Sillybilly, the gymnastics are available on iPlayer (my favourite toy at the moment):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/categories/olympics

Unfortunately, they don't seem to have live streaming...unless it's on the BBC Sports site.

I sometimes change the font on my documents for a little excitement....ah the life of a PhD student.

Olivia, I guess Southern Food is popular in your particular town/city (like Indian restaurants in Manchester). Apart from KFC, I've never really come across any such restaurants, unless one ventures into south London where there are a number of fried chicken places that are awfully similar to KFC (but not quite similar enough to raise the eyebrow of a lawyer).

I often have a hankering for good Mexican or New Mexican food - which is really hard to find in the UK.

That's awful. Can you put it in context though? Was she a good student? Had she done a whole 3/4 years? What was her supervisor like?

I'm wondering how a paper she had co-authored ended up a PhD, and why didn't the supervisor express concerned about the possibility that she would be pulled up on this.

The colours are a bit 'in ya face' on my monitor too. However, as the colours are otherwise okay, I won't fiddle with the contrast.

It reminds me of Sainbury's supermarket colours.:p

I like the way all posts are collated under the "The Latest Posts For All Categories " section, including off-topic etc. It makes life much easier!

I see PMing is also on its way too!


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OOoooOOOooOOOo it's here!!! :-)

I agree with your thoughts, bewildered.

I find many undergrads and international postgrad students fail to realise (thanks to the university's failure to explain) that British HE is about a pro-active, self-learning experience (supported by lectures and seminars), rather than the passive-receptive learning environment that one receives during A Level study, or in the teaching environments of some other countries.

Another issue I'd like to raise with respect to teaching quality and expectations is the rather sensitive matter concerning the communication skills of lecturers. From both personal experience, and from feedback from fellow students, I have found that some lecturers have a sub-standard grasp of the English Language when delivering a lecture, and consequently, the quality of teaching is poor as the student audience cannot fully disseminate the information they are presented with.

Notably, my personal experience of this problem, and the feedback of other students, all derive from postgraduate programmes at Russell Group universities.

Third, in many respects, I find that students’ expectations of teaching(with respect to quality and quantity) are too high. I'm sure many believe that an academics job is merely to lecture and direct seminars - unknown to them, the main concern is research.

I’m also still not entirely sure what you’re exactly wanting to know here, but I’d like to make a few points that I believe you should raise or consider in your assessment:

First, the vast majority PhDs don’t receive any teaching (I exclude professional PhDs here), so our expectations and thoughts about teaching are relatively redundant. Personally, I would like to see a teaching element being introduced to PhD programmes – more akin to the PhD model found in the US.

Second, you mention public policy and, in particular, the National Student Survey. This policy initiative is a joke (as I’m sure you’re aware after the debarcle that arose from Kingston University some months back). This MUST change - it's a silly, bureaucratic survey, that is now open to abuse.

I think the best approach to finding a place would be to contact interested supervisors directly, and say funding is sorted. Knowing you're funded, they may personally push for your application to go through, particularly if they want a new PhD student.

UCL and KCL will be tough, but you may be in a subject that does not have a massive amount of competition. Some PhDs do only require a 2.1 at UG, but you'll have to have good reason why your MA is only a pass.