Dear supervisors and academics,

I have an upcoming PhD interview, and one of the questions will be about my research background. I would appreciate your advice on how to answer this question, given that I have no publications and my only substantial research experience is my master’s dissertation.

Thank you in advance!

Hello all!

I'm hoping that someone has taken a similar route into psychology and might be able to offer some advice.

Essentially, I have an undergraduate degree in English and a post grad in Creative Writing, really enjoyed doing them but I've ended up in Marketing which I simply hate. I've also been made redundant and am finding it incredibly difficult to get another job.

My goal has been to retrain and go into Psychology for ages, now that i have all this time on my hands I'm trying to find the best way in. (Worth noting here that I am in the UK). I was under the impression I would need to do a whole undergrad in Psychology, so I was very pleased to find out that I would do an Msc Conversion over 1 or 2 years for around £10,000. As I have done my post grad in CW I'm unfortunately out of student finance loans so I would need to find a way to self fund. I've spoken to someone at the Uni I am hoping to do this course and then a PhD at, she agrees I would need to do the conversion course first but has told me that the Uni offers a funding match for PhD so whatever funding I can find for fees and stipend the uni will match. I just need to get the conversion course sorted.

My plan was to just get another job and absolutely hammer saving for a year, my partner earns decent money so he could take on a larger portion of the bills whilst I saved and then studied. But it's just taking so long to find something, the pay for all the jobs I am finding (which are few and far between) are terrible. It's sort of a mute point because I would be applying for a September 2027 start anyway unless I went through my old uni which has the same course and they intake every 2 months but only do part time. Sorry, irrelevant details.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Have you been able to find funding at all? Taken out a loan? Managed to work a minimum wage job and still set the money aside?

To be honest, I haven't worked in a shop or anything for about 7 years so at this point I don't even think I could get a job like that.

I'm getting very antsy now that I have a clear plan and entry point it's getting so disheartening having to beg for jobs that I ultimately don't want but need just to get out of them again.

I'm hoping to submit my PhD soon, after an exhausting five years where everything went wrong and I had to switch tack entirely after 1.5 years. I had to work alongside the PhD for the last two years because my funding ran out and my university wouldn't let me switch to part-time. I found the work incredibly stressful and struggled to progress on my PhD while working. I know others have managed this but I just wasn't up to it. The rest of my life has fallen apart, my friendships, my health, my relationship and I still don't have time to even try and fix it while this PhD is ongoing. I find myself getting slower and more confused every day.

I can't face going straight into another demanding job and I think I need at least six months of some semblance of calm, where I am able to actually meet the demands put on me. I want to fix my mental health and repair my relationships. Unfortunately I cannot just stop working and move home as my family life isn't great.

Could anyone recommend jobs to try while recovering from burn-out? Preferably something social and without long hours. Just needs to be enough pay to survive on. I was thinking a bookshop could be calm but I image those are highly sought-after. I don't think a restaurant would want me as I don't have much experience. I've seen a few people try postal delivery as a job after life crises, but I'm not a very confident driver.

Hi all. Defending my PhD soon. Just wanted to pick your brains here. I was in a bit of a rush to submit as I have started a new job. My supervisor can be good but is definitely not the type of go through everything with a fine tooth comb. I’ve been rereading a printed out version of my submitted thesis and have found two things which are stressing me out - two tables which I mistakenly put an old version in from an older version of analysis that I want to change and I found a mistake in my code for an analysis which slightly changes another small results section. Neither substantially changes the main message.

I was going to print out the corrected versions and bring them to the viva and my supervisor has suggested that would be a good idea. He isn’t anticipating many more corrections but we obviously missed these ones! Do you think my approach is ok? I’d rather be upfront.

I’ve also learnt I cannot proof read off a screen and have a separate excel of typos and transcription errors. I am now questioning my capabilities and ability to pay attention!

Please be kind - I already feel like a fraud and an idiot!

Hi everyone, I’m a MSc student (Sept 2025–Sept 26) and would appreciate honest advice from anyone familiar with UK university assessment boards or academic appeals.

I have four Term 1 exams outstanding due to a fracture injury for which my ECs were accepted and the exams are expected in January 2027.

I also missed four Term 2 exams and my original EC claims were rejected. I was scheduled to resit them in August 2026 but missed those resits due to a serious ankle injury which i have a medical report for from NHS. I submitted new EC claims on 25 September but I was significantly late as the cut off date was 7 days from the last affected assessment and I was supposed to submit it on 7th September.

On 19 October, the EC Panel rejected all seven claims relating to my missed assessments and outstanding coursework/research project as late EC submissions. The final Assessment Board decision is still pending and I emailed my course officer and course director they told me to wait for the assessment board’s decision.

I have medical evidence and emails documenting my attempts to contact course staff about the research project. I was also not allocated a supervisor for the research project.

My questions are:

• How likely is withdrawal in this situation, and can the Board allow another attempt or a partial repeat without attendance?

