Firstly, congrats for getting the job!

Starting a job before submitting is fairly normal in the UK - I took up a job before I had submitted my thesis, but in my case I had actually finished the first draft and my supervisors knew there wasn't much else to be done on it.

I'm not sure what else you can do to be honest. Can you find some academic in your dept willing to be on your side who might be able to speak to your PI on your behalf? Or find someone that can go behind the scenes and find out what is going on?

I run Mendeley across an ipad, windows 10, some old windows (what came before 8, 7??) and I've had no problems with it.

Windows 10 is ok, just takes a little getting used to finding out where they've moved everything etc

I would say it's probably just as quick to start on a PhD now, unless you've got more research already done that you can publish quickly.

First hits of google page:

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/taught/computer-science/computer-science.aspx#CourseDetailsTab

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/pgstudy/courses/computer-science/computer-science-msc.aspx[

https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/teaching/pg/courses/msc-compsci/

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/2016/postgraduate/programmes/TMSCOSCI_C/

Those are masters degrees you can do with your degree, there's loads more as well, and some are part-time/evenings. Of course, you might need to be able to find something near to where you live, I'm just showing you that you have lots of options.

http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/qualifications/f66#entry-requirements

That is also a possibility and you can do it part time. Look at the modular certificate thingy as well, might be useful.

There's no getting around the time it will take - it's gonna be 1 year full-time and at least 2 years part-time - you have to be prepared to commit to this. There are no quick fix answers.

Of course, you are also looking at fees of £7-9k and would have to think about you would pay this.

Can you self fund? Bear in mind international fees are over £15k per year and then you need living expenses. If not, how will you get funding? Living in London is also pretty expensive and you will likely be on a tight budget. Elsewhere in the UK is cheaper.

Regarding topic, you need to have a look at potential universities and see which people are doing research you are interested in and then think of a topic from there. Or you can check findaphd.com and jobs.ac.uk and see what PhD topics are available at which places.

Find a job after your PhD is also going to be difficult - there are many qualified and experienced people and few job opportunities, but if you are looking in London this might make it easier.

Probably a bit subject specific for you to get many replies on this.

I think you are right, you will need a couple more publications and then you need to write intro and conclusion chapters for the thesis. You will need to look at which unis offer this in your field and check out their requirements. I think there's quite a few unis that do it.

You should be able to get copies of theses from your library, or check out http://ethos.bl.uk/.

You should also be able to find out formatting standards and layouts from your university department.

Ah ok. I'm about to do that with a review article in my field (biology). I guess I will just look at several journals. see what their scope is and whether they accept review articles and then contact them. If I get rejected, I will contact other journals. Don't see what else can be done?

Can you do some research and get that published? Can you do opinion pieces or letters to editors?

What do you mean by you have been trying? You mean you have written articles but they got rejected? Or you mean you have approached journals with topic ideas?

I don't think this will affect you too much - it just means there will only be a few students on the course. This might be beneficial anyway, because the academics will have more time to engage with you and discuss your work etc.

I think this is fairly normal in US institutions, I'm not sure about Canada though.

I think they got around it by applying for other scholarships and working extra classes as a TA.

You could enquire at the university what other options may be available, or find current students online and contact them and ask?

Or could you find cheaper accommodation, sharing for example, if you're not already?

Also tried but my current institution subscribes to about 2 journals... :P

I've ran seminars but only with groups of 6-8 students. I think a bit of confidence and assertiveness goes a long way. Sometimes I found it hard to keep the conversation going in these small groups so I would make a list of subtopics to discuss before I went in (they were have supposed to have researched the main topic beforehand). Splitting them into groups is a good idea and I frequently did that, or got different groups to argue for and against a topic, or for each group to make a presentation about the topic and then question each other.

Definitely have training before if you can. There wasn't really anything provided at my uni.

I've also helped with biology practical classes but I think that's a bit different to what you will be doing.

Thanks, it's a step in the right direction so that's good.