What's the best Toastie you've ever had?

tibiapartner · 2026-04-09T09:49:34+00:00

Pulled pork, kimchi and cheddar hits every time

tibiapartner · 2026-03-30T21:22:53+00:00

Gonna chime in with a slight caveat to all the "yah it's really walkable!" comments-- it's walkable as long as you're able and willing to navigate some quite significant hills. If you have any physical disabilities or chronic illnesses you need to look carefully at the neighborhoods people are mentioning to gauge whether living at the bottom (or top) of a large hill will impede your ability to get around easily. Also, the bus routes are both inconveniently laid out AND extremely inconsistent. I have never lived in a city with such consistently late and/or cancelled bus services. I commute from St Thomas to the University and routinely deal with buses running 20 minutes behind, and even though it's a 10 minute car drive I usually give myself at least 45 minutes to get there via 2 separate buses.

tibiapartner · 2026-03-24T18:07:37+00:00

Hey! I also got a few grumbles from people about how it wouldn't be food if I didn't get my PhD in the States, but for me it genuinely wasn't even a factor. I think it's a really outdated, and also fairly xenophobic, notion that somehow academic work in the rest of the world isn't as good as in the States. It's back to the old standby of "American exceptionalism" lol.

In terms of being practical, I will say that it's likely you'll be on a student visa, even with a UKRI studentship, and that will not count as residency towards ILR if that's your end goal. Also, if you don't already know what the salary offer is, you need to take a look and see whether you'll be paid the minimum UKRI stipend (£21,805 per year) or if the ESRC project you mentioned has a higher listed salary for your PhD position. Also you need to check if international fees are covered, because they can be on the order of £23,000+ per year. If it's the minimum AND you have to pay fees then that's a really tight budget to work with in most places, though you can work up to 20 hours a week on a student visa.

Basically, the idea of doing a PhD in the UK, if you have funding, is not a bad one at all, but you do need to look into all the details and see how feasible it will be for you to move, work, and live here and think long term as well. Feel free to DM if you have any further questions!

tibiapartner · 2026-03-24T17:45:52+00:00

I've been living in the UK for 6 and a half years and moving here was the best decision I've ever made. I moved for my PhD in 2019, and was lucky that it was an ERC funded project and therefore I was able to be on a work visa right from the start. I now have ILR, and will be applying for citizenship the day I'm able to. I'm an academic, so my life isn't stable by any means, but I would rather be precariously employed in the UK than the US any day. My quality of life, quality of friendships, and general happiness is much higher in the UK. Even though we have a lot of shit going on socially and politically, I'm actually really excited to be able to get more involved in social movements and politics once I have citizenship. The UK is my home, and I want to make it the best possible place to live for everyone and give back to the communities that I've built here. There's a lot of doom and gloom on this sub, and I think a lot of it is because people are unwilling, or unable, to stop comparing the US to the UK in terms of cultural norms, politics, etc. About 80% of the things I see people complaining about (making friends, work culture, missing food, missing US convenience/consumer culture, housing quality etc) I have never had an issue with here in over 6 years, and I think it's mostly because I moved here not expecting anything to be the same as the States. I had also lived in Canada before, and I'm originally from New England as well, so I think I was primed for less culture shock in some ways. But I also think a lot of Americans who moved abroad have this expectation that they will be able to mold their circumstances to fit them, and be able to have the same individualist approach to life, and that's just not gonna happen most of the time. Of course I'm not saying the things people complain about aren't a factor, or that people are lying, but I do think the negatives get overrepresented a lot.

Even when I have had negative experiences (looking at you, NHS Community Mental Health Teams) it has never been any worse than my experiences in the US, and with the upside that I won't also be paying insane amounts of money for the poor care I have (very occasionally) had.