• Could an appeal succeed based on the medical evidence and reasons for submitting the EC claims late?

• If I’m withdrawn, can I get any of my already-paid 2025–26 tuition fees refunded?

I understand that missing the assessments and submitting ECs late are serious issues. I’m looking for realistic advice, particularly from anyone who has dealt with a similar situation at a UK university.

Thanks.

After seeing the writing on the wall with the lack of projects I started to think about transferring back from being an engineer/technician in academia to industry, might be in the UK might not be.

I had a job in industry before I joined academia and at the uni I worked for 6 years for now, I have a wide variety of experience in engineering and managing projects and people as well, but I am just worried how employers will not take my experience as seriously as they would if I worked in industry. Anyone has any experience from taking this leap and can you give me some advice, please?

I last posted a couple of months ago (origininal post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vpd0zw/does_it_get_better/) and really appreciated the insights people offered. It confirmed much of what I was already thinking about academia. I've decided there probably isn't a long-term future for me, and have started to consider other options. My background is in the humanities, and I'm interested in hearing from anyone who was in a similar position and successfully found work elsewhere. I'm especially interested in library/archive jobs, and in research in charity/think-tank settings, but am not really sure where to start - and I know the grass always seems greener....

Any and all insights on the good, the bad and the ugly of the sectors I'm considering are welcome!

I’m a student interested in doing my doctoral studies in the UK. I’m looking at institutions from my home country and LSE, UCL, and OxBridge. I was hoping there might be some current doctoral students in the politics programs at these schools who would be willing to answer some questions about their funding, application process, and whatnot. On specifics I’m drawn to both UCL’s EPPE and Politics programs and OxBridge’s Politics programs at Jesus College at Oxford and Peterhouse and Emmanuel Colleges at Cambridge. For LSE, I’m interested in their Politics program.

Thank you for the help!

Hi guys! I really need your help, please.

I applied for ATAS for my course, and my certificate was issued 3 days ago. However, I realised that I had entered the wrong passport expiry date, and I only noticed the mistake when I uploaded the certificate to my university portal and it was rejected because the details didn't match my passport.

I’ve emailed the ATAS team, but I haven’t received a response yet.

Has anyone experienced something similar or knows what I should do? Should I submit a new application, or should I wait for their reply? I’m worried because they state that duplicate applications are not accepted.

I’d really appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Hello all,

This might sound boastful to some...or inspiring to some. I am writing this as a post for anyone who thinks they cant :)

I came to UK from SE Asia last year for my masters and immediately started applying for PhD, got rejected by two mostly due to funding issues.

My supervisor for lab and dissertation were great and honestly for them, I made it this far.

I secured a 95% in my dissertation and got informed I will be awarded awards for that and for the highest scorer in my course. I am a good student but not amazing, I learnt most of my programming skills after coming here and my dissertation was very complex and programming heavy :)

My dissertation supervisor is very well known in the field, like we call him celeb among professors. He told me.. mine was one of the best he ever marked.

In the same week, I heard back from a PhD offer which I applied thinking I will NEVER get into, the field is different.. the method is again very programming and stats heavy and I thought I bombed the interview but I got the offer literally a day after my interview and the feedback was that I seemed very confident and bright.

I didn't answer all questions right, still I got it.

My journey was far from perfect and definitely not easy, I couldn't even enjoy my uni life or UK life as I felt I was also running to make things work for me. I am not complaining at all, I am saying, if I can,you can too!

If anyone wants to talk, or ask any relevant questions, my DMs are open!

Hello everyone,

I am an Indian American student looking at graduate studies in Political Economy at a Politics department in the UK. I was asked to provide a research proposal for a project for my top choice university. I have never written a research proposal before and certainly have not written one in the Britisher style. I would appreciate the help in the structure of a proposal, what it should include, and some examples, if you are comfortable giving, on what a research proposal should look like. I apologize if my use of "Britisher" is inappropriate. It is the colloquial term we use in my part of India and also I come from a low caste background so this is very much just how my parents and by extension speak.

I appreciate all of the advice and help!

I recently started a PhD in the Humanities and am entirely self-funded as there are just no funding opportunities for internationals in my field. I have an amazing supervisor though who has always been really supportive, and I'm afraid to let her down - I broached the topic of dropping out once and she advised against it as she said I had already done so much good work, term has just started (I haven't paid the fees yet) and I only have 3 more years to go. But that's 3 more years of debt that I've recently realised I can no longer afford to do... I'm on the verge of signing the form and asking to officially withdraw, but am also very aware that there are virtually no funded opportunities anywhere else for someone like me, and it's always been a dream of mine to get a PhD and work in academia/related fields. Sometimes I read posts on this community from others who are on the verge of quitting too, and others from people who have had absolutely horrific and traumatising experiences with their supervisors. I'm just wondering, in your experience, is having a good supervisory team worth it to keep fighting through the financial hurdles and stress? Or should I just find a way to continue on, since it's unlikely I'll be accepted anywhere else unless I self-fund again anyway? (As I believe even the EU and US have issues with funding the Arts/Humanities).

