Hi, is it a Masters dissertation or a PhD thesis?

If this discussion was about Master Degrees or Bachelor degrees, I would definitely agree with RJB.. about the power of brand names and say: "go to Oxford University instead of Manchester Metropolitan".

But in PhD research I don't really see the point of the whole discussion.

For me, all this "in an ideal world" is nothing than bla bla bla.

I tell you why I have this opinion. In research, as we all know, publications have a very high importance. So, having a PhD from Red Brick and 0 publications does not match a PhD from Sunderland University(ha ha and three first author publications in 4star journals. So I ask again, who's the winner? The snobs, or the hard working excellent researchers? At the same time, I know that in some fields the funding does play an important role but in other fields, red brick or not is irrelevant.

And by the way, why is thread about Red Brick? I though Red Brick are the second league, old universities Premier League and Old Polys Bottom League. So no need for Snobbery in RedBrick, in my opinion. No need for snobbery anywhere else either, in my opinion. And finally, I've found snobbery everywhere I've been so far, including Professors from Old Polys.

Buy the book again.

Anything else is not decent.

Quite frankly and with all due respect, I think people who are not in the final writing up phase of their PhDs or have completed it should refrain from giving advice on this issue.

What is clear is that Undergrad studies or MSc studies or even the first or second year of the PHD are entirely different and incomparable with regard to their impact on life and hence marriage or relatonsships in general.

What I wanted to say, the marriage will not take over the research, but the PhD research will take over the life, making it even hard to think about mundane things like shopping for groceries or washing clothes.

I second what Jojo has said.

It's not the question whether the marriage will have an impact on the research, quite the opposite. In the final months of writing up, the pressure will be unbearable and it will be hard to communicate to the wife or husband that you would prefer to spend more time with the thesis than with him or her.

In total 399 words today. I call it a day. Tomorrow is a new one. Gonna watch TV now until the Caffeine intake let's me sleep.

I usually do the same in presentations, the slides acting as orientation for the content and no further notes. I usually find it very useful to print out all slides as handout with six slides per page, and to spread them on the lectern in front of me whilst I talk. This helps to avoid turning around to look at the screen during the presentation and makes it easier to link between topics and slides.

Somehow I ended up in the kitchen preparing an extended midnight snack (Steak Diane with pasta) instead of working and despite my resentment of cooking. Arrgghh, now I'm even more tired. But I have to fight!

Hi Pamw.

I am sure your presentation will be great. What are you doing in terms of presentation, are you focussing on the slides or the content of the talk at the moment?

I just wrote 202 words in the last hour, but it's rubbish and I need to write 500 more before I go to bed to reach my self set target for today. But it's too complex for me as I begin to doubt my own abilities to do this. Every single sentence could potentially contradict statements made earlier. How is it even possible to control this vast body of text and to retain the overview???

And I begin to hate myself for always starting to work on this after 10pm. I'm going crazy. I need more Cooooooooooooofffffffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

And another all nighter. I don't want to. I hate it. But I have no choice.

Who else? Please respond. I don't want to be the only dork in the world staying awake until 5am.

There are questions and silly questions. In my opinion, the original posters' question belongs to the latter category. But I might be wrong.

One would assume that an accepted PhD student at St Andrews would have the ability, intelligence and determination to follow this up through additional, more extensive Google searches. Read journals in your new field, become a member of professional bodies and the invitations will spam up your mailbox. But please don't ask silly questions.

It's not that easy. As you said, UK PhDs are unfortunately rated as somewhat inferior to their US counterparts due to the shorter lenght of registration and study as well as the lack of taught elements over here. So, finding a Postdoc position is the first hurdle in conditions of fierce competition.

The second problem is immigration, depending on your nationality, it might not be possible at all or only if you are successful in the Greencard lottery.

Overall, chances are slim to make this happen, in my opinion. But I think there are some UK people on this forum who did it, just can't remember the names. A forum search might be helpful or Google.