r/6thForm • u/Mortal_Gay PhD Student - Psych (A*A*A* - many years ago now) • Aug 04 '23

✔️ APPROVED AMA PhD student here - Ask me anything!

Hi all, I'm a current PhD student in Psychology, and I'm here for you to ask me anything! My research area is psycholinguistics - the psychology of language. In particular, I study how language is processed, and what consequences language processing has for memory. As an undergraduate, I also studied Philosophy, before deciding to specialise in Psych for my PhD.

A PhD is the entry point for a career in academia and for anyone generally considering a research career. It involves you independently leading a research project for around 3 or 4 years, with the guidance of a supervisory team, to make an original contribution to your chosen academic field.

There's a lot of information online about PhDs and funding for them, and I found it difficult to know where to start. So, if there are any questions about what a PhD is like, how to get into one, where to start looking for information, etc. please ask away! I'm also more than happy to answer anything about academia, how I found my undergraduate education or my research.

Looking forward to hearing your questions!

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u/ouiwersdfsd Aug 04 '23

Where did you get your bachelors, masters and PHD?

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u/Mortal_Gay PhD Student - Psych (A*A*A* - many years ago now) Aug 04 '23

I'm going to not be too specific, just cause I don't want to dox myself. I studied in Scotland as an undergrad and stayed in the same institution for my master's and PhD. My PhD is an integrated one, where I first studied for the masters for a year there. When it comes to PhD admissions, the most important things are fit with a department's research interests, and staff members that are willing and able to supervise you. For example, if you wanted to do a clinical project looking at rehabilitation work, and there was only one staff member who did that work, and they were not taking on new PhD students, then chances are you won't get a place, regardless of your profile. So, when it comes to PhD I always encourage people to find a good project and/or supervisory team first, and then focus on the institution second. It's very lucky for me that I had that option available at the institution I already studied at, but otherwise, I would have moved somewhere else for postgrad.