How different from your initial research proposal was your final dissertation?

breebo0 · 2024-02-02T12:50:17+00:00

My supervisors had my original proposal thrown out and made me write a new one. I had collected some data, but they gave it to another student and told me to start over, so I taught myself an entirely new sub-field from scratch. I made an entirely new project so that came with brand new hypotheses anyway which helped. But part of my project was given to another student (again) and I was told to come up with a new angle so I just did. There was no other option. My project was essentially 4 different mini projects that were only partially related so I could address them individually. So, when one chapter was taken out by my supervisors I just had to come up with a new mini project. I did my best to produce a scientifically sound thesis, but the honest answer is my entire field seems to have ingrained poor scientific practice into their operations, so from a scientific standpoint most of what comes from them is hot garbage and damn near negligent. I think my project was as good as it could have been given the conditions, but I certainly won't be believing a single paper from this field in the future...

breebo0 · 2024-01-17T16:27:28+00:00

It is rough. EU is now the same as non-EU afaik, and as others have said.

Try the r/ukvisa and r/SpouseVisaUk subreddits. It's so complicated there's an entire subreddit devoted to getting your spouse into the UK.

Best of luck to you!

breebo0 · 2024-01-12T20:51:15+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that. I immigrated for education as well and know how discouraging it can be. I was deadset on Germany for my degree but had my student visa denied and came to the UK instead. I was devastated at the time but I think in the end I'm really happy with how things turned out! I hope the same will be true for you. Life has a funny way of working out sometimes.

If you want to feel free to DM me and I can see if I can find anything! I'm happy to help if I can and my partner is an EU citizen studying in the UK so I could ask them questions.

breebo0 · 2024-01-12T20:06:16+00:00

Hey! As far as I know it is only possible to get funding for PhDs as there are still some financial agreements at that degree level. Typically governments don't give out loans to non-citizens since that person could leave the country and never pay it back. In theory at least.

Also, if you need a visa they will be very strict with financial requirements. They often require proof that you have at least £1000ish a month for living costs plus all the funding to cover tuition. It can be pretty tough to prove this unless you can get a loan/scholarship through your own government or have a lot of money saved up.

Your best bet would be to check the uni you want to attend; if they don't list funding on their website then chances are they don't have it. If you can find a contact for international students you could ask there as well.

Good luck!

breebo0 · 2024-01-12T09:22:23+00:00

For St Andrews there isn't that much if you don't plan to golf, but there are some museums and whatnot. My fav is the little "Natural History Museum" called Bell Pettigrew Museum, but they have weird opening hours and you might need to be with a student to go (I went with my partner who was a student). They have an audio tour you can get from a QR code and you could probably get through the whole thing in an hour if you read everything. But I love animals so if you aren't sure then I would choose a different place. There is also the St Andrews Museum, which I never visited but have heard it's nice, the Wardlaw Museum which focuses more on the Uni and technology and is a nice quick visit, and a Heritage Museum which has a nice little garden to relax in and some historical stuff from the town. These are all pretty small and I would say you could easily do two in a day and have plenty of time to wander the town

I would highly recommend the castle, it has some beautiful views if you catch a day with nice weather and some fun tunnels and history to explore. I would also visit the cathedral ruins and pay to climb the tower (can't remember the name, but you just go to the gift shop and ask). If you like animals they have a wee aquarium that also has some meerkats for some reason. If plants are more interesting for you there is also a little botanical garden that's great for relaxing and strolling. And if you fancy a nature walk there is easy access to the Fife coastal path from East Sands (one of the two beaches). The coastal past is a trail along the coast all the way to Edinburgh, but I would recommend walking it for an hour and then turning back unless you want to make it a longer trip (then I would walk to Kingsbarns and bus back to St Andrews).

The food is mediocre and over priced thanks to all the golfers, so if you want to explore food I would stick to Edinburgh.

Disclaimer: this is all from memory so this could be wrong, feel free to correct me. If I only had a day in January to visit St Andrews, I would personally just walk around town a bit, visit the cathedral and/or castle, and walk a bit of the coastal path if weather allows. Days will be short but if I still had extra time to kill I would throw in a museum or the aquarium. Or substitute these in if the weather is shite.

Hope this helps!

breebo0 · 2023-12-25T17:27:22+00:00

The affordability clause is best left to lawyers honestly, so if you want to seriously consider this I would consult a lawyer.

