You may be eligible for UK funding. The 'Ordinarily Resident' status requires that you have been resident in the UK for purposes other than full time education, but you still may qualify. Availability to EU citizens is improving and you should at least qualify for course fees in the UK. Get advice from your current tutors as they will be familiar with practice in your area of research.

If the person offering you the job knows you'd rather be doing a PhD, they will not be surprised if you keep looking for one (they may even recommend you to a colleague). Almost certainly you will be on a months notice in your technicians post. Which means that you can start a PhD a month after being offered it. This will be plenty of time, nobody will expect you to start straight away. Taking the technicians post should enhance your chances of being offered a PhD, as you will have experience of working in a lab environment.

It sounds like you are qualified to do a PhD in the UK, but you need to find funding. Try the Association of Commonwealth Universities or the British Council.

If you're just about to enter your final year then you've got time to apply for a few PhD positions before you need to commit to doing a masters. Your best bet would be to work very hard next year and get your grade up to a 2i. If you are finding you first degree difficult then you may need to think seriously about whether a PhD is the right move for you. Without research experience or an MSc/MRes it is unlikely that supervisors will consider a candidate with a 2ii. Oxbridge will make little or no difference.

You should talk to your supervisor about this, as they will probably be in the best position to help you. Without their support it may be difficult to sort things out to your own satisfaction. Have a look at the web site of your grant awarding body and look at their policy on absence due to illness.

You should talk to your supervisor about this, as they will probably be in the best position to help you. Without their support it may be difficult to sort things out to your own satisfaction. Have a look at the web site of your grant awarding body and look at their policy on absence due to illness.

Taking the technicians post will give you great experience and a bit of cash. You'll also have loads of time to keep applying for studentships. Although most projects start in October start dates can be flexible and many start at other times of the year, so you may not be a technician for long.

Sample CV from a mature student with a 2ii in human genetics and an MSc in medical genetics.

Sample CV from a student with a first in human physiology.

We have had a number of enquiries about writing a CV for a PhD application. If you have recently been accepted for a PhD and would like to help others achieve the same thing then please send your successful CV to [email protected]. We will hide your contact details and publish your CV as a guide to others in the messages below.

We now have two sample CV's available. Both are from students starting life science PhDs this October.

Sample 1

Sample 2

If you don't have a start date then you should email your supervisor. If you have a start date, then just turn up at 9am.

Most PhD's are specific by their very nature. After your PhD you may never use the facts that you pick up along the way about the specific receptor in your rare bacteria, but they are only a small part of your PhD experience. In addition to large amounts of general background knowledge you will learn how to design experiments, how to interpret results, how to write research papers, library research, internet research and a variety of laboratory techniques. Companies will be interested in your general scientific ability and the techniques you have used which can be applied to all sorts of research problems. Many universities are begining to offer courses under the New Route PhD, which have an extra year of training in research methods and theory.

The reason we emphasise the importance of the supervisor is to show people to look deeper than just the reputation of the university. A less well known university can still employ people who are world leaders in their field. Your point about high profile supervisors who ignore their students is a good one. We advise anyone going for interview to talk to other members of the lab they hope to join to see what they think of the supervision. You should also never accept a project you're not interested in just because the supervisor's got a good reputation. A point which we haven't mentioned before is that a supervisor at the start of their career will have a smaller research group and can be a very good choice as they have less demands on their time and will probably still be doing their own lab work. If you are somebody's first student you will be very important to them.

I can only comment on this for people wishing to do a PhD in the sciences (I am not sure about other areas). If you have no lab experience, then it will certainly be difficult, if you are currently working in a research environment then things should be easier. Applying for such a job, in a university may be a good first step if you have been away from science for a number of years.

As with any change of career you will at times run into discrimination. Prejudice about employing older post-docs is sometimes more understandable. Some university pay grades make it expensive to employ older post-docs, giving the supervisor a choice between a 25 year old post-doc on a 3 year contract or a 35 year old for under 2.5 years (there may well be ways around these problems, but you will need to find somebody who is prepared to take them on). After your first or second post-doc you may be too old to qualify for many of the highly prized research fellowships. You should speak to people in your specific subject area about career prospects.