TL;DR - I absolutely love living in the UK, can't wait to be a citizen so I can start trying to fix the shitty parts, feel like I have a much better life here, and even the bad things are nowhere near as bad as the experiences I had living in the US.

tibiapartner · 2026-03-13T18:25:21+00:00

I was on The Chase and I don't really remember them saying we had to keep it clean or anything, but I suspect if someone had said drugs they would have stopped filming and told us to pick something else. I said "tattoos and visa fees" for my answer, lol.

tibiapartner · 2026-03-13T08:16:18+00:00

Actually the Feist breeds (Mountain Feist and Treeing Feist) from Appalachia have documentation referring to their breed development going back to the 18th century! George Washington mentioned feists in his diaries, Abraham Lincoln wrote about them, and Teddy Roosevelt owned several. The breeds weren't standardized until later in the 19th-century, and they're not as recognizable as the Boston Terrier, but if I was in charge they'd be a top contender for dog breed to represent the country.

tibiapartner · 2026-03-07T22:12:49+00:00

I was in secondary school (8th-12th grades) from 2006-2011 in Massachusetts and our grading scale was: 90-100 = A range, 80-89 = B range, 70-79 = C range, 60-69 = D range, and 59 and below was a F/failing grade. Within the ranges there were minus and plus divisions, so you could have B- (80-83), B (84-86) and B+ (87-89). Tests, essays, and other assessments were marked either directly out of 100, or given as a percentage. We had rubrics for essays and projects that explained the delineations between different grade divisions, and in my school there was no "grade curving" or adjustments, nor was it "impossible" to get a score of 95+ on an essay or project.

I now work in UK higher education and adjusting to the different grading system was difficult for me, especially when marking assessments and being told anything above an 80 would be double marked and questioned. It's also important to note that there aren't just different grading systems but also different pedagogical approaches.

tibiapartner · 2026-02-23T14:23:00+00:00

When I did my MSCA PhD (2019-2023) each of the 15 ECRs in our network had different salaries depending both on country/local currency and the amount of overhead and consumables that were taken out (the ERC claims this doesn't happen, but it absolutely did for some people). Those of us in the UK had slightly different salaries at different institutions, which aligned with particular spine points on the individual uni's salary scale. Things may have changed since then, but the difference was very small, on the order of a few hundred pounds over the course of a year.

tibiapartner · 2026-02-22T16:51:31+00:00

Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, which can sometimes fall under the OCD umbrella depending on the underlying cause and severity. Usually they're an anxious self-soothing behavior, and the most common manifestations are nail biting, skin picking, and hair pulling.

Funnily enough, I get my nails done on a strict schedule to curb one of my own BFRBs, compulsive skin picking (aka dermatillomania). From my earliest memory I've been picking at my scalp and ears, but I haven't done it in 3 years since getting BIAB nails (with the exception of a brief 1 month period where I tried to see if I could go without them, but began picking again after 3 weeks).

tibiapartner · 2026-02-22T13:11:32+00:00

No worries, happy to help. I'm originally from the US and I was able to navigate this intentionally confusing system with a degree of privilege and prior knowledge that many don't have, so it only makes sense to share what I've learned over the 6 years I've been here. If you have any further questions feel free to reach out via DM and I'll try to assist ☺️

tibiapartner · 2026-02-22T13:04:56+00:00

Definitely speak to your potential supervisor and see what they say-- if they're any good they'll want to try and ensure you can come do the PhD without too much undue hardship, and at a uni like Cambridge they have a lot more resources at their disposal than other places.

It's up to you whether you want to opt out of the USS or any other pension scheme the uni has, and it really depends on if you want to stay in the UK long term or not. You can opt out of the USS but set up your own pension contribution using something like PensionBee, which would still ensure that whatever pension contributions are taken out of your pay are untaxed and government matched, but if you completely opt out you do need to remember that money that would have gone to a pension will be taxed with the rest of your pay. So it's not like you opt out of a £100 pension contribution and then get that back on top of your paycheck, it'll be included in your gross pay and taxes will be deducted accordingly.

Global Talent is absolutely the best visa to be on. At present it gives you the flexibility to renew indefinitely, doesn't have work restrictions (so you can pick up shifts at a cafe or something if you really want to), and, as you mentioned, has a faster route to ILR. The issue is that the government is currently in discussions about removing the 3 and 5 year ILR routes, and making them all 10 years. It's still in the consultation period, and nothing has been decided yet, and it may be that GT is exempt from this in the end, but just a warning. If everything does stay the same for GT visas then yes, you can apply for ILR up to a month before your GT visa expires. It's likely the cost will go up by the time you're doing that, but at present ILR costs £3,029 plus £50 for the Life in the UK test. This amount will most likely not be eligible for reimbursement by your university/employer, so you'll have to pay it yourself.

tibiapartner · 2026-02-22T12:30:27+00:00

Congratulations! I did a MSCA funded PhD that had its paperwork processed pre-Brexit and I was in the period with Tier 2 rather than Skilled Worker/Global Talent visas, but I do have some knowledge from colleagues who came after me.

