I am a first year PhD student. Just 2 months in. My supervisors have asked me to start writing my literature review, which I have been doing. I send them my written work and they give me detailed feedback.

My main supervisor goes through every single word I write, and comments vigorously. She will give feedback for the whole document, the writing style and obviously the content. But this becomes very overwhelming for me. I feel so low after I receive the comments. On most parts, I agree with her feedback but it’s just tough and saddening.

Am I being too weak here? Or taking it very personally? She is not harsh, she is just very straightforward which I am happy about.

Does this ever get better? Can you suggest on how to take feedback? I would like to know if others have been through this and it has affected them as much, and if yes how did you learn to tackle it over the years.

Thanks in advance!

The PhD program I am wishing to apply for is encouraging to have a conversation with the potential supervisor regarding the advertised project to understand the nuances. I was just wondering do I need to be prepared with a research proposal? And what it generally contains?

Edit 1- Thank you to all for your helpful suggestions. BTW the focus of the PhD is in the STEM field.

I'm an undergraduate chemistry student at a university with a fairly large chemistry department. I would like to get an internship over the summer holidays with one of the research groups in the department but I'm not sure how I should write my cold emails to the various PIs that I am interested in working with. What sort of thing should I put in my email to improve my chances of getting a response? Is it worth putting in a sort of CV and talking about the modules I have taken thus far? Should I mention the group's research and why I'm applying there?

My team (3 postdocs) is going to present briefly (5min) our works. One colleague and I have one slide each with pictures we created during our research. On the other hand, the last team member is making 4 slides and uses lots of pictures with some text on them from other sources with slow animations . Do you think it is a good idea he does that? Will it have consequences on the rest of the team?

I know this has already (sort of) been talked about on this subreddit, but I’m still looking for more answers.

I’m an English PGT student from America who graduated with a 3.8/4 GPA, high honors, and was even inducted into PBK (honors society). My essays regularly scored anywhere from 85-99, but mostly above 90.

But I’m extremely anxious about how my essays are going to be graded here in the UK, especially because they’re 100% of our grade for the class. And I know the grading scale is completely different here, so I’m prepared for grades below 70, but still!

Does anyone have a similar experience they’d like to share? Any advice? Anything comforting at all? 😭

I used to start my essays very late before submitting them in undergrad, but now I’m so scared shitless about UK grading that I’m starting them way, way earlier than normal, which is good, but I’m still so very anxious.

Edit: thank you so much for the feedback! I'm not sure how many people will see the update, but I'll update some time in the New Year with my grades (eek!) for reference,,, even if they suck. But my main gripe wasn't that I didn't understand the grading system -- it was more like, if I scored 85-99 consistently in America, do y'all think I'd do well with UK grading? Everywhere I've researched says Americans were taught how to do essays differently, so it's kind of psyching me out. I'm studying the rubrics religiously, but...yeah. That's all I can do I guess (and editing like a mother!!!!).

Hello,

I am in a one year postdoc that carried on from my PhD with my supervisor with whom my relationship is pretty good it ends in August.

I know opportunities are coming up that I would be competitive for and fit my interests more so I have every intention of applying. What I am struggling with is he keeps giving me responsibilities for later into 2025 such as organising a big workshop and conference and doing some guest lectures for his teaching. I have no issues doing these tasks, but I feel a guilt agreeing to take on these responsibilities whilst having every intention of not delivering on them as I will have moved on. How should I approach this?

Hi,

I have a family member who is applying for Arden and they are wondering what the environment is like to work in there. I understand it's online but I mean work, support from management, work load etc.

Just putting out feelers. I appreciate the wider HE environment is quite tough at the moment.

Thanks

Hi all,

Over the years I have applied for many PhDs, since 2017. I did get one offer for one but the PhD turned out to be different.

I've applied on average 1 a year since. I usually always get passed the application stage but struggle with interviews.

After all these years I am still keen to do one. This time I have applied to 3-4. I had really strong references but this has boiled down to a lecturer and a supervisor in a previous work role (I have no clue where my stronger ones are).

