Why, Peljam? Labour - somewhat biased in favour of those who haven't worked hard or don't do much. Conservatives - biased towards those who either inherit their wealth, or work hard but are paid disproportionately high. Lib Dems - talk crap. Green - ha! UKIP - ditto. What was there to be excited about?

I'll tell you one thing - I often bitterly regret my decision not to do medicine, in light of the current financial climate.

Sneaks, a different way to put what your mum says is that Labour always bankrupts the country with a ridiculous amount of spending which we don't really need, and it's left to the Conservatives to sort it out. Yes, I find all these cuts about as unpalateable as anyone else, but remember that, in 1997, the Labour government inherited a very healthy economy. Look at what they did with it...

Let me know what you find because I'd love to get a PhD in 1 year! Seriously, unless it's in some esoteric area of theoretical mathematics, and your name is Fermat or Euler etc, you'll be doing it for 24-30 months MINIMUM.

People complain about the Conservatives and social mobility, but they are the only party who have ever (even if they don't currently) supported state grammar schools, which are the greatest aid going in terms of enabling social mobility. Funny that...

Hi JenJen,

I've just started the "3" part, having done the MRes last year. There were two sorts of people in my cohort - those who already knew what their final project was going to be on, and those who didn't. The first group chose projects relevant to their final PhD project in terms of techniques, so that by the time we started our PhDs, we already had a lot of the practical experience. The subject areas varied, but there was a general overlap between first year stuff and PhD stuff. The second group generally chose a diverse range of projects to give them as wide a scope as possible so that they could choose a project later in the year. IMO this is not as good a way of doing things, as a lot of what you do in the first year you will never do again.

In terms of actual PhD work, unless one of the projects was preliminary work for the PhD proper, no one actually did any PhD stuff, other than learning the techniques that we'll be using.

Hi Podgo,

I've had a bit of a similar experience. I've posted about it enough here and don't want to bore people, so I'll PM you...

It's not much of a change, and I probably know nothing about it, but I'd suggest "zone of comfort". I think it sounds just that little bit more academic and a little less colloquial.

I don't know as it's not my area, but I'd suggest that, if you're applying to a specific funding body, you contact them, or they may have details on their website (possibly well-hidden!). If you're just applying to a supervisor/department, perhaps you could contact them.

Can you give us a rough idea of the field? I could tell you about doing this kind of thing in my field, but not in other fields...

Brilliant Sneaks. Thanks very much :) It's increased my productivity already!

4Matt

Hi everyone,

This probably sounds like a lame thing, but I was wondering whether there is a programme/Firefox add-on which you can use to "block" access to certain internet sites at certain times. When I work at my desk, there's always the temptation to look at Facebook, BBC News, and so on, and while this isn't a major issue, it sometimes gets in the way of concentration, knowing that the option is there.

So is there any programme which can "lock" internet access (maybe apart from Google Scholar)?

Yes, I know, sad...

Hi all,

As the title asks really. I'm setting one up in the lab - it's not new, but it's not been used in ages...

This is something I can't stand - the use, generally by people in positions at least equal to, if not above, their intended audience, of extra words which add nothing whatsoever to a sentence, reduce readability, and are probably intended to make the author look loquacious and brainy. However...