Ah well, still better than a kick up the bum.
MRC website is down so I can't check.

Also, I heard that MRC grants are going up to 14k (outside London), has anyone else heard this? It was from a fairly senior scientist at the place I'm going to be starting my PhD next month so hopefully has some basis in fact!

I'm going to get paid monthly in arrears. I think it varies from institution to institution cos I'm going to be on an MRC grant too.

Hiya mindken, you imply that you've been giving her mixed signals about how you feel, maybe she thinks you are going to break up with her when she is near the end and is very stressed so has broken it off with you on her own terms before you can do it to her and cause her more stress? Why don't you try laying your feelings for her on the line, if you want to be with her for the long term and haven't told her then do it now! Ok so it might cause her to have to sit and think about things but it sounds like that is long overdue, and is better than you both letting something good break up.

This might sound a bit cliched but when they ask you if you have any questions always have a couple up your sleeve, it makes you seem genuinely interested in the project and not just that you are doing a PhD for PhD's sake. You can also use the questions you are asking them to your advantage eg: 'I see you are doing x, when I was doing x in my final year project/RA job I always found that y happened, how are you getting around this?' This makes you seem interested and also knowledgable!

Thanks sixkitten. I just wondered whether I would get a rude letter in the post for not informing them why I wasn't making payments. I don't pay very much back towards them at the moment anyway, I am sure that it barely, if at all covers the interest due to inflation.

Hi folks
I'm starting a PhD in September after working for 5 years. I have a student loan through the student loans co that is currently deducted from my salary by PAYE. Has anyone been through the procedure of stopping their payments whilst they go back to studying? I phoned up the Student Loans Co yesterday and the guy on the other end sounded like he'd just been lobotomised. He told me to phone back on a weekday. I am getting the impression that this is not going to be easy.... anyone been through it?

Thanks everyone for your input. I guess these things depend on who you go to. I did want to do it without having to ask either of our families to be guarantors (being a responsible adult n'all) but we're lucky we have the option there if we need it.

Some previous threads that may be useful

http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=5093

http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=4705

http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=3765

http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=3686

http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=3165

http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=1974

life insurance! crikey, do they think there is a chance your supervisor might kill you?

Not heard of self-certification, thanks Sylvester. We will probably have between 5 and 10% deposit (more like 5 realistically) for the type of place we're looking for, i'll investigate Northern Rock further too. It is quite frustrating; when I start my phd my stipend will be the same as my salary after tax now, and in some ways it is a more stable source of income as I will be receiving it every month for 3 years (unless they chuck me out ) but it makes things much more difficult.

Hi folks,
Has anyone on here tried to get a mortgage as couple of PhD students or one student/one working person? I can't find anything about it online apart from undergrad ones where you need your parents as a guarantor. Does anyone know of any helpful websites, or know if a stipend counts towards how much you can borrow? Thanks.

If you carried on you the money would make it a lot easier. You could have regular massages to chill you out, nice dinners instead of pot noodle from the office kettle, luxury hotel rooms to crash in if you can't make it all the way home after a late night... If your supervisor was being a b'stard you could employ a mediator to try and get your point over to them or a private detective to track them down if they were avoiding you...

yeah and it is pretty easy to patronise and put down people without really understanding their circumstances, which you often illustrate perfectly, ULUG.

Come on ULUG, just cos you might be having a crap time with your PhD don't act like such a martyr. If Gene has no flexibility in what he/she is supposed to be doing for their PhD then they are basically a glorified research assistant and will come out of their PhD with letters after their name but without the necessary skills to be a decent researcher, what's the point in that?

The Wellcome PhD first year is not so much a masters as a chance to try out three different labs and decide which one you want to do the rest of the PhD in, at least it is the case for the Dev Biol and the Infection/Immunity ones in Cambridge.