All of these are already defined projects. Should I be reaching out to the supervisors? What questions should I be asking?

How can I best prepare for an interview? I am clearly weak here. I know I'd be good but I just can't pass these barrier.

Hiiii If there's anybody here who applied from India who could answer some of my queries, I'd be extremely grateful!!

Currently pursuing UG in JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), applied for the University of Edinburgh a few weeks ago.

What's the usual time frame they take to send a response? Are there any non-basic documents that I should keep ready in case of a conditional offer later?

I've applied through an agency and I'm worried if the documents are uploaded in the right slots. My SOP is under 'Translation of Degree Certificate', Resume under 'Translation of Transcript' and marksheet records under 'Interim Transcript'. Is this how it's supposed to be?

For IELTS, I've heard that if you score a certain grade in 10th and 12th, you'll get a waiver from the Uni and not need to attempt IELTS. My English grade in both classes was 97/100, will I be eligible for the waiver?

Anything else I need to keep in mind? Thank you in advance!!

Hi everyone,

I'm applying for the ESRC-UBEL studentships and I'm currently working on my preliminary application as an international student. I intend to apply to UCL's Human Geography program, and I was wondering if there's anyone here who went through the application process who might have tips to strengthen the application and make it stand out as much as possible in this preliminary stage. It would be nice to hear from international students who were awarded the studentship through this route or those who were awarded within the department of Geography at UCL.

Hey everyone! I’m thinking about applying for an AI PhD at UCL / ICL / Edinburgh. How difficult is it to find PhD sponsorship for international students now?

Hi everyone, I’m an international student did my undergrad in the USA back in 2018. Then, i never thought of doing a PhD so never really did much of research, just my thesis. Have been working as a public school teacher for the past 5 years and things took a quiet turn, I am highly interested in academia and want to do a 1+3 PhD in public policy and development. However, the schools I’m applying to require a research outline and upon googling and even asking chatgpt its still giving me various answers on the contexts and the lengths of it. Is there anyone here who had to submit a research outline for school? Any insight to what it should contain and so forth? Thank you.

I am an undergrad student doing BA Education in England, and I'd like to make a direct entry to PHD in Education. However, the prospective website didn't specify the requirements apart from a minimum upper-class Bachelor's degree. I have never heard of anyone in my major making such direct entry to PhD and I am wondering what I need to do. There are research opportunities in my department but it won't have my name on my publications, so I'm not sure if it makes me a competitive candidate. I'm wondering what kind of research background successful candidates have.

I’m at a smaller uni and we’re entering the second round of voluntary severance. Following this a restructure is planned next year; there’s lots of talk of ‘accepting change’ and my director said they wouldn’t blame me if I took VS(!).

I’m in professional services and having only been there a year, and in a less vital role than others in my dept (it’s a digital role which was created before the big financial meltdown) I’m doubtful I’ll make the cut if we enter enforced redundancies.

Has anyone been through VS recently and what their experience was like? I’m not from a university background so this is all new to me.

I recently successfully applied for some quite competitive funding for my PhD. I didn’t think I’d get it, especially given I have a 2:1 and a Merit, so was awarded the funding over some very strong candidates. I really can’t get my head around the fact that I’ve been successful, and while I’m very excited, I’m having lots of anxiety about imposter syndrome. I really feel that my project is worthwhile and valuable, and I’m so excited to have been given the opportunity to pursue this with a supervisor whose work I admire greatly. However, I keep having thoughts that the university will realise they’ve made a horrible mistake and they should actually award the funding to someone else, or that I’ll get back to university and realise that I’m not intelligent enough to actually pursue this? It sounds really silly but I guess I’m just asking if anyone currently undertaking their PhD or maybe working as a researcher has any words of wisdom? Thank you!

Edit: thank you so much everyone for the encouragement! These kind comments really mean the world!

