hi all,

I've recently been accepted for MRes at King's College London, it is not funded.

however, there is a course at Queen Mary where it is possible to get fees covered. the chances are I'll continue onto phd, so in this case is prestige so important?

Queen Mary still has a good reputation.... I'm not sure there's a tremendous amount of difference here in terms of prestige. We're not talking Oxford versus Manchester Met.

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Yep, I agree, it's not like Oxford v crappy poly. Bear in mind the new RAE results, overall QMUL went up to 11th place blowing many of the Russell Group out the water, and was also much higher than KCL. Obviously, you need to check out the RAE results for your specific discipline.

When it comes to the UoL colleges, I've been to a few, I've always found them much the same.

Hi!

First of all, poor old Man Met, not getting a good press are they (Don't worry, I'm not there!).
Immature students; I'm a third year PhD and I am still paying off the career development loan I took out to do my Masters. Whilst I loved doing it, and it was necessary for me as I completely changed disciplines, you would be better taking the funded place where you can really focus on getting a distinction; as this is what matters when it comes to PhD funding, not the Uni.

Go for the funding. QMUL did well in the RAE, and being able to put on your CV that you were funded to do a Masters looks good in its own right.

Funded place. If you go to the 'prestigious' uni it would appear you'll have to put up with all sorts of outdated prejudice, looking down on others and RAE obsession.

apologies, it was a generic email I received from queen mary. turns out it only applies to "overseas" applicants.

just out of interest, how are people funding themselves through a masters? I hope to save between now and september, but will have to work part-time aswell. I've plenty of industrial experience so ideally could pt work in a lab. even better, a pt job in king's!!

anyone been lucky enough to do pt work in their place of study?

I'm doing an MA and have managed to blag some money from the uni to do some research assistant work which is quite good really.

Haven't started yet though!

Working as an RA at the moment, and saving up. Keeping my fingers crossed about some studentships available but no idea what my chances are. I've had a good old look at various charitible trusts and I don't think I meet any criteria, so it's the university's MRc studentships or nothing.

Wow, that sweeping statement was pretty...err...sweeping.

Probably best to focus on the 'best' supervisor and their interests (and how they fit with yours), support network and facilities. This isn't always obvious when looking from the outside though. If you are looking to do a PhD, perhaps look at how many research council studentships they receive each year etc, or what scholarships they have for masters and PhD study. It doesn't hurt to look beyond the MRes.

I'm considering one other course which is Radiopharmaceutics, also at King's

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/gsp09/programme/443

anyone on here taken this course? thoughts?

my background is chemical sciences and intended on moving into nanotech (biomedical apps of magnetic nanoparticles in cancer research), but this course has caught my eye ;-)

Isn't it just, although I'd probably argue that I'd need to remove the very carefully added word "appear" for it to be truly so. At least it required a little more thought than one word offensive stereotyping.

I think my point was to focus on the supervisor and the project, and not be swayed by prejudices (which exist on both sides), which normally turn out to be wrong anyway. There are plenty of idiots in non-prestigious places as there are in prestigious places, and plenty of nice people in prestigious places as there are in non-prestigious places. And vice versa.

lol, is she having a go at me or "prestigious" unis?!

;-)

Neither. Try reading back through the posts and see if you can spot any of what I alluded too....

Nevermind. Poly bashing is an established sport, so probably doesn't even feature on the radar. I just don't like to ignore stuff like that, in any arena.