======= Date Modified 19 Jun 2010 00:29:34 =======
OK so I enquired at my prospective department about whether I could be affected by big increases in fees / restructuring of fees in my second or third year and (amazing to me) the answer from the department representative was in effect 'I don't know'.

:-(

I return to my previous question above. I am thinking about starting a self-funded phd in October, fees are £3.5k. I am concerned that after the first year they will say say ok now it's £5k for year 2 and then £7k for year 3 etc. Is anyone else concerned about this?

======= Date Modified 03 20 2010 13:20:20 =======
======= Date Modified 03 19 2010 13:19:49 =======
Dear all,

Am I right that no bank etc would give a loan for a humanities PhD in the UK?

http://tinyurl.com/6c25jx

:-(

Thanks for your reply. In my case I do have a head start as the proposed subject continues from my MA and so I will have done a lot of relevant reading before starting the PhD. I realise that things can go awry so I was just asking about the best possible scenario - whether the best scenario transpires is of course a different matter. I guess I am an optimist and would definitely not want to go beyond 3 years. When people drift into a fourth year does this mean paying more fees?

Thanks

Dear all,

Suppose I start a full-time humanities PhD in September, can anyone please enlighten me with approximate dates assuming things go smoothly for
submitting my thesis?
viva?
qualification?

Does it ever happen that a supervisor would agree that a thesis is ready after only 2 years or 2 1/2 years rather than 3 years?

Thanks

Dear all,

There has been stuff in the news recently about possible massive rises in fees eg to £7k
http://tinyurl.com/yzw8yno
So would a PhD student starting this year know the fees only for the first year? If so, it seems that the student is buying something without being told the price. I mean how does the student know whether he can afford it if he doesn't know the price? :-(

Dear all,

I recall seeing on this forum people saying (I think last year) that their proposal was approved or rejected for funding by the AHRC people and also marked (maybe out of 5). Was this referring to applications to universities that did not have block grant funding? As far as I can see, applying this year to a university that has block funding it is the university itself that does the approving and rejecting and the the AHRC does not get involved in looking at the proposal other than rubber stamping the university's decisions.

Have I got this right, and if so do I still have to formally nominate one particular application for AHRC funding or again does that only apply to non-block grant applications?

thanx

Dear all,

In addition to external funding such as AHRC, most universities have their own fund of X million pounds per year for PhD sponsorship. It is a mystery to me how my uni allocates this money. I can't find anything published concerning the criteria on which applications are judged or previous awards made. It would be nice to know for example that last year my uni awarded x studentships in Maths, y in Chemistry, z in French etc. It could be for example that a particular uni favours / prioritises subjects a, b and c so that an application in subject d, no matter how good, is doomed.

Is it reasonable of me to expect a uni to have some basic transparency on this?

======= Date Modified 12 Oct 2009 12:43:19 =======
This is an interesting question - I have heard that in some cases, the PhD supervisor does next to nothing anyway and the student basically does it on their own. It seems to me then that in theory the same student could produce a PhD thesis with little or no formal supervision, in which case the student might only need to be registered for a few months or simply to submit his thesis for marking. I can't see what would be wrong with that, so I would be interested to know what the universities have to say about this. Of course the student might overestimate their ability and the thesis might fail but that is a different question. Surely the question for the PhD examiners is 'does the thesis achieve the required standard?' not 'how much formal supervision has the student had?'

======= Date Modified 08 05 2009 17:05:13 =======
Dear all,

I have read a bit about how to compose a PhD proposal but can anyone please tell me where I can find some examples in the Humanities preferably online?


thank you