I just completed my masters and received a distinction on my dissertation. The feedback strongly advised that I publish my work, but I am a bit lost on the process. I am confident that my work contributes new and important information about a section of the population (social demography, more specifically on reproductive autonomy of adolescent mothers in Mexico). But a lot of ‘good’ journals that are committed to open access also seem to charge a lot for publishing. I am technically no longer affiliated with my uni, so even if they have agreements with the journals I don’t believe this extends to me as a former student.

Ways to navigate this? Is it just a complete waste of time? I am really proud of the work I did, and more than anything, I want to ensure that the voices of my participants are heard beyond myself and the two teachers who marked my work. They deserve that.

I understand it is a long drawn out process but essentially what are some of the first steps I should be doing now to try and get this published?

Hi all!

I'm needing to fill out an application for my sister for funding. She finished college this year, and has now gone onto University.

I'm confused with the exact academic year end dates, as on the government website it states the academic year ends on August 31st. This would make sense as she was in upper sixth and didn't receive her results until mid-August, so still technically part of the college.

Though on the college website, it says that the 2nd July is the end of term time. So which is the official one I should put on the application?

After a few follow up emails, I was finally able to secure interviews with two different professors. I’m hoping to arrange a third interview with another professor, but we’ll see how that goes.

Although all of them are highly specialized and their research aligns well with my proposal, the universities they represent are not ranked equally. I’ll be applying for a government scholarship that evaluates the overall ranking of the university. Unfortunately, this means that if two professors express interest, I might have to choose to apply to only one of them based on the ranking, which feels awful!

Professors are often very busy, and securing these interviews already demands quite a bit of their time. I wanted to ask for your opinion on this situation. Is it common for applicants, after a successful interview, to decline working with a professor in order to maximize their chances of securing a scholarship?

Thank you so much, as always, for your help!

I am in the process of applying for a PhD in Sociology in the UK, and I’ve started by drafting a research proposal. I reached out to several professors a few months ago, and while some haven’t replied I am still very interested in their research areas and departments. Do you think it’s still worth applying to these universities, even without a response from them?

As always, thank you so much for all your guidance!

Currently spiralling, seeking advice. I have recently graduated from a mid level university, having obtained a distinction in BA English and distinction in MA English and Literary Media. Both of my dissertations were a combination of creative and academic work, showcasing the usefulness of multilinear digital storytelling for educational purposes and raising awareness for important causes (child neglect and adolescent mental health).

At this stage, I have no idea which direction to go in, and all I really feel I’ve achieved from my time at university is how to write short stories and academic essays at a decent level. This leads me to believe the only path available to me now would be in academia. My lecturers have been very supportive of my interest in applying for a phd and continuing down the educational interactive digital storytelling route, although I would never be able to achieve this without funding. From what I understand, funding for humanities is very limited and I feel it is reasonable to assume that funded opportunities in humanities would be more likely to be awarded to those who obtained similar grades however went to ‘better’ universities.

so, is there anybody here that has experience in undertaking a funded phd in either English or creative writing? or anybody that can tell me a little more about it all? any and all advice is much appreciated, although please be kind - I’m currently majorly spiralling over what to do with my life.

I am currently working on a project to practice Deep Neural Networks, but I am stuck now. If the dataset is complex (brain volumes), which model can be used for classification to predict whether the patient has the disorder or not?
Which model can do something with data like this?

https://preview.redd.it/b9eppmi8kw1e1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=1d534d45e6815fbf035b6bcc971064d74e27e014

Thank you for your help.

I am a clinical lecturer (clinical academic equivalent of a post-doc).

I am working on my own projects. My post is paid from charitable funding at no cost to the university. However, they don’t provide any IT equipment and don’t loan equipment either. Ie no desktop laptop or even monitor.

I was at a different institution for my PhD.

If I’m successful on grant applications, I could buy something next year. In the meantime I am working either in the library, or when they can spare it, my partner’s very old laptop. Bioinformatics is therefore difficult.

As a sense check - is this unfair or do people generally provide their own equipment?!

Any suggestions on how to navigate this?

