Phd Dilemma!

Hi,

Long time lurker first time poster! I have some questions about whether or not I should embark upon that long quest towards a PhD and possible funding! :p:

First I would really like to do my PhD in a few years as for the time being, I am planning on doing my PGCE in RE and then completing my NQT year because after my MA I really need some sort of income and I really enjoy teaching and religious studies.

One of my questions is would I have a hope in hell of getting AHRC funding? I have a high 2:1 and a MA and would love to do my PhD in biblical studies. The trouble is i fell short of a merit on my masters and got a 59% average which was a real bummer as I was so close to a merit. Partly the reason I am putting of applying for funding for a few years is simply because I want to have a dynamite proposal and need to contact a possible supervisor from my old department.

Would the fact that I would have a few years teaching experience and QTS status to boot help my application for funding? I know the minimum requirements for funding are a 2:1 and a masters which I have but i fell a few percent short of a first which annoyed me greatly.A few of my friends from uni have 2:1s and passes at masters and got funding so i know its not impossible.

If i don't get funding I plan to self fund and will use my status as a qualified teacher to supply teach and do my PhD part time. Would this be the better option anyway? My partner has offered to support me when I come to do my PhD and I am going to try and save as much money as I can.

Sorry about the long post! Would my chances for winning funding improve if I had an amazing proposal because I don't think I would even attempt to apply for a PhD if my proposal wasn't up to the mark! Finally if all else fails would doing another masters and If I upped my grade to a distinction help at all?

Thanks!!

Reply 1

The Boosh

17

Tipsylou

Hi,

Long time lurker first time poster! I have some questions about whether or not I should embark upon that long quest towards a PhD and possible funding! :p:

First I would really like to do my PhD in a few years as for the time being, I am planning on doing my PGCE in RE and then completing my NQT year because after my MA I really need some sort of income and I really enjoy teaching and religious studies.

One of my questions is would I have a hope in hell of getting AHRC funding? I have a high 2:1 and a MA and would love to do my PhD in biblical studies. The trouble is i fell short of a merit on my masters and got a 59% average which was a real bummer as I was so close to a merit. Partly the reason I am putting of applying for funding for a few years is simply because I want to have a dynamite proposal and need to contact a possible supervisor from my old department.

Would the fact that I would have a few years teaching experience and QTS status to boot help my application for funding? I know the minimum requirements for funding are a 2:1 and a masters which I have but i fell a few percent short of a first which annoyed me greatly.A few of my friends from uni have 2:1s and passes at masters and got funding so i know its not impossible.

If i don't get funding I plan to self fund and will use my status as a qualified teacher to supply teach and do my PhD part time. Would this be the better option anyway? My partner has offered to support me when I come to do my PhD and I am going to try and save as much money as I can.

Sorry about the long post! Would my chances for winning funding improve if I had an amazing proposal because I don't think I would even attempt to apply for a PhD if my proposal wasn't up to the mark! Finally if all else fails would doing another masters and If I upped my grade to a distinction help at all?

Thanks!!

i have a few comments that may help (having done the pgce-masters-phd route myself), but i'm about to go out to please excuse the brief and "notey" nature...

1. if you are going for an education phd (i.e. religious education, or some aspect of it) rather than a pure humanities phd, then you will be applying to the esrc (which is what i applied to). the esrc is the research council for the social sciences, which education comes under (when it comes to research funding). to get an esrc studentship for a phd you MUST 100% have an esrc-approved research masters, as part of the new route phd (1+3/research training masters + phd). you can apply for masters funding, but these must be esrc approved masters.

2. the ahrc have a similar policy, but the masters are not reeeeaaaallly transferable. social science research methodology is very different to humanities research methodology, and so an ahrc approved masters and an esrc approved masters would be counted as mutually exclusive.

3. you may be able to avoid this confusion between different research councils/masters training by applying for a departmental scholarship (funds that come from the university's pot of money), but these are rare in education, and very rare in the humanities (because they are not profitable like the sciences and less money goes around).

4. the nqt year won't matter that much on the cv unless it is relevant to you thesis. so, if your thesis is religious education , then great, but if you thesis is pure religious studies then the value is not as great.

5. regarding your grades, the esrc never awarded any brownie points for first class honours or for a masters with a merit/distinction (so my distinctions never mattered) BUT nowadays, most of the funding is awarded from the research council to the universities directly so that the universities can filter and give out the cash to their best students. i think implicit in this is the need for consistent performance BUT (a) it depends on how many people apply for the scholarship (i know somebody at exeter that got one because noone else applied for that topic - a rare occasion i might add) and (b) i suspect that the academic requirements are stricter now then they used to be. when it comes to the ahrc, most people have first class honours degrees and often higher masters grades.

6. i was advised against working part time and studying part time for a phd. apparently it was the harder route (both my supervisors did it and said i shouldn't). fortunately, i was awarded a studentship in the end. i was going to take an extra year and work part time/finish my thesis, but again i was told to avoid this at all costs by various academics. now, if you want to do a phd and have no cash, there isn't a choice, but from what i can gather, it is harder and so try to motivate yourself to go the extra length with the funders!

7. a major, major part of the application process includes the references, supervisors cv, research proposal, your background etc, so your lower masters marks can be compensated for if they are a problem. the esrc gave a balancing for each section, and they are all relatively equal (so, very roughly speaking, it is about 30% for each of the 3 sections - but they weighting shifts depending on whether or not you are applying for 1+3 [masters+phd] or just the +3 [phd - assuming you have the ahrc/esrc approved pre-phd masters].

ok got to dash. best of luck! :smile: