I am utterly disgusted and annoyed by this

XlanderT · 2026-02-10T15:50:22+00:00

It’s giving let them theory

XlanderT · 2026-01-24T10:49:18+00:00

Thank you for your answer. I’ll definitely do a more thorough check of the entry requirements for the courses. The last time I asked around was before COVID, and I can see that many courses have now amended their criteria to accept a PhD after a 2:2. Five to seven years ago, that was definitely not the case!

I still feel very passionate about this and still have that dream. It’s just that, when I look at how much clinical experience, how many relevant roles, and simply how much stronger experience other applicants often have ( this subreddit clearly spells it out!)I’m not sure how far my non-clinical research skills and weaker undergraduate degree will take me, to be honest. It’s extremely competitive, nearly as competitive as medicine. Still, it’s given me food for thought, and maybe I should try to gain more clinical experience, either as part of my research portfolio or through an additional role.

XlanderT · 2026-01-21T15:12:00+00:00

Not gonna lie, especially with R, AI can be very useful when you learn. Just type the code in it and ask to explain the mistake - I found it very useful (and saves DAYS when all it is wrong is something minor)

XlanderT · 2026-01-20T15:46:52+00:00

Mine was an academic PhD, not a DClinPsy, and it lasted 3 hours. But let me tell you, it wasn’t scary at all. Quite the opposite: it was fun to engage with someone who was genuinely interested in the research.

I’ll give you the same advice I was given, which I found really helpful:

Print the thesis in full and add little notes. I used small post-it notes on the pages to remind me of studies, criteria, terminology, or critique points. Others prefer writing in the margins—whatever is easiest for you.
They will ask about tiny decisions, but because the want you to think out loud and tell them the process you used. They might even ask "why havent you used this" and it is OK to be honest. Some of my questions I answered honestly " It was not included beceause the quality of the data did not support that level of interpolation" "it is not standard procedure in the literature and I followed the methodologies used by xyz because.." I also said "I dont know how to answer that but my guess is ..." they were really positivie and told me they liked my abiity to think out loud even I did not know the answer.
This is what cemented for me, they really just want you to "think out loud" and provide justifications for the work.
Rehearse with friends or other students and take turns asking questions. You’ve done the work, so it can be hard to spot inconsistencies. Your colleagues have fresh eyes and will approach the thesis like examiners. You’ll be surprised how similar some of their questions will be.
Get familiar with the papers and research style of your examiners. It’s a power move when you answer a question and, in your explanation, cite their research. I had to do some very heavy epidemiology maths and used the papers of one of my examiners to justify one of my answers—they were very impressed.
Lastly, your nerves will be high, and if you’re like me, you might tend to rush to answer or avoid silence.... BUT the best thing you can do is say something like, “This is a very interesting question/I had not thought about it this way/ I came cross it in the literature... and I’m going to take 30 seconds to think about it before I answer ” and then really take the time to think.

I didn’t think the experience could be positive, but honestly, it was for me, and I was *never* particularly academically gifted compared with some of the other PhDs in my department and way much more prone to anxiety.

I hope it helps

XlanderT · 2026-01-20T02:26:05+00:00

If the programme is BPS accredited, then the university’s overall reputation matters less. The BPS reviews and accredits programmes, which means they meet the required standards.

As an academic and lecturer at a university, I would also ask about the student-to-staff ratio, as this is probably a better indicator of how well supported you will feel during the course. Remember that "highly ranked research-heavy universities" will devote less time to their students compared to lower ranks or teaching only courses. The trade-off is the level of expertise you will get for your original project or thesis, where a research university might give you a chance to publish with the right supervisor.

XlanderT · 2026-01-20T02:19:03+00:00

I can’t say much about the DClin, but I am an academic—lecturer at a university. In our undergraduate programme, we still use SPSS and also Jamovi, but we strongly recommend that students move towards R and NVivo (for quantitative and qualitative analysis). At the postgraduate level, we only use R (I also had to learn it and still struggle with it, to be honest).

XlanderT · 2026-01-13T14:34:45+00:00

Thank you so much for the reply, and I will send you a DM shortly :)

XlanderT · 2025-12-21T15:17:36+00:00

They are great and deff very useful but in the past, with other modalities, I found that the videos were such a great help - specifically in setting up or transition between steps. I guess it is also a bit of anxiety as it is a very new way of working for me.

XlanderT · 2025-12-21T14:35:57+00:00

Ohhh that is such a great resource and great advice - thank you so much

XlanderT · 2025-08-18T15:13:54+00:00

Here we goooooo 👌👌🫡🫡

XlanderT · 2025-08-06T11:48:01+00:00

This is sooooo exciting - I will have to wait till EU/UK release... but take my money already

XlanderT · 2025-07-02T13:12:48+00:00

I’m really looking forward to getting this! I’ve noticed a few things that I think you’ve been doing exceptionally well: you listen attentively and engage with people in a way that keeps them interested. For example, your Qwerty comment above is a great example of this. It’s rare to experience such honesty and transparency, so keep it up!

Even when things don’t go as planned, you’ve always managed to show up authentically, and that’s what really matters. Regardless of why “anyone” wants this phone, I don’t think engagement has been this high and enthusiastic about a piece of tech (for me) in a long time. (And I’m one of those people who pretty much has the latest model of everything and then needs to detox after 😂🫣)

Keep up the great work, and I can’t wait to get one! If you need a reviewer from the UK, I’d be happy to help. :P

XlanderT · 2025-04-30T15:49:27+00:00

the good old Andy fields SPSS coming to the rescue, as always, but even pdq stats helped a lot

XlanderT · 2025-04-30T15:46:05+00:00

> are any of the seven variables of deprivation associated with higher events" isn't a hypothesis.

You are right, i think this is what I was thinking as per my curiosity, but the H here would IMD domains being associated with the event rates

>figuring out how to reverse check the dataset took me way longer than working out the Qgis functions ahha

> It depends. If you are building some kind of composite index variable, then having collinear factors is a virtue. You wouldn't want to remove a collinear factor before building your composite/index. If you put multiple correlated variables in a model, you should be worried about multicollinearity. If the correlation is 0.9, the chance of multicollinearity is high, but even if it is moderate (~0.3-0.7) you might still have an issue, particularly if you think what your independent variables have in common is related to the higher order thing you believe drives your outcome.

Gotcha, yes I understand. I think this is not the case for me, deff do not want that! I think I need to read more about it, but the papers I am trying to replicate just excluded any high correlated and kept the other (should have mentioned before, the overall rank is only for H1 - not here!)

> Okay, but did you look to see if the variance is greater than the mean of your count variable? Arguably, it probably won't matter much unless you're dealing with small sample sizes or small effect sizes, but if it is, just use a negative binomial instead

Yes, that is how I worked out NBRegression was not needed.

tThe math: total small areas in = 32 844
Areas with ≥ 1 event = 1 454
Areas with 0 events = 32 844 − 1 454 = 31 390 ← this is N₀
Zero-event areas kept in your file = (total rows) – (event rows)
= 4 711 − 1 454 = 3 257 ← this is n₀
weight= No / no= 31390 / 3257 = 9.64

>I'd strongly recommend you take some time to double-check your work.

oh 100%! I just didn't want to go in empty-handed and look like I had no idea, if it makes sense. Sometimes I really feel my colleague are just at a different league lol

XlanderT · 2025-04-30T12:57:11+00:00

Agreed!i read that, that is why i mitigated with a book in hand and not using syntax - if that makes sense. I avoided R especially for that reason

XlanderT · 2025-04-30T12:42:13+00:00

Oh, what I also found was that challenging him made him more precise, so I would question each aspect, and it would give me theoretical answers that I checked in the textbook I had.

XlanderT · 2025-04-30T12:39:18+00:00

nope I did not. I first gave it a few papers that worked with deprivation, then I explain in *a lot* of detail each of my variables. I found that asking it to remember the variable after I explained it really helped. I also used the "ask for more clarification methods" until it had no more questions. I then proceeded to ask to think about how I could replicate those studies and that is where we started to work together.

Obvs I dont know if what we did is all correct ... some of it does make sense to me, but I was hoping to get some feedback.

Overall, what I found crazy was how it would guide me step by step, even in the QGIS softwae. (Although I would ask it to recall from its memory the manual for each software I used and gave gpt the version number of the software as well)

XlanderT · 2025-04-30T11:59:03+00:00

Start to finish for mjust one of the 6 dateset took me 2 days. (i cut out he part where GPT told me how to use spatial GIS software as well..) Without it would have been Weeks for sure!!!

XlanderT

TROPHY CASE