I'm at the end of my second year as a BSc Psychology student, and I'm pretty sure that I'm heading down a career in academia (I have experience of it in a few different capacities, from doing a bit of casual research in my department to having an 18-month internship currently running alongside my degree doing research at the Anna Freud Centre in London). So now I'm starting to think about postgraduate courses.

My main concern about doing a Masters is the cost, and I'm also quite keen to get stuck into doing my own research, rather than being taught more stuff. Hence my (preliminary) plan is to skip the Masters and go straight onto a PhD.

Is it common for individuals to do this? Is it even possible? Do you need a 1st to do so? I averaged at 69% last year but my module marks were a bit all over the place, and it's difficult for me to tell how I'm going to do this year as the exam period is so tough in our department.

I guess I'm just asking about the feasibility of going straight to a PhD, and also, not just about being accepted onto a PhD, but dealing with the transition of being 'babied' at undergrad. to doing it all myself at postgrad.

Any help would be appreciated! Thank you for your time!

To be honest, regardless of your overall grade at undergraduate level you'll most likely need to do a masters before gaining a funded place on a PhD. If you are prepared to fund yourself that might be a different matter.

Hi there, I think that you need to do the masters first. I have a 2.1 and a 1st with my 2 degrees, and a post grad cert. Still i cannot get accepted on a phd. the feedback is you need to have the 'research skills' from the masters programme to be able to do a phd. So best advice and I'm in the same position, is do the masters then your be able to get onto a phd no problem.

best of luck

Hi there! Im a psychology PhD person so can tell you a little about the experiences of myself and my fellow psychology people. To skip the masters isn't impossible. I have a friend who was able to do this. However, she worked hard as a research assistant with the guy who she ended up being supervised by for her PhD. And when she was working on her PhD still had to carry on some of her assistant work on top of doing her PhD work.

My own experience is that I did do an MSc and funded this via a graduate loan, which I paid back over a period of 5 years. Obviously its not ideal to have to get into debt to fund your career, but sometimes you have to be willing to make sacrifices if you really want something. And I think that in psychology were quite lucky as there seems to be many more funded PhD studentships than in other subjects. I have friends who are doing humanities PhDs and its been much more difficult for them to get a funded PhD.

Having said that, there is some funding out there for Psychology masters courses, but id recommend doing some research and applying for this as early as possible.

It might also help to spend a couple of years working as a research assistant between masters and PhD as this enables you to learn the ropes and maybe give you an apportunity to get some publications under your belt. This will mean that you'll increase your chances of getting a funded PhD studentship.

Hope that helps!! Good luck!

Firstly, thank you for all of your replies! You've been really helpful, so thank you.

Snelison, it's great to hear from a Psychology PhD student! The internship I'm currently on is basically the role of research assistant in the sense that we have to carry out the study ourselves, do lit. reviews, and a lot of the write-up as well, and for those who put enough effort in, there's a chance of getting published (fingers crossed!) I know I'm doing this at the same time as my undergrad., but do you think it might help at all?

The reason I asked about potentially skipping a Masters was because I know someone who has done so, but now I think about it more, it seems to have a lot to do with the PhD supervisor system; the guy I know has remained at the same institution he did his undergraduate degree at, so he obviously knew the lecturers well and so I guess they were more willing to take him on without a Masters.

I'll look into the graduate loan thing, and other ways of self-funding a Masters, so thanks for the heads-up on that. You're right; it does seem like sacrifices have to be made in this area, but I truly can't imagine doing anything else with my life now, even though I know it's a tough route to go down. Is it possible to work part-time whilst doing a Masters, or is it a full-time commitment? May I ask what your Masters was in- i.e., was it in the more specific area of psychology that you've ended up doing your PhD on, or did you just do a Research Methods Masters or something like that?

A friend of mine who is looking for a research assistant post has been saying that she's been struggling to find one despite being a very good student- but, saying that, she's only got her BSc and not a Masters, so that might be the key.

I'm starting the third year of my degree in September, so I plan on doing my research and deciding where I want to apply by the end of summer- is this the right sort of timeframe? I know postgrad. applications can be a bit labour-intensive and I don't want it to detract from my third year work too much.

Thank you once again for your help! I really appreciate it.

Hello Llacerta,

I'm currently a second year PhD student in Psychology and I was having the same thinking as you a few years back. I'll try my best to answer your questions under different headings so it is as clear as possible.

Academic

In our department we have one PhD student who went from BSc to PhD and coped with the transition very well. She did study her BSc at the same University and that appears to be in line with what others have said. I know at our University, the guidelines are very strict. Even if you have an MSc in a related field or within Psychology/Research Methods from a different University you must complete two Postgraduate Statistics modules. This is to ensure skills in Statistics meet University requirements. I was very fortunate as I studied my MSc at the same University so did not need to complete these modules. It was tough for other students in my year to complete both of these alongside the full time commitments of the PhD. It is worth checking with Universities you apply to whether they have a similar system in place.