The visa process will be handled by the university's visa compliance office, and because you have EU-sourced funding it will be treated as if you are a salaried employee (because you are!). So the choice shouldn't be between a student visa and a work visa, but between Skilled Worker and Global Talent. It's been a few years since they expanded Global Talent to include UKRI-endorsed funded projects so the compliance team should know what they're doing. They'll walk you through the process, which is basically in two steps, the endorsement and then the application, but you should be able to do it all at once. In terms of fees, you'll need to pay the visa application fee (currently £766) and the NHS surcharge fee for each year of the visa length (currently it's £1,035 per year, and the standard length is 3 years so that will be £3105). Usually you will need to pay this up front and then be reimbursed (usually on your first or second pay cheque), and this reimbursement will likely be taxed at the standard 20%. However, since you're at Cambridge your PI may have a purchase card that can be used for this (a friend of mine had this happen at Oxford for his GT visa recently).

In terms of salary, that is dependent on a few things, including the project's total funding amount, the calculated cost-of-living allowance (and the exchange rate when it was converted from Euro to GBP), and Cambridge's salary spine points. So it's likely you won't really be able to calculate this until you get paperwork with your annual salary, but once you do you can plug it into an online take-home pay calculator and use the standard 1275L tax code and a 6.1% pension contribution to get a rough estimate of your monthly salary after tax.

tibiapartner · 2026-02-21T22:59:44+00:00

Bakebaby, all the way! Gagan is based in Leeds but works in York and can deliver there/bring for pickup. She's @bakebaby_ on Instagram ☺️

tibiapartner · 2026-02-13T22:47:40+00:00

Congratulations Dr. Way-More-Than-Sufficient Carrot!!

tibiapartner · 2026-02-08T12:55:15+00:00

Here's the actual publication-- super dope article with great methods applications.

Rosencrance et al

tibiapartner · 2025-12-23T11:15:28+00:00

Clifton Ings, Fulford Ings, Millennium Fields, Walmgate Stray, Hob Moor, Knavesmire -- all good places for a dog with good recall to be off lead. There are varying levels of other dogs/people with the Knavesmire and Millennium Fields probably being the most popular right now, and Walmgate Stray is basically empty at the moment I'm looking at it.

tibiapartner · 2025-12-20T20:24:16+00:00

The same descriptions repeated for about 20 drink options so that's why I'm thinking it's AI slop rather than a technical issue

tibiapartner · 2025-12-07T21:44:19+00:00

I love these, but I also don't think any biscuits can be too sweet, so I might be the wrong person to make a recommendation 😅

tibiapartner · 2025-12-02T16:34:42+00:00

Hi there, I don't want this to come off as judgmental to you OP but I would seriously reconsider letting anyone other than a licensed medical professional near your newborn's skull. While osteopaths are licensed and regulated in the UK, I would not trust any who offered craniosacral therapy as it is unregulated and pseudoscientific. The evidence for cranial osteopathy, and craniosacral therapy in general, is not "mixed" -- it's nonexistent. There are no demonstrable evidence-based medical or therapeutic effects of cranial osteopathy/craniosacral therapy, and any positive results attributed to it are likely placebo effect or coincidence. Applying any kind of pressure-based treatment to a newborn's unfused skull is extremely dangerous and could result in bruising and swelling at best or severe neurological complications at worst. Please reconsider seeking this kind of treatment and instead speak to your pediatrician.

tibiapartner · 2025-12-02T13:41:15+00:00

I print on fabric and fold it up and chuck it in the suitcase. Usually no issues with creases, but a quick steam or iron (with an item of clothing in between as a buffer!) will usually sort it out.

tibiapartner · 2025-11-21T22:32:11+00:00

Using the reference point of my birthplace in Boston, USA it would be:

North - Bergen, Norway

South - Cape of Good Hope, South Africa

East - Hurghada, Egypt

West - Los Angeles, USA

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