The thing is, postdocs seem to work really hard and, if these things are to be believed, you have to be somewhat intelligent to do research.

Therefore, you have intelligence, you work hard, and (in my field at least) you try to find cures for diseases. What do you get? A social standing equal to that of Dwayne (4 stars on his badge) who doesn't wash his hands between cleaning the toilets and spitting in every 10th burger.

Marvellous.

They need to cut all the nonsense courses (including, but certainly not only, media studies), and also the non-universities. This would free up money to allow anyone who is good enough to go to uni regardless of their cash. Money for research could be more concentrated at the better universities, and better pay given to academics. Unless I'm very much mistaken, academics, and postdocs too, get far better wages in the US/Canada/Australia/Europe than they do here, where you'd be better flipping burgers for a living (almost).

I'm hoping to get out of this country once I've got a PhD - I'll miss my family and football, but I'll spend my live paying housing rent and ridiculous amounts of tax otherwise.

Remember though that depression can both be a disorder in itself, and a symptom of another disorder such as ASDs etc.

Well there was an article on the front of our local paper yesterday about how, to get on the housing ladder in my area, in Lancashire (hardly upmarket), you need to earn around 30k per year. Who earns this, except medics, lawyers, or people doing non-jobs like 5-a-day coordinators?

Well, I have a very good friend who's a medic (JHO) and he doesn't do as much as you claim. He rarely works evening and rarely works weekends. What I was meaning is more than it's galling about how little a post doc would get, as opposed to complaining that a medic gets too much.

It IS somewhat galling when you see that first year medics get around 28-30k plus free accommodation though. I also know someone who chose a PhD on the basis that it was better funded than his other choice - strnage method if you ask me.

12k - well, say about 300-350pm max for accommodation, is about 3500-4000 pa. Give 8k for food, bills, expenses, and nice stuff.

Still, I guess one of the good things about a PhD is that you have so little time to spend the money that you save a lot!

Hi yick,

I have some experience with these areas myself, although I'm not autistic per se. However, contrary to what you may think, I would expect that there is an above average percentage of academics who have some kinds of ASD. However, the problem with self-diagnosis, as with for a myriad psychological/mental disorders, is that the diagnositic criteria are so broad that many many false positive diagnoses are possible.

As for sharing this information - I guess it depends on how well you know and get on with you supervisor and peers, and how much trust you have in them. Once it's said, you can't ever retract it, and maybe it would be better to seek help or advice form a professional first.

I've read "How to get a PhD" by Estelle Phillips. It's good, but a lot of these books are area-specific, and I would presume the best way to learn about thesethings is to speak to supervisors, post-docs, or current PhD students, or even ask stuff on here.

Oxford University has a very good counselling service on Wellington Square.

Maybe you could try them, Jradetzky?

As per usual, words of wisdom from Juno, and Apollo too - I know the feeling all too well! I wondre if sex will ever be prescribed on the NHS

Nice suggestion Laura, but the NHS is populated by berks with their own ideas who argue about different diagnoses because they're each so keen to have their own little ego trip, and in the end the patient is left in limbo because of their petty little squabbling.

I agree Apollo. While I certainly don't agree with what JRadetzky says, people might do well to remember the words of Voltaire, "I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

Taking offence at something someone says, instead of engaging in rational debate, is the biggest obstacle in ensuring a tolerant society.

Piglet...

"You are only interested in finding a GIRL who is... trilingual?"

Cunning linguists make good spouses

Oh, and just because jradetzky doesn't like homosexuality doesn't mean he's a homophobe in the sense of being vehemently opposed to them. To be honest, if he's a Christian, I woulnd't be surprised if he wasn't in favour of it.

This is from school, not uni, but there was a lad who decided to, er, "examine" some of his own cells (for want to a better way of describing it) under a microscope, but got caught during the production of said cells. I hope the microscope slide was disposed of