It is a taught MSc? If so, I think an MRes would be better if you want to stay in research because it will help prepare you better, whereas a taught MSc is pretty similar to a 3rd year of a BSc.

Is there anyone else in the office you can talk to that is supervised by her? What about going to the academics that provide pastoral care in your department?

I don't think there's anything you can do now. It's always a good idea to agree contributions before doing the work. Often 'technicians' (if that's what you were or how they saw you) are only mentioned in acknowledgements.

Yeah but I don't think a couple of years in a biotech company is going to limit anyone's chances and that's enough time for someone to assess job opportunities and whether they require a PhD or not.

yeah why don't you do a MSc, go into industry, see how you like it and then if you find that you need a PhD you can do one then? I think that makes a lot of sense. I know someone who just had a BSc plus experience and then got a $60k biotech job.

I don't know, but if you really need to get hold of people urgently it's best to pick up the phone or go and see them, rather than waiting for an email response. If your supervisor is going to be back soon I would just wait for that.

It sounds too little I agree, but I think that is entry level for a lot of us. Whilst I've seen science postdocs advertised at 30k, the one I got was 26k (also in north), so maybe that's normal and higher salaries will come in the next couple of years. I hope so anyway!

Do you mean last month before submission to your supervisors for approval, or last month before submission to university?

I'm submitting my final thesis to my supervisors by the end of June. I've written every chapter except my final discussion and I still need to do appendix, reference list and check everything over one last time.

I don't think I would have enough time to submit everything to my university by the end of June as I will still need supervisory feedback and then make changes before submission.

I will be starting it before I submit my thesis. I will have finished it by then, but it will still be awaiting supervisory approval (they won't change much) so won't be officially submitted to the university.

You can call it a postdoc. My job title is postdoc but I haven't submitted my thesis yet. Of course, I'm not being paid as a postdoc, but that's another story. Mu funding has finished though.

Yes consider how good a PhD at Oxford would look on your profile, but also consider the state of your mental health after working 70 hours a week for the next 4 years, because that's what you're going to be doing unless you already have savings to cover living expenses.

Guess it's different for everyone. Mine is three chapters, three papers, so it's not much additional work for conversion, but I do see your point. Plus, I've published one paper during PhD so I've also learnt how to write papers.

http://www.postgraduateforum.com/thread-37169/

Yeah there's quite a few things in the article I don't agree with. Personally I think the UK thesis format is good for several reasons. For example, you can include negative results, you have more time to discuss the literature, you can write some more outlandish ideas that you wouldn't be able to mention in paper, you can write detailed methods that people can replicate since it's often hard to replicate stuff from methods in a paper and it's a good skill to be able to write such a long piece of work. Plus, once you've done it, it's much easier to condense it in to a paper, because you already have all the information you need.