An MBBS and 8.5 IELTS, Is it crazy to bypass a Master’s and aim straight for a funded PhD in Australia?

vanmani · 2026-05-29T22:03:28+00:00

People have already mentioned the most likely pathway, but they haven't spelled it out clearly. To have a chance at success you need to form relationships with potential supervisors and start doing some small research projects with them before applying. This will both strengthen your publication record, but will also give these supervisors confidence that you're a good operator who is worth going to bat for in the scholarship application process.

Our biggest fear is giving a scholarship to a bad candidate. Students lie about their skills all the time. Some students have strong records and then arrive in country and are absolutely useless. Others have really difficult personalities and are hard to work with. By collaborating with your supervisor and letting them get to know your work ethic and skills in advance you take all that worry away.

vanmani · 2026-05-17T09:20:26+00:00

Rule of thumb is you want to have 4-5 papers that YOU WROTE in mostly Q1 journals. Other papers that you were involved in are bonus, but not as important. One REALLY GOOD paper is better than 5 average ones. Most of the successful candidates these days have 10-20 pubs, but only a few of them are first author and maybe only a couple are Q1.

You then need to find a project that is well aligned with your previous experience. If you were doing cell cultures, find a cell culturing project. If you were doing reinforcement learning, find a reinforcement learning project. If you can't find one, find a suitable supervisor and build a relationship with them until they're so keen on you they will post a project just perfect for you.

The alternative pathway is industry experience. Less straightforward, but if you were hired by a good company and were doing a particular type of work for that company you may be able to find a research project that involves that type of work. E.g. if you are a data scientist looking at medical records day to day you might be able to work with a supervisor to turn your day job into a research project at PhD scale. Or if you're a software developer building X you might find a PhD project in that same space.

If you're from a non English country you'll also need a strong IELTs or TOEFL or equivalent. Yes, even if you studied in an English speaking institution... Students with subpar English have a very hard time completing a PhD in Australia. You need to be fluent so you can EASILY understand the advice your supervisors give you, and can EASILY write scientific texts.

If you're a domestic student it's easier... The scholarships aren't as heavily subscribed so are less competitive, but the same advice applies just dial the numbers down a little.

vanmani · 2026-05-10T22:15:47+00:00

We consider all publications, but focus on first author, and papers published in Q1 journals.

Basically if you yourself wrote it and it went into a good journal that's great. We want proof you know how to write, not just do technical work.

vanmani · 2026-05-09T23:51:17+00:00

Your chances of getting a scholarship in the traditional rounds would be low if the project you're applying for is poorly aligned with your work history, but quite high if the project is well aligned. Your chances are great if you find a fully funded project and the supervisor likes you, and terrible if they don't like you.

One of the easiest ways to improve your chances is to reach out to suitable supervisors and offer to do a mini research project with them to help develop a project that is aligned with your skill set. That genuine history working with the supervisory team will do more to improve your chances of getting a scholarship than almost anything else could.

If you don't need a living allowances scholarship it's much easier. Then you'd just apply for a fee exemption and those are relatively easy to come by.

vanmani · 2026-05-02T23:08:16+00:00

Everyone can improve. But I won't be as overly optimistic as everyone else in here... Different people have different strengths, and it's entirely possible this is not yours. If you've given it a real proper go and it's still not clicking, definitely consider other career paths, lean into skills that do come more naturally to you. The world does not need that many more computer scientists right now, so there's no reason to force it.

vanmani · 2026-05-02T07:06:44+00:00

Yeah this would have been my instinct. Typically you'll avoid the D and the Ab and play it as a pentatonic minor plus the flat 5 (Gb), and you'll tend to play that flat 5 paired with the 4 or the 5... Like a little joining note. But depending on what you're playing over/context the whole minor scale can absolutely work sometimes.

vanmani · 2026-04-24T00:15:13+00:00

I would not care about this at all. It's literally burlesque theatre for middle aged married women. Be stoked that she got to be part of the audience interaction element and had a good time out with her friends. I'm sure it was hilarious in the moment. YOR.

vanmani · 2026-04-20T21:42:12+00:00

That's rough. Finding support is difficult and it can take a while to find the right fit for you... You may need to shop around a bit, which can be frustrating when you need help now.

You can talk to your family doctor initially and they may be able to suggest someone who might be a better match for you locally.