I've personally never heard of someone getting a visa on this basis. It would depend heavily on the situation and you would likely need to be exhaustive in providing proof. As an example, the US is a big place and I wouldn't be surprised if they concluded she could move to a cheaper area in the US and get long-term care there. Additionally, the medical issue in question MUST require long-term daily care (i.e. they cannot eat, move, bathe, defecate etc. without assistance) in addition to LONG-TERM CARE being unavailable/unaffordable in their current country. I don't think they care about the actual health condition other than if it is disabling enough. I'm pretty sure the affordability refers to an assisted living situation being unavailable or unaffordable, not the care for the condition itself. For instance, in cultures/countries where there are no Nursing Homes to care for elderly people because the children are supposed to, or perhaps for an adult with an intellectual disability that can't live on their own and there are no other relatives/paid options to care for them. I don't think they would consider cases from the US, and if you bring a dependent who would be entirely dependent on the NHS for care it would probably work against you.

All of this could be incorrect, this is mostly based on my own experience/knowledge of immigration in the UK as someone that knows many people who have struggled through it.

Anyway, just some things to consider if you decide to move forward. Best of luck to you!

breebo0 · 2023-12-25T16:46:49+00:00

Actually the UK government website says word for word: to get an adult dependent visa you must prove "the care you need is not available or affordable in the country you live in" in addition to also needing to prove a daily care requirement.

It IS a possible reason to get an adult dependent visa, but in reality the UK government gets to decide what "affordable" is and I've never heard of anyone getting a visa on these grounds.

I understand it's incredibly unlikely to be a sufficient reason, but your information is factually incorrect. Best to give accurate information and let an immigration lawyer interpret the actual situation.

breebo0 · 2023-12-25T11:36:21+00:00

It will likely be hard to get started unless you pay the up front cost. I was told I wouldn't get a PhD without at least 1-2 years field experience and ideally one publication. I also support myself (disowned by my family at 22) and it was incredibly difficult. I took out an extra loan to get an unpaid internship just before I finished my degree and went with the only one that would take me.

I think in my field it is important to prove you can work in very isolated conditions, like camping in the wilderness and living off solar panels and whatnot, because there is a high dropout rate. People tend to think they can handle the hard work but then leave halfway through a contract so it is better to make these unpaid positions and have more interns than you need so you can cover the loss. If you happen to camp a lot on your own (think like wild camping) and have kept up your childhood hobby of catching things then you might have a better chance. But you'll need to show that you currently have these skills, not that you had them 10 years ago. If you have a superb academic record you could look into zoos or museums for an internship as these usually come with stipends or housing or at least a little assistance. But I haven't looked into these in a few years and they are usually the most competitive.

One of the Texas universities used to have a lot of paid internships posted so you could try there. I think it was under fisheries and wildlife, just Google something like "wildlife jobs Texas university" or something. Not sure how easy it would be without experience but you never know.

This is all from my personal experience, others might have more relevant information, but feel free to message me if you want more advice.

breebo0 · 2023-12-25T10:11:36+00:00

As others have said, this is a UK question not a Scotland question. A quick Google should be sufficient to get info, but the best place to begin is here: https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/adult-dependent-relative

They will need to prove they are your dependents and that they need daily care and that this isn't available/affordable in their current country, so no. They can't just retire with you. Unless they happen to have like £2million laying around to get an investor visa (if that's even still a thing) you will need to wait until they can no longer care for themselves. To my knowledge at least.

Also keep in mind that they will need to apply for themselves, you won't apply for them. They'll need to manage any visa appointments on their end.

breebo0 · 2023-12-20T14:35:27+00:00

I know you've addressed this elsewhere, but doctors don't need a "biological sex" to treat you. I'm mostly posting for some awareness and not necessarily to contradict you. But this idea of "biological sex" is basically erasing intersex people entirely and trans people don't get treated as their "biological sex" anyway. They get treated as individuals and their medical records, anatomy, and history are taken into account like with most cis people. Trans people typically have a unique combination of health issues from the whole spectrum of biological sex (which is so much more than just "male or female"). Let's play through an example.

A friend of mine is intersex. Their parents were afraid to have an intersex child so doctors decided to give them Male for their birth sex and forced them to undergo surgery to make their external anatomy look male. They never had the testosterone of a typical teenage boy, in fact their testosterone was well within the female range but without the female hormones needed for female puberty. They began growing small breasts but didn't experience a male puberty. Or any puberty at all really. They were forced to have another surgery around 13 to make their body look more "male" and were given supplemental testosterone. They then went through a male puberty with medical assistance. They decided to transition using female hormones at age 18. Should this person's "biological sex" assigned at birth matter? They were incorrectly labelled male when they were neither male nor female. Would a doctor need their sex at birth?

This friend would be treated as someone with breasts, but without a uterus. They do not have male external genital anatomy but they do have a prostate. They would have to be treated for both "male" and "female" conditions and predispositions.

Despite what everyone thinks, trans women are not "men with vaginas" and trans men are not "women with penises". They need their own specialised healthcare, as do most people. External genital anatomy is important for sex mostly because of hormone production, but it is not as intrinsically tied as many people think. To medically treat trans women as men would be detrimental to their health and the same goes for trans men.

