I have heard that MBAs are considered a bit old-fashioned these days, so a better option might be to create your own idea for a PhD programme and find a university with a supervisor that is willing to take it on.

If people's words rather than other variables (e.g. body language) are what you are focused on then telephone interviews should be fine.

Since starting my PhD I seem to have taken on more and more work and in the past few weeks - when I feel like I should be enjoying the summer - the work just seems to roll on and on. If you find the solution be sure to post it here in capital letters!

How about talking to your advisor and requesting - very politely - that he give you some more concrete critical feedback?

You don't have to be employed to do research. Why don't you start a research project than then you will have something to talk about at the interview.

A topic close to my heart, unfortunately.

Done.

It would be a good idea to run the feedback by your supervisor because these meanings can be tricky to interpret, and what your examiners are trying to tell you also might be difficult to interpret.

This is probably an oversimplification, but deduction is when you start out with a hypothesis (based on a theory), then collect data, then analyze the data to see if it supports or disproves your hypothesis. However if I start my study by collecting data, analyze the data, and only after analysis do I come up with a theory that explains the findings, then this is induction. In general, science is said to use deduction (the hypothetico-deductive method) but sometimes uses induction (e.g. grounded theory analysis). Maybe your examiners are saying that you are explaining your findings with post-hoc explanations that aren't based on your hypotheses? This would be the case if you started out with Theory A, the findings didn't fit, so you explained your findings by reference to Theory B. You may be perfectly justified in doing this, so I don't know whether your examiners are criticizing you for this or simply making an observation.

It's been a while since I learned about induction & deduction so I hope that all makes sense.

Option 1 looks fine to me. Note that they are inviting you to ask for information, so it's a good opportunity to find out about anything important that isn't clear in the ad.

I could be wrong but I haven't heard of conference presentations being a necessary condition for a PhD. An examiner might be influenced by a publication in a peer-reviewed journal, but I don't think they will be influenced much by invitations to conferences. On the other hand it is wise to do what your supervisor says, and although it is a bit late you might consider applying to present your work at every possible relevant conference in any part of the world. Also, get your supervisor's advice on what part of your thesis has the best chance of publication in a peer reviewed journal.

I think the three previous answers make some really good suggestions and are well worth acting on. I would add that as a general rule it is very useful to contact whatever is the representing body for psychology in your field of interest. If you are in the US you should contact the men's studies division of the American Psychological Association. This will link you in with psychologists who may be able to put you on a suitable course. I don't know whether there are similar men's studies sections in other parts of the world - I suspect not - but it would be worth your while looking into it.

If I understand you correctly, you are asking whether you can do a PhD in biomedical science without using any computer programming, lab work, or statistics. Correct? If so, the answer is that you are not looking for a biomedical science PhD as such, but perhaps a PhD in some aspect of biomedicine e.g. the philosophy or sociology of medicine, or a PhD in neuropsychology.

Or have I misunderstood your question?

Employers tend to focus mainly on the quality of your highest qualification (+ work experience etc) rather than how many lower qualifications you have. However this point isn't that important in this particular case, because you might find it hard to get onto a PhD if you don't have a masters.

That sounds difficult in admin terms. I think the easiest option would be to find a suitable main supervisor at your current university. If this isn't possible, perhaps you could find an expert at another university who is willing to coach you for the viva. If from another university, this person could be your external supervisor because it would probably be easier to get a new external supervisor than a new university. All of this would be best done before your second supervisor leaves in Sept. It probably wouldn't be difficult to get your second supervisor to continue as your internal supervisor nominally. My guess is that your university might be ok with this setup too i.e. stay at your current university, your second supervisor becomes nominally your main supervisor, and the external supervisor gives you the help you need.

Hi KC. I guess the main problems here is sample bias and volunteer bias; by sampling from a specific group who are likely to be compliant you may get different repsonses than those from the general population, thus it is less easy to justify generalising your findings to the general population or to a investor population. Also, if you rely on your friends for future research, there is a possibility of participant fatigue (or even worse, your friends stop calling you!)

Think of the population that you want to generalise to (e.g. investors) and then try to sample from them (e.g.

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