Once I was told to bring my scholarship money and register for a MPhil in the field of Biochemistry/biology, and that my would be supervisor can get funding for 2 more years and I can extend the mPhil to a PhD. It turned out to be that All he needed was my money and all other promises were just lies. beleiving this guy, I lost two more options one in Canada and Japan. Asian Students beware!! UK is not the best place to do a PhD and you dont even have to publish!! there are much better places in europe!! and they do good science!!

Thank you for that constructive yet completely untrue message. I think you'll find crap institutions the world over and not limited to the UK.

I think your sample size is a little small to generalise to the entire UK. Why don't you just make a formal complaint about this particular supervisor.

Girigoriya, I think that's an entirely unfair statement! You can't generalise like that!!!

Ha ha.. Yep I know what is the status of UK Science. specially PhD. You dont Have to publish anything! Do you get it , Mouth brether? that mean without publishing ANYTHING in a PEER REWIVIWED Journal, Just by writing CRAP in your Thesis you GET PhD.. Dosent it look wonderful.

It Is my Duty to Alarm the prospective Asian/Arabic/Chinese students. Complain to whom?, and I know they do it very often.

That is a sweeping generalisation and like hypothesis said this sort of thing occurs worldwide. The only times i have heard of people not continuing on to do a PhD from an MPhil is 1) If the research council rejects the application for further funding or 2) The student doesn't satisfy the requirements to progress onto a PhD.

At the end of the day you obtained an MPhil which is what you signed up to do. From what you say the progression onto a PhD was not set in stone at the onset of your masters. Unfortunately funding for international students is a tough area and the majority of studentships available at UK institutions are for UK/EU students.

As for your statement saying that a PhD from the UK just involves writing CRAP in your thesis. Again that is a huge generalisation and it shows that you certainly do not know the status of UK science. Besides if you think so low of UK academia why did you bother applying here?

How do you know that? Why not complain to the institution itself - there must be someone who deals with complaints.

I can see how this might happen but I've never come across it myself - even though I've come across many, many other kinds of problems.

As a general note of caution. Unless a supervisor already has funding in place, no-one can ever guarentee that they can apply for funding and get it. Absolutely no-one.

well well well. I know your upset but get a grip ive never heard such bitterness!!!!


what you are saying is completely unfounded. I dont come from the UK and I had a terrible supervisor/experience during my PhD here but I dont get on my high horse and blame every university and supervisor in the country. I will be coming back to the UK to do a masters and Phd in October

consider this:

According to the times and shanghai league tables of world univerisites: UK universities are consistantly in the top 10 best univerisites in the world.

Some of the greatest scientists of all time studied at British universities in some capacity or another

Cambridge Univeristy has more nobel prizes than any other country in the world.

Just wanted to add one point to this post. Not only are you slagging of PhDs in the UK you say you know the status of UK scienece. you obviously dont! If you look back in the new scientist i forget specifiaclly which issue.....there was an article analysing scientific research from around the world. Britain punches well above its weight contributing, if i remeber rightly to 13% of all the worlds scientific liteature. Take note they anaylsed peer reviewed Journals you absolute nutter.

Obviously, PhDs have different requirements around the globe. The US PhD programme ( I spelled it the British way! ) is very different than a UK one--and who is to say one is better than the other? The reputation and quality of a PhD from the UK is very high, I believe, and I do not think you can generalise one experience to the whole of a country's educational system. I know that I would never have the learning experience in the US as I am getting in the UK, in no small part because the US does not have an equivalent PhD in law degree!

what a pointless statement to make.

Err..KeeHaa, So New Scientist is a Peer reviewed journal Eh?

Girigoriya that isn't what Keehaa said at all. The comment was 'Take note they analysed peer reviewed Journals..' Which in no way suggests that New Scientist is a peer reviewed publication.

Tricky, You have made some interesting Assumptions.

let me correct you.

1) I was registered in PhD programme
2) this was later given in writing to me by the academic/Admissions department, when my thesis was approved by the external and internal referees.
3) There fore I have every right to be upset.