I've been applying for phds

eh?

ha. where did the rest of my post go? let's try again...

I've been out of education since 2003 and doubt any of my Masters tutors will remember me, let alone my undergrad ones. how do I deal with applications that need academic references? My job is completely unrelated to what I want to study so references from my employer would be inappropriate. any advice welcome and apologies for messing up my first post!

I have been out of education since 2005 and I still ask my lecturers for references (although since this is my 3rd year of applying for funded PhDs I think they will be getting sick of it now!) I think that your dissertation supervisors from masters or undergrad will still remember you and should be happy to supply a reference - 2003 wasn't that long ago and many academics get reference requests from people who graduated up to 20 years ago!

Perhaps you could use one academic referee and one from work? Although your job may not be relvent to the PhD it is often an advantage to go into a PhD with some years experience of work and many of the skills you have picked up during work (being able to work independently, leadership, skills you have learned) are relevent to a PhD.

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Ask your masters' tutors. Academics will write references for people from 10/20 years ago, and it's part of their job to write them (unless they have nothing good to say). I still use my undergrad tutor from a long time ago as a reference contact.

I graduated in 1983 :p and stil got references!