I have seen lots of adverts for JFRs at Oxford and Cambridge but I don't really undestand how the collegiate system works. Each fellowship is based within a college.

But will you also be associated with the university's academic department?
Will you have office space in the academic department?
Will teaching opportunities be based in the academic department or within the college?


It sounds like a good opportunity but I would feel somewhat isolated if I wasn't working alongside academics in my field. If someone familiar with the set up could explain it to me - it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

So I am now the most senior member of my research group (eh how did that happen?). This means that I have the honour of being in charge of our annual postgrad conference.

I have to hand in an outline proposal by the end of the week and I am pretty sorted on topic and the speakers I want to come.

I was just womdering if anyone that any ideas or experiences of really interesting and innovative conferences in terms of the conference structure....?

I went to a conference where each student was assigned an expert discussant, we had to send our papers to them in advance and they gave a 15 min presentation after the students discussing the paper. That worked well but one expert for each presenter is outwith my budget and pretty large scale!

So any ideas? Discussants? panel discussions? Debates? Would anyone like to share any experiences or ideas?

Thanks x

I work from my office - can not work at home. I think it's environment specific conditioning. I even sleep there about once a week (and I'm not the only one).

Most of the time they are not mentioned at all, papers won't even mention if they tested diagnostics it is just assumed (all though I suspect many people don't pay the assumptions as must attention as they should). I've never mentioned it in a paper, but have it all in lots of detail in the thesis.
:-)

Hi, I've just started reading up on the British Academy postdoctoral fellowships and similar and I am having a little trouble understanding the application process.

I'm due to complete in September 2011, the application process seems to begin autumn/winter 2010 for those who will start fellowships in October 2011.

But now after reading all the in-depth application notes they state that prospective applications will not be accepted and viva must be confirmed for at least April 2010. Which suggests that you can not (if successful) go straight from PhD (finish Sept) and start post-doc (Oct). You need to do something else for a year?


Is this right??

Ah the Glasgow rain has seeped into my bedroom window and left a lovely puddle...

I had a first year mention the bible throughout essays - it was interesting to read one in the pile that said something different even though I'm a atheist it was generally slightly relevant. In the end I side stepped the religion issue and marked them down on out-dated sources, inadequate referencing and lack of peer-reviewed sources... How professional am I!

Where's your second supervisor?

Hey, I don't want to put a dampner on things but you really need to read all the details from your funders.

My people have quite strict rules on how many hours you can work for your university (reseach assistant / teaching) and also I am not allowed to take on any other paid employment unless it is directly related to my PhD and special permission is given. The idea is your PhD should be a full time job - that's what they're paying you for.

Just be wary - a PhD in my dept was working in a cafe over christmas not for an overwhelming number of hours but somehow the funders found out (ESRC) and she/her supervisors/university got in trouble over it. I'm not sure if anything happened in the end (apart from warning emails from our head of dept) but she certainly quit her extra job!

Yeh I don't think it's the sort of thing that one university offers over another, and there isn't really any barriers to you being the first in an institution to do it. It's your PhD so you can pretty much decide how you do it. At my university there is a real mix of people doing it in each way within and between diciplines.

But from my point of view what you write in publications and your thesis are different things. I've written several publications and I am writing my PhD as a thesis. A thesis will really let you go into detail about every aspect of your research and nit pick on certain points you will be building a mass of specialising knowledge and thinking very clearly and carefully about every aspect of what you are doing - an opportunity you'll probably never have again in your career so I'm glad I'm writing it that way. Publications are influenced by word limits, and will generally want a clear, consise and less detailed exposition of a study that do not let you indulge in as much information, Although it's becoming quite common to to do PhD by publication in my department my supervisors are quite keen to hold onto the thesis.

Good luck :-)

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To be honest I'd say don't waste your time reading these books just get on with it and not bother reading these non-PhD books when you could be doing research.

Go to the library and take out a few of the successful PhDs from the last few years then you'll see how it should be put together.

But the main thing is just get your data in and keep your literature up to date and trust me once you're at that stage you'll have a fair idea what you want to write.

Thanks every one! I' gonna go for it - out on my own (I'm 23 about time!).

First step of budgetting brought my own sandwiches to uni today - saved about £1.50 already!

:-)

I don't really think you'd be looked on badly but do you want to be a teacher or do you want to be an academic?

I don't really see the point of training to be a teacher if your intention is to get a PhD and do an academic job. Lots of people do their PhD then do teacher training if decide they want to teach. But I don't really get the logic of doing teacher training then a PhD...

With your PhD you don't need to start in September. It's quite common to start September, or in January of after easter it's not really an undergrad term kinda thing.

I'd say make sure you've officially got a place offer from these lecturers then apply to funders. When you get finding you can start at an appropriate time and off you go!

So I have an ESRC Studentship bout 14k tax free and for the last year I have been living in halls. Actually for the last four years I have lived in halls (undergrad as well). After the summer I'm breaking out and getting a flat (well room) but it all seems so expensive. I realise things vary greatly by area but the cheapest I can find including all utlities is £400 a month...

What I'm asking for is really, as a complete life novice, is it realistic to be spending a third of your income on rent?? (Bit of a random question I know but I'm just interested how other PhD get by on a limited budget - although I know my finding is pretty generous).

Thanks...

Did it work?
Was there any side effects?
Where did you get it?