that is so awful. whereas your disease does not affect your work, your supervisor's behaviour and the way she treats you effectively does disable you. and being used as a pawn in other peoples games certainly doesn't make anything better!
when i found no matter who i asked, nobody was helping me (in a totally different situation), somebody referred me to the students' union advice/counselling services. in the end i didn't get in touch with them, but i was told that often you could be surprised by how professionally you will get help and advice from them. maybe you could try that.

for the eligibility concerning quality of degree i don't know. i suspect in principle you are eligible with your degree, but your chances might be lower than if you had a first. if it is anything like the ESRC then your former qualifications make up about 30% of the assessment of your application, 40% going to your project description, and 30% to references. (am writing this up from memory, could be wrong)

hi there,
since 2005, and btw thanks to a french student who took the issue to court, the paragraph about being in the UK for reasons of full time education does not pertain to students with EU nationality. so, to fulfill the residency criteria for eligibility, being a EU citizen, you must have been ordinarily resident in the UK for three years. for what reasons, doesn't matter. if you fulfill this, you are eligible for full funding. you get 'fees only' funding if you have EU nationality but have not been resident in the UK for the previous three years. so, i guess what you need to find out is, if being in the UK as an Erasmus student qualifies as being resident.

wow, congratulations!

hi there,
it is hard to summarize PhD life just like that. perhaps it would help if you posted some more specific questions? or else, just read through this forum, that will tell you lots about PhD life.
about your supervisor, well there is no general answer to that either, as every supervisor is different. as the supervisor is very important to your PhD, as you rightly observed, it might be worth doing some "research" beforehand, perhaps talk to current students of your candidates for "prospective-supervisors". but at the end of the day, you can never say for sure. you might just match up perfectly, or it could go all awry, even though others get along well. it is a risk you have to take...

i've heard that it is actually a gendered thing (would be interesting to look at actual studies of this). women more often "don't need" the title, insist less on it, and are less often called by it (orally or in writing), than men. therefore, people tend to "forget" about women's titles. it is perhaps similar to women "knowing that they are doing a good job" and waiting for that promotion, whereas men tend to go talk to the HR people, point out their achievements, and ask for the promotion (this is of course terribly simplified). i guess in that sense it has got to do with assertiveness. while i agree with you badhaircut, that i don't need the title to know who i am, i suppose it would be silly to cut down my own competitiveness by "dropping" the title in circumstances where other people highlight it.
well, first i need to get one anyway!

in case anyone is interested... i agree with you, oz!

the only disadvantage i see in the german system is that due to being engaged in multiple research projects as research assistant, you tend to take a long time to finish your PhD.

and there is the pay issue. research assistant's pay is very low, regarding that it is often in practice a 100% job. that is why i decided not to go to germany but rather to the uk. the irony being that now i am not paid at all (i still live in hope)

hi lara,
and what would you like to know from us?

all i can say right now: normally a PhD is 3-4 years, or longer (in the US, or when working part-time).
as you mentioned switzerland: i have heard of a few exceptional cases in switzerland (i am swiss myself) where students who wrote a very comprehensive master's thesis (like, for example, 200 pages, including substantive research) went on to do a very fast PhD in which they basically just expanded on their master's thesis. it took them only 1.5 to 2 years. so i am not saying it is totally impossible to finish your PhD fast. but one year is quite unlikely.

hm, in my experience LSE's central inquiries place is lousy, either they reply late, give wrong information or don't reply at all.

so, although they tell you explicitly to send all inquiries to that address, if you aren't getting any answers, i'd try elsewhere. perhaps e-mail the department you're interested in, or call them.
alternatively, you could just go ahead and apply (it's all online). it will cost you something but not the world, and then you will get definite answers

as businesses like LSE graduates, it is certainly not the most foolish move, career wise. but you could also, at the same time, try applying for those jobs you are interested in immediately. if you get your dream job without the LSE masters, it would save you a year and lots of money!

sue, the recent german reform was mostly about spelling. some words were 'germanized', that is, a new spelling was decided that hides the originally foreign language word, for example 'portemonnaie' which is french derived and means purse (porte is 'carry' and monnaie is 'coins' in french) is changed to 'portmonee'. if you read the latter following german pronounciation rules, you will make the same sound as when you read the former following french pronounciation rules. so the sound of the word is kept the same but the spelling is made german. there were lots of changes about when to use capital letters, too.
the double-s thing is funny... we don't have that letter in switzerland! so there are quite some spelling differences between german-speaking countries.
don't know about Britain, but would be very interested. apostrophe? or anyone?

thanks PGF team!

hey jojo,
i hope you didn't misunderstand me. i wasn't critizising you. i was just saying that i personally have a different impression. (i am a bit unsure and clarifying because i felt your last post has a somewhat defensive tone. please ignore if this is not the case)
i hope you understand that this doesn't devalue or question your own opinion in any way. i read some stuff that otto said one way, you read it another way. i think there is nothing wrong with that. i grant you that your impression is as true to you as mine is to me, and hope you grant me the same!

as for the whole discussion: i guess it is a bit meaningless to discuss the rights and wrongs of ottos suspension, given the fact that the most 'offensive' things have been deleted. i confess i AM curious to that other person who was banned...

hm i guess that is a bit language specific. german has recently had a major overhaul which was designed by language specialists, decided in high profile meetings, and now needs to be implemented everywhere. there was a multiple-year adjustment time but i believe that is now over. so all the rules i learned as a child don't apply anymore
but then, new words do constantly crop up in german, too. often they are derived from other languages, but become 'german' through their general usage.
french on the other hand has a specific institution to guard the 'purity' and correctness of the language, which is why they use french acronyms for stuff that is otherwise known in most of the world by its english acronym (onu instead of uno, sida instead of aids, etc.) and they 'invent' own french words for new stuff like 'computer' which in german is also a computer but in french an ordinateur.
i have heard that english is, compared to other languages, extremely usage-driven.

i am back and already winning again. what a nice start for the week

two psychologists meet on the street. one of them asks the other for directions to the train station. says the other: i don't know either, but i am glad we talked about it.