There's also the SJT (Shanghai Jiao-Tong) rankings, which ranks the top 500 world based opn some complex methodology. It is generally thought to have a bias towards those universities with a strong reputation in science and technology research, and you can also search the top 100 universities by continent. Am not sure if Heriot Watt is on there though.

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm

The main ranking for each year is under "ARWU" but you can also look at ranks by subject fields.

This is the state of our country today. You have two options - make a living as an ignoramus on a reality TV programme, or emigrate.

Dell are great in terms of being able to customise what you want, and remove components which you don't feel are that necessary, and I've found their customer service to be excellent in the past. IMO, Apples are something you either love or hate, but it's a personal preference I guess.

Juno, it depends how much you have to spend, and how long it's going to be needed for, but I'd set your budget first, and then see what you can get. I'd suggest 2GB RAM for your demands, and as big a hard disk as you can get, although remember that removable media these days can carry in excess of 4GB, if you use dual-layer DVDs. Otherwise, I'd agre with golfpro to the letter.

Hi PamW,

I'm not using these kinds of images, but have you tried looking at www.download.com? There is a lot of freeware image organisation software there, ranging from those produced by big companies (eg Google Picasa) to smaller developers (eg IrfanView, which is very popular). Also, I believe PhotoShop Elements (£60 in the UK) includes organising features, although I'm not sure as to the complexity of information which can be stored.

I was just wondering, how important for you was the town/city of a university when considering potential PhD studentships, in terms of the features of the place itself, and in terms of its location (distance from home, for example).

Badhaircut - ROFLMAO, maybe it's the way you tell em, but your supervisors sound like sonething out of a comedy sketch

Hey Swapzz - don't mind you asking at all. My area is specifically neuropharmacology, although neuroscience with a molecular bent is also good for me.

Swapzz - I do check jobs.ac.uk, but whenever I enter the areas I'm interested in, and check the North America box (I think that's the name of it), nothing comes up. Maybe it's just my area...

Hey Orian,

I'm not sure I explained myself very well. What I was trying to say was that, if you have a thesis of 100,000 words (ie twenty times as long as the article), and a journal article of 5,000, I would doubt that an examiner would spend twenty times as long on the thesis as he would on the article.

I may be wrong as I haven't started my PhD yet, but I would have thought that the answer to this lies in the identities and numbers of reviewers. As far as I know, a viva usually has one external and one internal examiner, and the external examiner is one chosen by your supervisor or department. However, when journals have peer reviewing for articles, they appoint their own reviewers, and a paper is usually (as far as I know) reviewed by more than one person. Also, I would have thought that the peer review process for a journal article is more stringent than for a viva, when you consider their relative lengths.

Hey Swapzz,

It's a bit off topic, but which country are you currently in, and how did you find the PhD in the US?

Hehe. No problems Ann. Thanks! I guess I'll keep the old fingers crossed. And thanks everyone else for your words of encouragement.

Which uni, Ann? I'll keep an eye out!

Arctiidae - I don't have a masters, although in my area, it appears that most PhD students don't have a masters between undergrad and PhD. The problem with a masters is the issue of money - they're not cheap (as I'm sure you know), and it's probably not something I'm going to need, so it woulnd't really be economical for me. As for the friends thing - I think I made it seem something it's not. Most of my friends (the vast majority) aren't studying any more, it's just that I have three friends who are. I'm usually more of the type to buck trends amongst friends, rather than follow them - it does make me feel, however, that it's something I really want to do, and I'm not getting any younger.