Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Jude wrote:

soc wrote:That sounds like one hell of a lot of studying to me!

It is - actually I rather like the idea of being a Dr!! Perhaps I can put IT and health together?? and then do Chemistry A level, do the shortened Medical course go on and do a Phd - and then be Dr Dr Comber???? LOL!
As if my brain could !

A PhD in electrical/electronic engineering is one h**l of a lot of work.

OK so there is no learning per se - it is you who goes out and carries out the discoveries and then writes them up to a standard acceptable for publication (and to the Uni). Just to give you an idea, Rob had (that I know of) three projects leading to his thesis.
The first involved breaking US military camoflage; the project needed the precise (to the odd centimetre) locations of two items which could be located at opposite ends of the/any country. The only way was by GPS but the military deliberately sent out false signals so that civilian devices were up to 10 metres wrong; he had to factor that error out. From there he had to design and (himself) build cards which were fitted into PCs to carry out a specific function and write the software. Then he had to be able to link all this into cables carrying up to 330K volts! (and that was just one project!)

Took about 3 years of hard work and a lot of travel.

(BTW in case the US secret service / military are monitoring this, he is not available for questioning and the results are owned by US interests.)

David, that post script had me laughing out loud, thanks for the laugh

Jude wrote:my son decided that the "University of life" was for him - daughter wants to get something so she's at Uni - I did it in my 30's and want to return - but am scared of the fees! I need to go and do something before my brain rots away entirely!

Any clues as to what I should do?????????

Hi Jude

I kept putting off further study because of the fees, got sacked aged 50, thought that I would have to sell my house, started working part-time for a friend who is a Lecturer at Adelaide Uni. She confronted me one day with 'We have no money for staff, but there are some PhD scholarships available, and it's about time you did yours'. She followed up with 'Oh, and there's a conference on Heron Island (Barrier Reef) that I would want you to attend in December', and so, the rest is history .

Have no idea what the financial arrangements are in the UK, but I get a tax free stipend of $25,000, which equates to the pay of the lowliest of low technicians, plus we are allowed to work up to 8 hours per week during business hours. I get some demonstrating and marking - would get more if my Supervisor did more teaching - plus I work part-time in a Pathology Lab, so am doing OK finanacially. Certainly no worse than I was doing as a Research Assistant.

I didn't have the guts to jump, but its amazing what the push of retrenchment can lead to .

I got a desmond (2:2) BA in Geography

I then went on to do an MSc in 'Tourism, development and policy' - I got a merit (equivalent to a 2:1)

SO if a desmond is a 2:2, what is a 1:1 and can you get a 1:2?

Having never been and not having siblings, I am totally ignorant of the ways of uni so you guys might just get more silly questions from me.

For some reason, the older I get, the more I want to learn about everything

soc wrote:SO if a desmond is a 2:2, what is a 1:1 and can you get a 1:2?

Having never been and not having siblings, I am totally ignorant of the ways of uni so you guys might just get more silly questions from me.

For some reason, the older I get, the more I want to learn about everything

A 1:1 is just a first

the reason there is a 2:1 and 2:2 is because they are second class (upper) and second class (lower) - no 1:2 though

A 3rd is commonly known as a Douglas (as in Hurd) or just turd...

There is a third? All this talk of degrees is really making me more determined to go ahead and do one

I got a 2:2 hons 'drinkers degree' and was only couple of marks off a2:1- my dissertation didnt do as well as hoped because about two weeks before i got into a huge arguements with my tutor who was going to mark it about my conclusion-he seriously did not agree with my opinion although i had nearly 9,000 previously to back it up!!!!

I am very poud of my degree i had the best 3years and came out of it with much more than a bit of paper!

Did you have to do the gown and mortar (however you spell it) board routine when you got it?

absolutly, i loved it-although all my housemates graduated on same day as me and we all said we felt like we were playing dress up for one of our nights out-not that we really were graduating!!! It was a blur, i was concentrating so hard on walking across the stage without falling over my parents said i zoomed across-which i thought wasnt bad in 4inch heels!

Any video footage per chance?

englishangel wrote:First, clever and hardworking.
2.1 clever, hardworking and likes a drink
2.2 clever, lazy and likes a drink
3.0 clever, spends all day in the bar (me)

I bet you got better than that Mary! And I didn't drink as I lived with the kids at home!

Nope, I got a third.

I did combined honours biology and chemistry.

If I had just been doing biology I would have got a 2.1 but I hated chemistry.

Did you realise you hated chemistry before you started the course?

I didn't know how much I hated writing computer code until half way through my degree........ by then ADA and I were not friends at all!!