What are your thoughts on the UK PhD loan system which got announced recently?
Prospective PhD students: would these loans make a difference for you if you're thinking about PhD study?

There's been a lot in the news following these articles, both about the benefits of the loans and the reality of huge amounts of government lending and student debt:

Let us know what you think, or feel free to discuss any other PhD loan articles!

Cheers,
Nikki

Hi all,

I only got to attend one conference during my PhD and ended up presenting there. I was lucky as my stipend included money for travel which paid for trains and conference fees. However, I managed to get this entirely reimbursed (as did 2 others in my lab, neither of which presented) by the society which ran the conference. We all were members of the society and simply applied for money to cover costs.

So it's definitely worth investigating, as some conferences will give out money to students, especially if it's your first conference!

I didn't manage to go to an international conference, due to a mixture of costs and suitability, but I would say a smaller conference is just as useful, and is a whole lot cheaper!

Good luck

Hi guys,

The problem should all be sorted now :)

There's a limit to the private message title, which might have been an issue, but this has been increased now. We've been been able to send long messages too, so hopefully you'll be able to send PMs as normal.

Give me a shout if you have any more issues.

Thanks, Nikki

Hi guys,

Thank you for drawing our attention to this. Our IT team are looking into it so hopefully it'll be sorted shortly.

Thanks for your patience with this, I'll let you know when it's fixed!

Nikki

Prospective Masters students: You may well have heard about the £10,000 bursaries for Masters study in England in 2015.

This HEFCE Postgraduate Support Scheme aims to allow 10,000 students to take up Postgraduate Study in 2015.

If you are interested in finding out more about these bursaries, you might be interested to read our FAQ about the scheme:

You'll also find a full list of all the English universities that are participating in the HEFCE Postgraduate Support Scheme, including how many £10,000 awards they have available.

Hello,

I know one of the main topics on the forum is funding, whether you're applying for funding, are working to supplement funding, or talking about the latest funding news.

There's been a lot in the news recently, for both Masters and PhD study, so I though it would be great to have a thread on all things funding.

We'll keep you updated with new schemes- like the HEFCE £10,000 Masters bursaries, the Masters Loans Schemes and any Erasmus funding news (which we have guides for on FindAMasters and FindAPhD).

So feel free to ask any funding questions, or use this thread to discuss any funding issues!

And if you're looking for funding, Good Luck!

Nikki

No problem proofreadmyfile!

Hi Zubi,

Lots of universities have courses which are listed on our database, so it's probably easier if you have a look on our site.

For Masters courses, you can search for institutions:

And for PhDs you can search for institutions:
I hope this helps.

Good luck in your search!
Nikki

Hi proofreadmyfile.

You can apply for this scholarship by signing up here:

You will then get an email on the 1st June to say that the scholarships are open, and we will ask people to tell us why they are passionate about their subject (for Masters/PhD study).

In the past people have produced videos,posters, written songs and even baked cakes to show us how passionate they are about their subject. We then go through the applications and choose our winners based on how creative and passionate their entry is.

You can view our previous winners and their entries on our site:
Hope this helps, if you have any other questions just ask!

Good luck with your scholarship entry!
Nikki

Hi Rogue9,

If you are keen to do a PhD and are looking for funding, you may still be able to get some financial help even if you are finding it difficult to get scholarships.

Charities and trusts are good options and you can find details of these here:

http://www.findaphd.com/funding/guides/phd-without-scholarship.aspx

We also have a FindAPhD scholarship which might be worth applying for, where you could win £5,000 towards your course:

Hope these help and good luck with the future,

Nikki

Hi Tango,

As an initial search, you could look at FindAPhD for all the engineering courses- these have little icons which say whether the projects are funded or not. They will also list the PhD supervisor for each project, and if you click on this name it will produce an enquiry form where you can write a message to send to the supervisors for any of the projects you are interested in.

I hope this helps, good luck with your PhD search!

Nikki

Hi Satchi,

I have just finished my PhD and only went to one conference. At the conference I went to, they had separated the days into half-day sessions each with a specific subject area, which meant that there were only a limited number of slots for talks, and even a set number of poster spaces in each category.

In my lab, three of us applied for posters, and one person actually got asked to give a talk rather than a poster. When we got there, it was clear that some sessions had hundreds of people there, meaning only the top professors gave talks, whilst other sessions were much emptier meaning that students were asked to do talks. So I definitely wouldn't worry too much, just see what happens, but if your abstract does get rejected then I wouldn't take it too personally!

Fingers crossed your abstract gets accepted!
Nikki

Hi Vel,

Like Satchi said, there's lots of PhD courses listed on findaphd.

If you type in Water corrosion or Lead Oxide battery into the search, there's actually quite a few PhD courses listed, so you can have a flick through these and see if you find anything you fancy.

http://www.findaphd.com/search/?keywords=water%20corrosion

Each project also has a little icon on the RHS, which indicates if it is self-funded, fully funded, competitively funded etc. If you hover over the icons it tells you more about what they mean.

Also, we have a £5,000 PhD scholarship up for grabs at FindAPhD, which you can sign up for here if you are interested:
Hope this helps,
Nikki

Hi Hiini,

Yes you can still apply for the scholarships, but will depend whether that New Zealand University is listed on the site or not, as to whether you would be eligible or not... There are a few New Zealand universities listed on the site though, and you can find a list here:

http://www.findamasters.com/study-abroad/aus-nz/masters-study-in-australia-and-new-zealand.aspx#universities

As long as the university lists on the website, then you would be eligible for the scholarship (the specific masters or PhD course you want to apply for doesn't need to be listed).

Thanks
Nikki

Hi Sarah,

I can remove this thread for you if you want?

Thanks,
Nikki