Biophysics is well soft! :)