PhD from United Kingdom

Hi Everyone,

I would like to ask if PhD from United Kingdom a good option for International Students?

I would like to know from someone who has already experienced studying from UK, like How much savings can be made from PhD funding or Research assistant-ships as an International Student?

And How does things work there? I am Masters student in Computer Sciences here in Germany, though I'm non-European, but still I find German universities to be good enough where International Students don't need to pay any amount and can get like 1800-2200 Euros a month after tax-reduction during PhD positions !

I don't know anything about UK, can someone guide me through ?

With Best Wishes

Reply 1

TSR Community Staff

Original post by backdoorcoder

Hello.

Welcome to The Student Room!

I'm moving your thread across to our postgraduate forum where there'll likely be many more people able to answer your questions than in the Chat forum.

To help people help you, have you thought about any UK universities you might be interested in?

Reply 2

backdoorcoder

Original post by RK

Heyy, Thanks for the reply and sorry for replying late. Yeah, I have been considering the computing department of Nottingham, heard Bristol and Sheffield is also pretty good and to keep myself on the safe side, I am considering Derby as well.

Sure, you can move the thread and I'll look into that :smile:

Reply 3

alleycat393

Whether you can have a part-time job in research whilst doing your PhD is both supervisor and subject specific. PhD students in the UK typically make a minimum of close to £14000/year at the moment, £16000/year in London. Some funding bodies may pay more. Also, what funding is provided depends on the funding body.

Reply 4

poohat

Original post by alleycat393

The OP is an international student (non-EU), so probably wont be eligible for most EPSRC funding awards such as the ones you mention. That leaves the possibility of getting a university-specific bursary (extremely competitive), or funding from their home country government.

Realistically if you are being offered a PhD place at a top German university with no fees and a decent bursary, that is much better than studying at a UK university with very little financial support. The only real exception would be if you had an offer from Cambridge/Oxford, in which case you would have to seriously think about your post-PhD prospects, but even then I would be very reluctant to do an unfunded PhD.

OP: have you considered America? They typically have much better PhD funding available for international students than the UK does (and the best compsci departments tend to be the in the US for several reasons, mostly financial). You should certainly apply for UK programs though because it is possible that you might be able to get funding, just dont get your hopes up.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 5

poohat

Original post by backdoorcoder

Afaik, the best comp sci departments in the UK after Oxbridge are Imperial/Edinburgh/Manchester. You should apply to all of these.

UCL/Nottingham/Bristol/Southampton are also decent.

But again, only Oxbridge (and maybe Imperial at a push) have substantially better international reputations than the top German institutions, so it would make no sense to consider unfunded PhDs at other UK departments if you have funded offers from good German schools. But of course, if you can manage to land one of the bursaries that exist, they would become an option.

You may find the following useful, but take them with a very large grain of salt (the RAE/REF is very gameable/political and 5 years out of date, while league tables are a bit of a crapshoot):

http://www.theguardian.com/education/table/2008/dec/18/rae-2008-computer-science-and-informatics
http://www.shanghairanking.com/SubjectCS2012.html (note this only ranks traditional universities, so some German institutes like the Max Planck Institute wont be included)

Disclaimer: I'm not in computer science personally but I am in a related field.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 6

alleycat393

Original post by poohat

I am aware of that and am also an international (non-EU) student who's advice is based on personal experience!

In my case I had three offers. One was a self funding offer, one which provided a stipend and fees at the UK/EU rate and I had to source the rest and one which paid the full international fees and a stipend (which is where I ended up). The latter is actually a large grant awarded to the university by the MRC to award to phd students from anywhere in the world. Also, OP do check eligibility requirements for funding from your home country. I'm still a citizen of my home country but am not eligible for funds from the government because I didn't do my undergrad degree there.

Quote if you want a reply!
BSc Biochemistry University of York
Working towards a PhD at Queen Mary University of London

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 7

Cora Lindsay

Original post by poohat

EPSRC has a "10% rule" which allows institutions to allocate up to 10% of EPSRC studentship support (DTA and DTC funds) to non-EU nationals. We have just used that to appoint an Indian student. Not all institutions take advantage of it though, but worth checking out whether it's a possibility