I From India and I hold a masters degree in Biotechnology (2011). I passed out with a GPA of 8.9/10, the problem is I am planning to get in to a PhD,but i recently noticed that I've lost my dissertation Hard copy, I have the text in my computer but the gel pictures were all gone. What should I do now? Its so hard to do the work again and get the pictures again. I am really worried if this would affect my pursuit for a PhD position somewhere.

I have very good grades in my academics and laboratory, and passed the PG dissertation viva too.
I would me more than glad if you can give me advices and suggestions on what i should do regarding this.

Usually you don't need a copy of your dissertation to apply for a PhD position but because you're coming from another country that may be the case. I would ask the uni you're applying to about this but I wouldn't necessarily mention that you've misplaced it!

Thank you so much, Since I applied for a couple of universities , they said they have no funding and I have to arrange all by myself I'm a bit confused. I might have money to pay for the university fee but living and other expenses are something that is making me worry more, along with the dissertation problem. I would be relocating to Dubai sooner and planning to continue my education there. Would you please help me by letting me know the scope of biology in the UAE?

Yes funding is a big problem especially if you're an international student. Sorry I can't be of help regarding studying in the UAE but you really should be able to do some basic research into it by yourself especially given that you are looking to do a research degree. Good luck!

Doesn't the University where you did the Masters have the hard copy of the dissertation you submitted? It should be available to borrow via the University library. You can then photocopy or scan the pictures (even if you have to do this in the library), for later insertion into text (Word?) document.

Create a PDF of it so you can't lose it again and generate a new hard copy from the file generated. Installing this program will help you generate a basic PDF.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

You really should be looking for a funded PhD somewhere, as the whole process can sometimes take quite a bit longer than the three years. PhDs are very expensive to self-fund.


Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Thank you so much, I would to borrow a copy from my university library and get it done as a PDF. Thats a great Idea. Thank you