Information for incoming PhD students

Welcome to the Astrophysics and Space Research Group. We hope you will have a productive and enjoyable time here while doing your research for your Ph.D. programme. These pages are designed to be a useful resource for postgraduate students in the Astrophysics and Space Research Group, containing helpful advice (collected from current and previous students) as well as information about the various aspects of your training as a Ph.D. student.

This document provides information which will be useful to you throughout your time as a Ph.D. student. Note that this is an evolving document, and if you think of things you wish you had known on arrival or spot any errors then please let the Graduate tutor know.

Checklist of Things to do on Arrival

  • See the Graduate Students' tutor or Carol Surtees (Group Secretary, Room 237, West Building) to find out which office you will be in.
  • See Ms Jan Hutchins (Head of School's office, Room B14 Physics West) for various introductory documents and forms. The important forms that you would need right away are for keys, and to get a pass to allow you to use buildings outside "normal" hours. She will also check whether the various registration forms have been completed.
  • Go to the Main Stores (Physics West) to get keys to your office. Robyn will tell you the codes for the combination locks for the external doors, and the door to your office. (Check with the other postgraduates in your room to find out which keys are needed). Please ensure that these codes are not given to people who are not authorized to enter the building.
  • Contact David Stops (Group Computer Manager, Room 222 West) to obtain an account on the ASR computer network.
  • Check that you can send and receive electronic mail.
  • Register as a Graduate user of the Main Library
  • If you have any questions see the Graduate Students' tutor.

Training as a Postgraduate in the ASR Group

A Ph.D should not just be about learning a set of very specific skills and a very limited range of knowledge related to your specific research topic. It should be about training to be an independent research scientist. Consequently, during your Ph.D we would like to help you develop a range of skills, both generic, but hopefully useful in completing your Ph.D. If you find life as a Ph.D. student is hard, take occasional looks at PhD comics to re-assure yourself that this is pretty Universal.

Research is very much a full-time occupation and will involve a lot of hard work (but which is ultimately very satisfying), including at times evenings and weekends. You should reckon on taking no more than 4-5 weeks annually. Many Ph.D students have the opportunity to earn some extra money doing some laboratory demonstrating or marking. While the money will be useful, be sure to keep in mind that your future career prospects depend on the quality of your research and not your marking skills (which is not to say that you should do shoddy work). PGTAs obviously have more teaching responsibilities and more time to complete their Ph.D.

 The hours you will work are flexible, though this will also depend somewhat on what you can agree with your supervisor. Your working hours should never be such as to restrict communication with other members of staff and your supervisor.

Things to keep in mind

  • All students should meet their supervisor on a weekly basis (particularly in the first year).
  • All students are expected to attend the Astrophysics Colloquia. These mostly happen on Wednesday afternoon. They should also attend the School Colloquia, also held on Wednesdays.
  • Students should also attend group meetings, which happen once per month on Fridays at 2pm.
  • Absences for holidays should be agreed with your supervisor, and when you are away for this or other resasons (such as illness) please notify Robyn Budge in the Group office too.
  • It is very important to get experience of presenting talks at subgroup meetings, and at conferences and workshops.

The Postgraduate Training programme


All first-year postgraduate students have to attend a training programme in their first year, which consists of lectures, group sessions and assessed and unassessed exercises, on subjects ranging from Computing skills to various research areas in astrophysics. This wiki page gives details of the training programme and the methods of evaluation.

Progress and Monitoring of Your Ph.D


Progress Review Meetings

Each term, along with your supervisor, you will have to complete a progress review form (this is done at school level), where both you and you supervisor have to comment on progress and problems. While at one level this could be just a form filling exercise, it is more useful to make it into a review of progress and a longer term look as to how things are going.

The Midterm

The midterm review generally occurs a year after a student joins the PhD programme. For students joining in October, the process typically takes places between October and November the following year.

For the midterm you have to prepare a report detailing your work, and then a viva with your supervisor and another member of staff, not usually form the ASR group. The midterm report can be of one or two sorts - either a self contained report of roughly 25 pages in length or a more introductory report (10 - 15 pages) plus a paper ready for submission.

The deadline for submission of the midterm is mid-September for STFC funded students and mid-November for PGTA funded students. The actual viva takes place a month or two after this at a convenient time for all concerned.

Postgraduate Travel funds


We encourage all postgraduate students to travel to meetings and conferences within the UK and abroad. We have limited funds available within the group for such travel, and there are several sources of external funding. Wherever possible, external funding should be sought. More details about our group funds will appear here shortly.

Writing your thesis


We strongly encourage you to write up as you go whenever possible. In particular publishing papers along the way makes the final thesis writing a lot easier and provides publications to go on your CV (which should help you in getting a postdoc position). Writing up a thesis can easily take 3 to 6 (rather unenjoyable) months. Guidelines for the format of the thesis can be found in the University's 'Notes for Guidance of Candidates'. In particular, the thesis "may consist entirely of published (or publishable) papers, prefaced by an introduction, and literature survey followed by general discussion". The thesis can be written in the style of a selected journal. It should not exceed 50,000 words or 250 pages. A few months before submitting your thesis you must notify the registry on a form. This will lead to the nomination of a senior scientist from outside the university and a member of the group being nominated as external and internal thesis examiner.

Students should be prepared for questions relating to other areas of astronomy (and possibly physics). The sort of questions you get will strongly depend on the examiners, some stick to the topics covered in the thesis, some range more widely. The regulations states that "an oral exam on the subject of the thesis and on the general field to which the candidates subject belongs is normally obligatory."

Ph.D Thesis Style Files

Example files for generating a Ph.D thesis can be found at the links below. The files include thesis.tex (the actual thesis), two style files (thesis_good.cls and reporteld.cls), which need to be in the same directory as thesis.tex, an acknowledgments page and a Bibtex file. A helpful introduction to latex can be found in the The not-so-short guide to latex.

PhD Chronology

1st Year

September: Training for teaching (if relevant)

October: Introductory lectures within the ASR group starts

September (end of first year): Midterm thesis due

2nd Year

November: Midterm viva (ATFC students)

March-June: 2nd Year Seminar (on a Friday)

3rd Year

Plan to attend international conference

September: Apply to change of status to write -up; submit intention of submission

4th Year

March- June: Submission of Final Thesis

Life during and after being a postgraduate student

Take a look at these pages for general pearls of wisdom about what is expected of you while you are a postgraduate student, and how to plan for an academic life after your PhD.

(Maintained by Somak Raychaudhury)