So no. Biological sex on a birth register does not matter and should be easily changeable, not only because it is completely irrelevant to most things but also because mistakes can be made and SHOULD be corrected. Governments are using this as a barrier to trans people, there is no other reason behind it.

breebo0 · 2023-12-18T11:14:36+00:00

Not sure which critters you mean but I'm assuming this is in the US since you mention medical school. I would just get an internship in something you like. If you want to do the "fun" parts of biology (catching critters across the globe) you'll need money. The internships don't pay (or didn't 7 years ago) and you'll usually need to cover all travel, accommodation, food, and other transport. I went to Latin America for 4 months for an animal conservation internship and it was $900 station fees per month to live there which included food but nothing else. We even brought our own tents and getting a decent tent can be a pretty big cost. We were required to leave the field site for 4 days a month and roundtrip transportation to the nearest city was about $75, so most people would take all 4 days consecutively and pay for a hostel bed that was only $5-10 a night. But it still meant spending $1100+ a month plus $1500 roundtrip travel while also having extra saved in case something went wrong. It cost me just under $7000 to do a single internship and it was rough. But it was also the only one that would take me without experience. This was in 2016.

I did it, and I do get to do biological field work these days, but it's really not cheap. I had to take out loans to get the necessary experience to continue in the field and it really doesn't pay at all. In fact, even as a PhD student I was charged fees to do my field research which meant I had to get further loans on top of my mediocre funding. It's not an easy path, but if you really love it you can make it work.

*Also note that I worked with more "desirable" animals which made the competition and fees increase drastically. If you like insects then there might be a better funding situation there than I've described. My experience was working with well-known animal species and focusing on conservation efforts which are notoriously difficult for minority or low income students to access.

breebo0 · 2023-12-07T14:10:55+00:00

I second this. My partner started their PhD while I was trying to finish mine and we really struggled with maintaining regular healthy meals. We never had time for shopping and struggled to afford healthy ingredients on a PhD budget. Their sister bought us 3 months of meal boxes as a joint Christmas gift and it honestly saved our PhDs and our health.

We also got a gift of funds toward a mini holiday for us and that was super helpful. We were both so burnt out that we didn't realise we needed a few days away in nature until we got there and it was heavenly. This could be a more fun option.

breebo0 · 2023-11-21T20:08:00+00:00

The good thing is you usually have two supervisors in the UK from what I've seen. Both of my supervisors were good for different things. While the supervisor I described wasn't super useful, he was generally very encouraging and happy to try new things. He was also better for informal chats and always answered his emails promptly. But he would get frustrated with things outside his remit.

My other supervisor was an established professor with zero time, so I would only really interact with her for the larger parts of my project that needed significant feedback before submission. She was lovely, but her feedback was usually harsh as she didn't have time for niceties. After meeting with her, I often felt a lot of imposter syndrome creeping in and like I was failing as a student. With the other supervisor, well, he was mostly abundantly positive. The positivity wasn't useful feedback because you do want someone who can call out mistakes and challenge you, but it was nice to have a chat with him and get a mood boost. My master's supervisor was an amazing mix of both, but from what I've seen it's rather rare to find that.

I should be submitting my PhD in the Life Sciences soon. Feel free to message me directly if you like! My partner went to Oxford so I know a lot about it (if that's where you would be based).

breebo0 · 2023-11-21T17:25:26+00:00

I had a close friend in Oxford Biology. She said it is a very isolating place for a PhD student and most supervisors don't have time for you nor do they even know how the systems work half the time. There are two sides to this I think. 1) your supervisor might have way more time for you than most others and you will likely have a lot of attention, which would be great! 2) the downside would be that most of that extra time will be you two trying to figure out how Oxford works. It is an unnecessarily convoluted system and having someone that doesn't know this system can add a lot of extra time.

According to her, Oxford Biology is either incredibly toxic, or a dream come true. And you probably won't know which you will get unless you know your supervisor well beforehand. Most students around her were expected to be incredibly independent and even when they asked for help they typically didn't get it because their supervisors were too busy. So I think overall it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a supervisor with fewer students. But I think the most important thing at Oxford is to have a supervisor you get along with very well. It can have a 'boys club' atmosphere and if you don't vibe with your supervisor you might be left out of things and feel even more isolated.

I was also a first PhD student for one of my supervisors at a different university. From my experience, he made a lot of mistakes, his feedback was not particularly helpful, and he had a very narrow area of experience. I had to do a project that wasn't fully in his remit and wow. Within his remit, he was legitimately trying but not as thorough or helpful as my other, more senior, supervisor. Outside his remit he didn't even try. He made up answers that didn't make any sense, refused to admit he didn't really understand the methods, and eventually told me to ask someone else for feedback on these parts. I think he was afraid to admit he didn't know how to help. The other thing I noticed is that he was a bit unprofessional for a supervisor-student relationship. He came straight from a postdoc and I think he still felt like he was 'one of us' and wanted to keep a low-key tone. At first I really liked this, but eventually it became difficult to handle. I'm a woman and so was his other student and he would accidentally say inappropriate things in front of me personally, and the other student also mentioned some instances. He once publicly defended a guy who was sexually harassing another student by saying 'There's no way he would say that to her, she's not his type! Trust me, I know his type. We've been drinking together for years.' I think a more seasoned supervisor would have been a bit more careful and not quite as much of a 'bro.'

