Hi All,

I am currently a funded PhD student at a very good University but have been thinking my position through over the past month and have decided that I may well opt to leave to pursue other career interests. Out of interest, does anybody know if I could downgrade (so to speak) and obtain an MRes or MPhil? I am around eight months in to my studies so feel that an MRes might be a better option but I'm not too sure if this is possible.

I'd be very grateful for any feedback from users on here before I approach my supervisors.

Thanks for reading.

As far as I know, the vast majority of universities in the UK register their new students as MPhil students for the first year, after which they have some kind of transfer thesis/essay/viva, and only then are they registered as PhD students. Assuming this is the case with you, you would just have to show that you'd completed the current work satisfactorily, and instead of transferring to PhD, you'd just take your MPhil away with you. Perhaps it would be best to speak to your university's postgrad department about this though, in case it differs.