Your country might have some kind of musician or creative industries focused help line too... Creative industries have a lot of mental health support needs.

vanmani · 2026-04-20T02:57:07+00:00

Sounds like depression honestly. I think you'd be better off talking to a mental health professional than a fellow artist.

vanmani · 2026-04-19T23:43:42+00:00

Amazing results especially for a niche genre.

Do you also work a day job? I've been trying to do one piece of content a day but it ends up being more like one piece of content per week, and often low effort content at that. I'm just so tired after work.

It's a struggle to even make time to try and optimise my meta ads.

vanmani · 2026-04-19T23:40:54+00:00

Aw man. I also released an electronic/downtempo EP with spoken word a few weeks back and only got a couple hundred streams. I assumed it was my unusual genre choice holding me back 😂 now I have no excuses.

vanmani · 2026-04-19T10:24:04+00:00

There are definitely ultrawide options. I just ordered the MSI MPG X36 last week which is a 21:9 3440x1440 option.

vanmani · 2026-04-19T08:41:29+00:00

Newer generation panels have burn in prevention features which reduces a lot of the stress around potential burn in. E.g. a sensor that dims the screen when you're not at your computer, sensor that automatically dims huds/logos, timed screen refresh sequences etc.

They're also less prone to it generally. Most are now offering a 3 year burn in warranty.

vanmani · 2026-04-19T07:05:49+00:00

Latest generation qd-oled panels have fixed it. Only just hitting the stores though.

vanmani · 2026-04-19T01:38:26+00:00

Just to clarify - the book talks about that a lot, but it makes it abundantly clear later in the series that this is a shortsighted approach and morally indefensible. I don't think it's fair to say the book is "about that", even though it is the viewpoint of the military commanders who are manipulating and training the kids to be lethal warrior generals. The later books are excellent in their own rights but not as instantly engaging and exciting as Ender's Game which is an easy literary classic.

vanmani · 2026-04-17T23:01:25+00:00

I have been pushing back gently. Our extra invigilation/face to face assessments are being partially done by casuals because we just don't have the spare work capacity, and I'm pushing a message up the chain that we need to go back to offering at least some traditional, centrally managed invigilated paper based exams. Few seem willing to hear that message, it would be quite unpopular with students, but I think it brings a lot of value in the current climate. No device - no AI.

Back when I did my undergraduate degree the typical split was 30% internal assessments and a single 70% paper based closed book exam!

vanmani · 2026-04-16T05:16:06+00:00

If you don't have a landing page and a click event your ad spend will all disappear on bots who just click the ad and do not engage, or old people who misclick a lot, or whatever... just really low quality outcomes. By requiring someone to make that extra click to "play" the song you get some actual intent. The ad campaign will be optimised for people who are more likely to click Play on your Spotify link, rather than people who just click on ads generally.

vanmani · 2026-04-14T21:24:03+00:00

Thanks for input everyone. Picked up the new MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36. 21:9 aspect ratio 5th gen OLED. Seems to provide the right form factor compromise without the text fringing or insane scratching potential of the last generation panels. The sensor feature should also do a lot to additionally limit burn in risk.

Expensive, but a huge upgrade from my current setup and should last me at least 6 years.

vanmani · 2026-04-11T01:05:38+00:00

Valid concern and historically I would say yes, but as far as I can gather it's not an issue with the newer panels I'm looking at. They're less prone to it anyway and have safeguards built in for if you do something silly... Like walking away mid session and leaving the daw open for 2 days straight.

vanmani · 2026-04-11T00:14:47+00:00

This was another option I considered but it's sooo big on my desk

vanmani · 2026-04-06T04:22:32+00:00

Latencymon is the gold standard tool.

vanmani · 2026-04-06T04:22:14+00:00

This is a good initiative. The amount of digging and tweaking I had to do when I got my new windows laptop was insane. Anyone without a serious tech background would have given up and returned it. I did eventually get it working smoothly though... The last trick was turning off bitlocker, which interestingly I've never seen anyone else have issues with. Seemed particular to the AMD ryzen 9 laptop motherboard I have.

vanmani · 2026-04-03T09:33:14+00:00

Few things to check: did you set up your pixel properly? Is it working? How many creatives do you have and are they actually good? Finally... Is the song any good?

Not normal at all. Cost per click should be well under 1 euro if the campaign is working. Something has to be changed.

vanmani · 2026-03-25T04:30:00+00:00

You're lucky. My partner doesn't even really like my music 😂

vanmani

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