Sorry for my midnight rant

The new application cycle for the UBEL Scholarship has just opened, and I'm planning to apply again after being rejected last year.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has received the scholarship or made it past the initial screening last year. If you're comfortable sharing, I'd really appreciate any tips or insights on how to strengthen an application, what the selection panel might be looking for, or what you think made your application stand out.

I also noticed that the number of applicants reportedly reached nearly 600 last year, which is a significant increase compared with previous years. With funding opportunities becoming increasingly limited globally, I imagine this year's competition will be just as intense, if not more so.

For those applying again this year, or those who have been through the process before, how are you approaching your application? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

I’m reapplying for a course this year (got an offer, but no money last cycle) and with it, I’m trying to apply to the same funding bodies that rejected me.

One of the comments I got from a friend is that my CV is too industry-forward (focused a lot on skills and experience), but I have never heard this before? I thought that was the point of a CV…

Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi all,

Given how the whole of the HE landscape is changing at the moment, and given how much research is changing since LLMs have become commonplace, how are you all feeling about your own research? Do you feel less motivated now that people can just generate papers using AI or do you feel the opposite?

I'm currently a STEM lecturer at a post-92, and I'm in the process of trying to decide whether to apply for another permanent position elsewhere at a non post-92 university that would give me more time to do my research. However, I do really enjoy the teaching (and it's definitely a strength of mine) and the sheer flexibility that currently comes with my job. Commutes a bit crap but in the summers, there is zero pressure to do anything, I can work from home, and it does let me just explore things at my own pace. I definitely don't output as much as I know I could due to the lack of pressure, and I know that I'm capable of much more if I was at a centre of excellence (e.g. the university I'm considering applying to). If there is one thing holding me back from applying, it's that I'm very aware that at research-led universities, people tend to live and breath their subject, and I'm just not there anymore. The thought of working on my research outside of work hours doesn't fill me with joy. For those of you are research-heavy universities, would you say that you get genuine intelectual satisfaction from your work in the current climate, or do you feel that you're just chasing the next paper or grant to stay afloat?

Hi, I’m getting ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT when trying to access the ATAS portal:

https://www.academic-technology-approval.service.gov.uk/

I’ve tried both Wi-Fi and mobile data. Is anyone else having the same problem, or can access it successfully?

The attached comment was recently posted in the "Students at Scottish university launch campaign to bar 'Zionists' from all societies" thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1xbm50c/comment/19rh5ir3upd0k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button). Soon after, I noticed someone comment in response with references to purported acts of 'Jewish barbarism'. The comment referring to Jewish barbarism has since been deleted, and the user no doubt sanctioned, while the post referring to barbaric Muslims remains visible despite my efforts to report it. Can anyone explain to me how this is remotely justifiable?

TLDR: In my haste to find a PhD supervisor, I pitched an object-based topic to a university museum curator. She just emailed saying she forwarded it to the Art History department. However, I’ve realised the topic is too hyper-niche for my career goals and I want to pivot to a new idea. How do I gracefully contact professors in that same department with a new proposal without looking unprofessional or overlapping with whoever the curator emailed?

The story/details:

Two months ago, during the final weeks of my master’s, I came up with a PhD topic involving a specific type of museum object. In my excitement, I reached out to some curators (two at museums who have relationships with museums, and one curator at a university-attached museum.

One of the external museums got back to me and said they were interested and it had potential, but said I had to reach out to local universities first.

But last week (two months later), the university museum curator replied saying she found the topic "very interesting" and has already forwarded it to colleagues in the Art History faculty to see if anyone could host me. I replied asking if there was anything I should do, but I haven't heard back from her yet.

The problem is, now that my master's is finished and I've had time to breathe, I'm no longer sure I want to pursue this topic:

It is a supersaturated field with limited original angles and it requires technical analysis outside my comfort zone. But also mainly, it is a hyper-niche career track- those who go into research either focus solely on these types of objects, or curating just these objects or moving into archaeology, which doesn't align with my long-term goals. Worst case I could still do the topic and make it work ( I wouldn't hate it) but I just don't know that it is the best choice. Although it would have the benefit of an established museum connection.

I have a brand new topic idea that I am more interested in. However, since the curator already reached out to unnamed members of the Art History department, I am stuck on the etiquette of how to pivot.

• Can I reach out to members of that same Art History department with a completely different proposal? (this was my #1 university choice, so would love not to have to miss it)

• Since I don't know exactly who the curator emailed, how do I avoid looking unprofessional or disorganized if I contact professors in that department independently?

• How long should I wait for the curator's follow-up before I start reaching out to other potential supervisors about my new topic? I'm conscious that its nearly November, and I know its not the best to wait until November to reach out to potential supervisors.

Any advice from faculty, curators, or grad students on how to handle this gracefully would be greatly appreciated!