As for entry requirements, I know many funded PhD studentships I looked at require an MSc. There are also some courses that require the MSc with Merit or Distinction. I know at my University, if you do not have a 1st at UG then you must have a 2.1 with a minimum of a good Merit in the MSc. I'm self funding my PhD as I wanted to work part time alongside it to improve career prospects and my MSc is in Developmental Psychopathology. Luckily, this MSc included 4 modules in Research Methods and 2 modules in Statistics so I met the research requirements. I believe most people have a MSc in Research Methods when applying for funded PhD studentships.

Funding for PhD

I have found this works in two ways. The first is that you apply for a funded studentship with a set supervisor on a set project that has been awarded a research grant. These are often advertised on jobs.ac.uk. The second is approaching a supervisor (or sometimes they approach you) with a research idea, applying for funding with a research council (normally ESRC for Psychology) and seeing of you are awarded a studentship. Both of these methods are very competitive but then what isn't these days! I have applied in both of these different methods. The first I came second place for the award which was very upsetting at the time but I didn't want to study full time anyway. The second method was with the ESRC, you get points awarded to you for your background, supervisors background and scientific merit of the proposal. Each of these are awarded a grade from A+ to E-. We achieved an A- in all three categories, however due to limited research funding, only the A+ (and not even all of them!) candidates received funding.

Funding for MSc

There are many graduate loans or career development loans that can be applied for now with local banks. If you are certain you want to apply for a PhD after the MSc, you can always look into ESRC 1+3 funding. This will cover both your MSc and PhD funding. I studied for my MSc full time and worked part time at the weekends which was doable. I did take a loan out and I have paid around 40% off in the last 2 1/2 years. If you really want to do the qualifications and progress in your career, then this is certainly one way to do it.

When to apply - PhD

All funding bodies have different deadlines, I applied for MRC/ESRC studentship that had a deadline of December (starting in the October), ESRC had a deadline of April and open competition was around June. Specific studentships open appear soon after award dates so it is worth knowing when those are.

When to apply - MSc

I applied for two MSc courses during my final year of my BSc. I believe one had a deadline of March and the other accepted applications until the August so it does differ quite a bit. I applied to one MSc in the April and had an interview within the month. I was sent my offer letter within 2 days of the intervi

It appears my last message was too long!

To finish my section on when to apply for an MSc. I was saying that I was offered a place 2 days after my interview and 9 days after I finished my BSc so things can happen really quickly.

I hope this helps! I think there are many different routes to follow after graduating from Psychology and it is not always clear what one we want/need to follow. I know after I finished my BSc I was interested in the DClinPsy so was also building up my clinical experience. I even completed a year in the NHS between my MSc and PhD which included a clinical PG (Cert) so you never know what lies ahead :-)

Wow, thank you so much, PsychBrainiac! You're right, there does seem to be many different routes one can go down- I mean, I knew it was a complicated process, but I don't think I quite anticipated how complicated it can get...

You've answered all of my questions, so thank you. I have just one more quick query- I have spied a four-year programme at a couple of universities that sound amazing, incorporating both a Masters and a PhD, but unfortunately studentship places are very limited. I figure it's worth a shot, but is it possible to make several applications to the same university? For example, I might apply for the four-year programme and also a Research Methods Masters, since it's unlikely I'd get into the former.

I know I've said thank you a lot, but you've really helped clarify the whole process for me! Seems like I've got a lot to think about this summer.

My pleasure! I'm really glad you have found this information useful.

Yes, I was in exactly the same position 4-5 years back when I knew what wanted to do (or at least thought I knew!) but not too sure on how to go about it. After some looking around and research, I'm sure you will be absolutely fine.

As far as I'm aware, yes, you can certainly apply for more than one course or scheme at any one University. I applied for the open competition at RHUL as well as applying with a potential supervisor through RHUL for another source of funding. It is certainly possible and as long as the schemes are similar in content, you will appear to have a set idea about how you wish to continue your career development.

Good luck and keep us updated!

Ah, okay, that's good to know!

Funny that you mention RHUL- that's where I'm a current student! You don't happen to be doing your PhD there at the moment, do you?

Thanks once again!

Unfortunately no, I'm not too far away though as I'm studying at Reading :-)

Hello again fellow Psych PhD Forumers!

It looks as though PsychBrainiac has provided pretty much all the relevant info. Great post! What i would add also is that it important to make sure you do stuff (either MSc or assistant posts) that you're going to find interesting. My MSc was Philosophy of Mental Disorder at KCL. It wasn't something i did because i thought it would help my career particularly, I just did it because it sounded fascinating, and it didn't disappoint!

Also you cant rule out the influence of chance. Often our career trajectories go in the direction they do simply from being in the right place at the right time (or being in the wrong place at the wrong time unfortunately!). But with perseverance and resilience we can all get to where we want to be!! :-)