Which university is better for law conversion? In terms reputation and teaching I'm considering Nottingham Trent university, university of law and university of the west of England I'm open for suggestions

Hello everybody,

I've been invited for an interview for a language teaching position and very expectedly this comes with the need to do a teaching demo.

They've asked me to prepare a short teaching demonstration (it will be through Teams) to the non-experts. Very "Beginners" friendly, which alligns with the post.

I'd really like some advice from people who have done similar things or who have some tips on what to expect or things to avoid. I feel that there's a lot of "hidden curriculum" stuff with this specific scenario and the task description is quite vague. Simply "delivery beginners class in language X to panel members who don't speak language X"

Any advice or resources for the UK context would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone,

I’ve completed postdoctoral research in China and the US, with a solid track record of publications. Over the past 5–6 months, I’ve been actively applying for tenure-track positions but haven’t had much luck so far. It’s been tough seeing others with less experience or qualifications land opportunities while I’m still searching. It’s a frustrating and disheartening process, but I’m staying hopeful and open to advice or insights from others who’ve been through this.

Hello,

Need to caveat this post somewhat - I came to academia through an unconventional route in middle age, so my knowledge of post-Phd life is... emergent (+ naively optimistic perhaps) to say the least.

I'm a practice researcher doing a PhD in fine art and looking at fragmentary & neurodivergent approaches to knowledge making. As an artist I've struggled with scholarly credibility (welcome to the arts), but my sub-field is mobilities so early on I put myself in a community with historians, lit people, and geographers with similar research interests, rather than the arts community.

We work in a room together every day, and over two years we've built up friendships and are constantly amazed at our overlaps, both in terms of the research itself and how we want to approach it. Anyway, fluffy stuff aside, a couple of us are putting together a project plan to bring local history, new mobilities, and arts practice together into an exhibition and possibly a monograph. The aim is to communicate our research in a compelling way to the public, but also to spark the imaginations of planners and policymakers.

Anyway.... we want to put it together as a post-doc, and are starting prelim work on identifying funders, what their outcome agendas are, and from there a more developed idea , with the intention of presenting a plan to two of our supervisors in the new year, who we hope will be our advisors on the PD. It's super exciting, and suddenly brings real life interdisciplinarity and potential for impact into the work.

Questions are:

1. This would be a perfectly normal approach in the creative sector but this a normal/viable way to approach a post-doc?
2. Other than the task of actually getting the funding, what challenges should we be thinking about right now at the blue-sky thinking stage?
3. As a middle-aged but new entrant to academia working in the imploding arts/humanities world, what things can I do to leverage a project like this into a teaching/researching position in HE?

Any other advice would be very gratefully received!

Ta!

When reaching out to potential supervisors, how defined or detailed should the PhD topic be? I'm hesitating between having a very general idea of what I would like to pursue, and maybe thinking I should narrow it down to a doable research area for the typical 3-year duration.

I'm scared about getting so niche with my topic that they outright say no, when honestly I'm very flexible about what I want to do as long as it is in the broader area of research. At the same time, if I reach out with something too general they might not take me seriously.

How do I find balance? What were your experiences? What would you prefer as a potential supervisor?

Edit: As context, I already have secured external funding but it has very lax requirements about my topic. I'm reaching out mostly to interdisciplinary labs that overlap computer science and social sciences.

I (a non-UK national) was drafting a proposal and budget for a non-UK-based NGO and was asked to declare the "full economic cost" of the project. The template has a few sections that guide the applicants in calculating all the direct and indirect costs, sum everything up, and provide a "Summary of total cost." Yet immediately after the total cost section, another section asks about the total full economic cost (fEC) of the research proposal in GBP" I tried googling the differences between the "total costs" and fEC, and it seems they are the same. Did I miss anything here?

P.S. When I googled about the fEC, most of the results were listed on university pages, so I assume this page can help clarify my doubts. If this is not the right place to ask, please suggest the correct subreddit page to ask this. Thank you!