Getting a bad credit record as a student is very common place. Providing your Masters course will improve your earning potential and you haven't been subject to any County Court Judgements then most of the High Street banks will probably consider you for a Career Development Loan.

Some information on interviews can be found in our PhDs Explained section.

A number of PhDs in the UK are fully funded for European or EU students. However, most are not. As a citizen of the EU you should qualify for a 'Fees Only' award, which means you will still have to find your living expences. See our Funding section for links and further information.

You can only apply for an ORS award after you have been accepted for a place at a university. So you need to apply to a number of universities and then , once you have decided which university you wish to attend, you can apply for the ORS. The ORS only covers part of the course fees (bringing your fees to the same level as paid by home/EU students), it does not provide anything towards living expences. You best chance of funding will be from your own government. Contact the British Council in your home country for details of the schemes available to you. See our Funding pages for further information and links.

I'm affraid we can't recommend specific courses. Look for the RAE rating for the department you wish to study in. 5* is the highest mark. 4 or above is above average.

When it comes to a PhD it is the reputation of the department that is important, not the reputation of the university as a whole.

Look at the terms and conditions of your grant. If you do not have a copy then you should be able to ask your supervisor or your sponsors for one. There is no need to tell them what you want them for.

If you are working for an academic within a university, then you can register for a part-time PhD and this will effectively mean that you are fully funded, as the fees will probably be waived. Unfortunately it can be very hard to find such a position.

It will be possible to enrol for a part time PhD, but funding will still be a problem. Once you have lived in the UK for 3 years for purposes other than education you will qualify for full research council funding. It may be worth trying to get a relevant job for a few years and then trying to get a full time funded PhD place.

Most scholarships awarded in the UK would not have to be paid back. If you are sponsored by the government of another country then you will have to look at the terms and conditions of your grant.

The difference between these qualifications depends on the subjects or combination of subjects studied and on what you want to do afterwards. For example if at FindAPhD we wanted a new person for our marketing department and had two job applicants, one with a 2(i) in Internet Marketing and another with a 2(ii) from the same course and an MA in New Media Marketing. We would probably want the one who got a 2(i) first time around, as the other candidates MA is in virtually the same subject as their BA and probably hasn't enhanced his or her knowledge. If the second candidate had an MSc in Web Site Programming & Design we would probably favour them over the graduate with the 2(i) as they now had knowledge of another area which would be usefull to our business. Having said that we'd almost certainly interview both of them and then offer the job to the one with the cleanest fingernails.

A masters degree helps you specialise or change specialty and teaches you new skills. There's no point doing any old masters degree just to make a disappointing first degree grade look better. For example if you want to do a PhD, then pick a masters course with a large element of research.

It depends how far through your PhD you are, and if you're paying for it yourself. Having a PhD will help you in a number of careers outside research. These can include patent law, technical writing/journalism, publishing, teaching, consultancy and many others. If you are in the second half of your PhD it may be worth carring on, but it really depends what carrer you intend to pursue when you finish.

References are taken very seriously when appointing PhD students. Unlike other applicants you will have references from your MPhil and your year in research. References of the other candidates may be good, but yours are based on real performance in a research environment whereas your competitors will be based on a final year undergraduate project. If any publications resulted from your MPhil, most academics would put you in the pile for interview and after that it's up to you.

If you think you are having problems getting recommended for interview then speak to your MPhil course tutor and ask them for advice.

Heriot Watt University School of the Built Environment has an RAE rating of 5. This means it is one of the top departments in the country for research in this field.

Firstly, FindAPhD started out specialising in the Life Sciences and is therefore very strong in this area. We accept adverts from all subject areas and spend more money attracting advertisers from outside of the Life Sciences to improve the balance.

Secondly there is much more research in medical related areas than anywhere else. This is partly due to government policies (in the UK and abroad) and due to the very significant contributions of medical research charities and foundations.