Evening all,

I'll cut straight to the chase. I'm currently studying an MSc in Sports Coaching. I don't currently have an undergraduate degree and was accepted onto the Sports Coaching course as I have a playing background at professional level.

I'm currently working part-time as a strength & conditioning coach at a Championship level football club and am extremely interested in researching at PhD level as I'm extremely passionate about my field. I am hopeful that I will have passed my full UK Strength & Conditioning accreditation exam by May 2011 which ties in exactly with the completion of my masters.

I have a few questions:

* Will I be able to study at PhD level or will my lack of undergrad degree harm my chances?
* As above but will that affect my chances of obtaining funding to do the PhD?
* Are there any other non-academic work experiences that could make my academic CV look more attractive to the Universities and lecturers I will be approaching?
* When is the ideal time to approach Universities with my research proposals? (I check jobs.ac.uk, bases.org.uk and findaphd.com on pretty much a daily basis!!)

Thanks all for your help. It is greatly appreciated!!!

(up)

Hi RC23, I could be wrong, but as a bare minimum I'm pretty sure you need an undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline (generally 2.1+ for funding) to do a PhD. Have you thought about doing an undergrad first at the OU, perhaps? I've never heard of anyone going straight onto a doctorate without at least a BSc or BA.

Sorry, I've stupidly missed the first bit of your post (I'm tired) - disregard what I said earlier. I think you'd be able to do a PhD with only an MSc, but funding could be difficult because a lot of people you are competing may have both an undergrad and MSc. Sorry I can't be more help.

I'd say try to identify possible supervisors and get in contact with them. Even if the uni is reluctant, a supervisor that is truly interested and thinks you have potential can argue your case. The funding bit is a difficult one, but not impossible. This too might be something to discuss with a potential supervisor. So make sure yu get your idaes clear, and have a go! The worst that can happen is they say no, in that case, go for the next potential supervisor...

Your MSc should be enough, combined with your experience. I didn't do an undergrad and took an MSc in a field where I had industry experience - I ultimately had no problem finding a funded PhD.

You may have to excel in your MSc though - getting a Distinction certainly wouldn't hurt.

Good luck!

======= Date Modified 01 Dec 2010 16:25:58 =======
Thankyou to everyone who has responded, I really appreciate it.

Just another question, when I've searched for how many words a research proposal should be and what it should entail I've found answers ranging from 300 to 1500 words. Can anyone help me out and explain how they laid out there own proposal and what the word count was?

Thanks again all.

:-)

My proposal; was somewhere between 2000 and 3000 words I think and contained intro to subject, justification and materials and methods (briefly)

You need to look at the regulations for the university for your proposal - at mine there was a maximum of two pages so i had narrow margins and short headers and footers which meant I crammed my 1500 words plus 36 refs onto two pages