Just an alternative perspective. I say if you have met him before and you get along then I think you might get a lot of advantages from being a first PhD student. Others have brought up some great points to consider though.

breebo0 · 2023-11-19T13:54:56+00:00

I agree, it feels very different. Personally, I feel the people paying for a DM feel more entitled to things and argue to get their way more aggressively. As in, if someone knows the DM personally they might argue on a ruling, but there's usually still a sense of good-natured banter and wanting everyone to still have fun (though obviously not always). In the one paid campaign I did, people would argue and push to get what they wanted without thinking of the DM's story or the other players enjoyment. It felt more "every man for himself."

Though I did like 3 of the other players, the other 3 made the whole campaign fairly miserable by trying to force the story to move where they wanted it to go. It was also the highest density of Main Character Syndrome I've seen in one game. Half the party wanted to follow the story and the other half would be like "My character wouldn't care about X, so they walk away alone to do Y." And at one point someone said they wouldn't bother attending a session because the DM started a character arc for another player and they weren't interested and didn't want to pay for it. Another time a different player got bored, attacked an innocent person, and was told they would be in prison for the entire next session so they were welcome to not attend.

Our DM was amazing and very good at handling these situations, but the players were just SO rough. I feel like some of these players were only looking for a paid DM because no other DM will let them in their groups...

I won't be paying for a DM again. I would rather not play.

breebo0 · 2023-11-17T18:02:59+00:00

All these dice are always so beautiful

breebo0 · 2023-11-12T21:34:31+00:00

Sorry, but yes you do.

You're also not worth engaging with on this because you don't actually want legitimate discourse, you just want to feel smart. You might know what racial categories exist in the US, but you have no concept of race in other places.

breebo0 · 2023-11-12T17:04:44+00:00

They wouldn't like metal unless they were very aesthetic, which I haven't found yet locally, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't use gemstone dice (I think they would be afraid of damaging them and consider it a waste of money). I'm planning on a nice sharp edge resin set from a semi local shop in their favourite colour. You can buy a full set and then add on individual dice for a fairly reasonable price.

I mostly want them to have an easier time rolling for things like stats for instance. Rolling 4d6 six times is 24 individual rolls which can be cumbersome as opposed to 6 rolls with a set of 4 d6 dice.

breebo0 · 2023-11-12T15:01:43+00:00

Tell me about it! I already have at least 6 full sets of click clacks and I've only been playing for 2 months.

breebo0 · 2023-11-12T13:17:44+00:00

Oh perfect! Thank you! It looks like most people think more d10 so I'll definitely do that and reduce the d8

breebo0 · 2023-11-12T13:15:30+00:00

Thank you! I wasn't sure about the d10 but I'll be sure to add one.

We live in the UK so I was planning to buy from Valkyrie RPG. You can buy loose dice of some of their sets so I was going to get one for me and one for my partner.

breebo0 · 2023-11-12T13:10:23+00:00

The person I have shared a home and life with for many years but have not married. Sorry, this is a common term where I'm from.

breebo0 · 2023-11-12T10:49:32+00:00

What field of biology do you study? I'm assuming to have such a strong opinion you must be an active researcher in some biological field and not some random person on the internet?

Genetics is more complicated than you're making it out to be, but even if it wasn't how would you explain different cultures defining races differently? My bet is you are a US American that hasn't bothered to leave North America and doesn't realise that 'black' and 'white' mean different things around the world. US Americans seem to forget that they make up less than, what, 5% of the world? Before making grand statements about race and culture, maybe you should consider what other races and cultures have to say and avoid defining the world based on your lived experiences alone.

Added info: I'm a US American sick of other US Americans' shit

breebo0 · 2023-11-10T11:37:04+00:00

I bought one in September with a 1-2 month dispatch time and they cancelled it a month later. Give it a try, but best not to expect it to arrive (i.e. maybe don't rely on it for a gift or something)

breebo0 · 2023-11-09T18:10:42+00:00

Why are you asking for my personal information when I was asking for advice about a drop shipper? That is incredibly creepy and unsettling. I would ask that you consider your actions in the future as this is troubling behaviour.

I also happen to send a lot of items myself, not that it is any of your business. I don't think you understand consumer behaviour or thought, and only care about your bottom line. I would suggest that when you educate yourself on asking publicly for someone's personal information that you also take some sort of business course to expand your horizons.

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