Bits & pieces

[juliet]

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2276735,00.html - Oxford letting down its postgrads? My experience (when doing an MPhil, which is 50% taught and 50% research) was that the taught section was well-run[0], my supervisor was very helpful, but yes, the college supervisor wasn't terribly involved. I benefitted from being at a subject-specific college, so at least my college supervisor knew my subject (& did read over my thesis for me). And my university supervisor was in fact at Nuffield as well. Fees were astronomical, but Nuffield is heavily subsidised for accommodation so that wasn't too bad (esp compared to e.g. Pembroke). I definitely agree that students at all levels have virtually no useful input or recourse on college/university policy. Which sucks.

ION: yesterday I put my NEW TENT up in the square outside. This is for cycle-camping purposes - it's a second-hand
Robert Saunders Jetpacker Plus donated by another cyclist. It is v light and surprisingly roomy - uon and I both fitted into it although I wouldn't want to have 2 people in it for more than a couple of days of cycle touring. I also tried out the Coleman stove also donated by the same person, and made a cup of tea on it. Fire!

[0] Although I missed out on a fair bit of it due to going a bit funny in the head. Not the fault of the tutors, although arguably in part the fault of Nuffield, my college.

Comments

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I applied for a DPhil studentship at Oxford. The supervisor asked if I was serious about staying in research, and when I replied yes, explained that I was clearly good, she didn't have time to supervise a student, over 1/3 of Oxford postgrads never got their DPhils, and she was therefore recommending me to some of her friends rather than give me her studentship, which only existed as a condition of getting funds for the rest of the lab - she was looking for someone who didn't really want a DPhil who could essentially be a research assistant.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Goodness!

FWIW, I think I know at least as many crap-DPhil stories from outside Oxford, as from inside. But then, DPhil students typically have their fees paid for them, so are less likely to care about the college fee aspect of Oxford.

If you ask me, we're be better off with a more US-style doctorate system with courses in the first year, and only picking a supervisor once you know the department. But that would take longer and require a lot of the structure of funding to change, so I'm not holding my breath.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Have now read article - the 'college adviser' is presumably separate from an academic supervisor, so presumably them not reading your thesis is only bad because the college gains money from purporting to provide academic support, rather than in itself affecting the students.
I think I had a college tutor at UCL (who award Mill Hill's degrees), but never met them. Got a nice letter from them congratulating me, a year after getting the PhD, though.

At Cambridge, my [poor] college went on rent strike for both of my first two years - with the effect that rent was well below private accommodation costs. But Cambridge colleges are much more like glorified halls of residence than Oxford ones.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Yes, though I think the idea that a 'college advisor' should read your thesis is very unrealistic, given the amount of specialisation that there normally is by masters level. What could be expected, is a the advisor to be a guide to the department, putting you in touch with other people to talk to, and regularly checking up on progress of work and stress. Though I'm not sure that would be worth £2,000.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Actually I'd forgotten - NIMR had to pay UCL £1500 a year for each of us PhD students, which really didn't go down well as not only did they do nothing for us (I wangled a discounted theatre ticket once, and an NUS card only in my first year. Nowt else), but the Medical Research Council and other bodies who paid our registration fees, bench fees and support costs, didn't pay it, so it came out of the institute funds.

I could rant even more on useless college tutors at undergrad - suffice it to say that when I went to my 10-year reunion at cambridge last year, and the Master mentioned that the current Senior Tutor was leaving, all the science students who'd had her as a tutor 10 years earlier cheered.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

The article seems to be about college support not overall support which is weird - I would have been surprised to receive academic support from my college (the chance of one of the two maths dons being in my area being pretty much nil) as opposed to my department during the D.Phil. But then I was an undergraduate there so knew what to expect I guess. It seems the problem is really communication of how Oxford works to people applying for postgraduate degrees. That and the amount that colleges charge maybe - no idea how much is reasonable for a college to charge, but I can imagine a college spending £300,000 a year on facilities/infrastructure for postgrads doesn't seem totally beyond the bounds of possibility. Maybe they should just be more open about where the money goes.

It doesn't seem to talk about general quality of D.Phil. supervision and how it compares to other universities, which is another issue entirely and would seem a much more interesting thing to look into.

[htfb.livejournal.com]

The "college advisor" (in Merton referred to as an in-college tutor) was from what I saw there to be a second point of contact with your faculty in case your relationship with your supervisor broke down. Ulrike Tillmann did an excellent job by me, especially at the very end when I needed senior friends to carry me through various technicalities of admin.