I think you'll be fine. You'd have to do very badly in the viva to fail, especially as the examiner and your supervisor are Friends - of course this improves your chances.

A word of caution though - my external situation was similar to yours in that he wasn't an expert in my area. This did mean he focused on areas of his interest rather than the main premise of my thesis and he didn't really understand a lot of the ideas in my work, causing us to go back and forth over whether what I had written was correct. There's not much you can do to prevent this - just hold your ground in the viva if you are right and if you are able to do so, otherwise it will end up being a correction that you may not want to make.

Ask for a mark scheme? They must have one.

In general, to get a First you have to show something along the lines of this: excellent, comprehensive work; well presented and structured and logically organised; critical insight; originality; well referenced showing clear knowledge and understanding of the relevant literature using appropriate examples; thorough analysis of
results and an ability to evaluate critically and discuss research findings.

What's the difference between a project and research? Nothing, I would guess.

On the other hand, I'm not sure whether institutes where you would apply for a PhD would necessarily know what type of masters it was, especially if it was awarded from a reputable university.

But, obviously the less time you spend doing something, the weaker your knowledge, so you may find a PhD more of leap than others who followed a more traditional masters route.

I've not seen this happen in my biology department. Anyone randomly lecturing is actually a postdoc, PhD student or has some other type of association with the university. And these lectures are only one to two per year, so it's not going to help financially.

It's best to use your contacts if you have any, however loose, even if they just know your name. You are more likely to be successful that way.

Also ask for tutorials and seminars and any other opportunities, not just lectures.

I would probably email, a think a letter would be a little strange.

Just tell your supervisor the truth, that you are struggling financially and want to look at other options, including applying for that other PhD. I expect your supervisor will understand - this is more common that you think.

BA (Cantab) MSc (Oxon), but it really doesn't matter.

My page just says BSc, MSc, PhD, but some other people in my department have nothing on theirs.

Brilliant! That is great to hear. Well done :)

This seems really odd. How can it get to the stage where you have finished your PhD but not actually done a PhD. Didn't you have annual progress reviews? I think you need to speak to the head of your graduate school before doing anything, as you can't usually write up your results and get a PhD awarded elsewhere at this stage.

Yep, that's what I had to do. Focus more on the outcomes of your PhD research and the techniques, theories etc you used that will be relevant to the postdoc.

Network.

I don't think that timeline is anything to be concerned about - sometimes decisions to interview do take this long.

This is info from the RCs T&Cs found at:
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/documents/termsconditionstraininggrants-pdf/


"The Research Organisation must ensure proper financial management of TGs and
accountability for the use of public funds. Research Organisations are expected to take
reasonable steps to recover monies paid to students in advance who leave or whose
studentship is terminated"

And if you are funded by the BBSRC for example http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/documents/training-grant-faqs-pdf/:

5.4 Can we replace students who leave early?
Yes, if you have sufficient funds in the TG, or if necessary you can guarantee any funding
required beyond the period of the current TG from another source (i.e. if the period of new
studentship extends beyond the end of the TG).

So, this shows that they don't ask for the money back otherwise they wouldn't be talking about "sufficient funds".

Also consider you could leave with a Masters if you wanted to.

Hi, with UK research council PhD funding you don't have to pay it your stipend back if you quit. If you are paid quarterly you may have to return the rest of the quarter's payment, but that's it. I very much doubt you would have to return extra funding you got for training as well.

This is the opposite to international students, who often have to repay funding if they quit or if they fail their PhD or fail to return home after their PhD.

I don't have any personal experience of quitting to know what the paper work is like, but I expect this is sorted out by admin and your supervisor.

My supervisors hated it when people chased them for feedback. I never did. I just handed drafts in with the expectation that I will get them back eventually, which was anything from the same day to a month, depending on their workloads.

However, I was lucky, others in my group took months and months to get feedback or got shouted at if they chased the feedback.

Best advice is to agree on a rough date you can expect it back when you hand it in and then drop hints about it in other meetings if they haven't got it back to you. If you don't have regular meetings, then start going to places they will be and initiate conversations that will eventually turn to convos about work because you don't have anything else to talk to them about anyway. Don't ask them about it directly if you don't expect a good response and you don't like this bad response.

Agree with above. Personally I know that's what my supervisors expected as well. If was really a draft ie just a collection of ideas etc, I would tell them not to correct it for references, formatting etc and just focus on the layout and overall structure and content.