Hello all,

I have just found out that I have been offered a full Australian scholarship for a project at UWA in Perth Australia, and am full of mixed emotions and unsure whether to accept...

For context: The subject area is marine ecology/fisheries science. This all happened very quickly and near the scholarship deadlines meaning it was all a rush. Given the extremely competetive nature of these scholarships (the Australian government Doctoral Training Program) for international students, I basically had assumed I wouldn't get it but that it would be a good learning experience to go through the process to prepare me for applying in coming years, when I would be a stronger candidate. SO to say that I am shocked to be offered one if an understatement.

The crux of the issue is that despite dreaming of studying at UWA for years, I am now unsure that this particular project is perfect for me, and there may be projects in the UK which are better suited to my skills and ambitions. I was planning to apply for these when the NERC funding opens at the end of this year, so the timing doesn't work in terms of deciding between those projects and the Australian one. I am terrified that if I turn this offer down I won't get offered the UK ones and then would be left full of regret. I also am unsure whether turning down Australian DTPs is something that anyone ever does (i.e. because they are so hard to get)..?!

I have good people around me (including professors/supervisors etc) but thought it worth seeing what people on here say too! Any advice/thoughts welcome and much appreciated.
Thanks!

Thank you all very much for the responses.

Yes one of my supervisors is co-author but very difficult to keep in touch with as he is now retired. However, he actually got back to me in the last couple of days and is going to look through the reviewer comments, so I will hold off on withdrawing anything in case he thinks of something! I couldn't ask my primary supervisor to co-author as he was actually let go by the university... really adding to the difficulty of the situation as he was the most involved of my two supervisors.

Thanks again all

Hello all

I am stuck in a tricky situation with my first journal article at the moment and would massively appreciate anyone's advice!

So here's the situation... I am an early career researcher in the field of biogeography (recently graduated from my MSc and looking for PhDs), currently trying to get my undergraduate dissertation research published in the International Journal of Remote Sensing/Remote Sensing Letters. I submitted it around christmas time. it got past the initial stages and through peer review and was 'recommended for publication' but with significant amendments. The problem I have now is that the main issue the first reviewer has is that I did not include a particular technical element in my data analysis (specifically I did not do an accuracy assessment of my image analysis). The reason I didn't do this was very simply that I was already working well beyond what was expected at undergraduate but an accuracy assessment wasn't something I was aware I should have done (i.e. it certainly wasn't required for my dissertation and no-one advised me that I should do it in case of future publication).

As far as I know there is no way of me going back to my results and running accuracy assessments now (partly because I don't even have access to the software I used now). Further, for various reasons very much out of my control, neither of my supervisors are available to help/advise me, so I am having to turn to other lecturers/non-specialists but not having any luck.

I only have 4 more weeks to respond with an amended article (although I may be able to extend this), and I am so determined to get this article published as I am very proud of the research and really need some publications for the PhD funding I want,but I am not sure how I can get past this final hurdle... If anyone has any suggestions of how I could respond to the reviewers comments, or has hit similar hurdles in relation to undergrad publications etc I would be hugely grateful. I assume that I shouldn't tell them that it was undergraduate research?

Thank you in advance!
Lucy