Arts vs Science: From Applications to Interview

The PhD application process is something we often talk about on FindAPhD, but you may not realise just how much the experience can vary across different subject areas. In this edition of Arts vs Science, we talk to a couple of students about their application story to see how this process looks from different sides of the campus.

Hannah is coming to the end of her second year as a History PhD student at the University of Sheffield. While she completed her applications over two years ago now, she assures us that it was an experience she will never forget.

Jennifer is a first year Biology PhD student on a doctoral training programme at Aston University. It’s been just over a year since she sent off her applications so it’s all still fresh in her memory!

Hannah: I knew in my final year of my Bachelors that I wanted to do a PhD and so I had been thinking about potential topics since then. But I didn’t really start the process until the beginning of my Masters year. After taking a couple of weeks to settle in, I began searching.

I looked at a few advertised opportunities, but these aren’t as common in the Humanities and there was nothing that I found particularly exciting. So, I decided to design my own research project. As a bit of a kid in a candy shop when it comes to historical periods, settling on a topic probably took longer for me than most people. But eventually I found my field and began searching for universities around late November.

Jennifer: I started my search while I was in the first few months of my research masters (MRes). I was doing the MRes in the first place to work out whether research was for me and to gain some extra lab experience. It turns out I loved it and knew within a month that I wanted to do a PhD so started looking for opportunities from around November onwards for the following September.

As a science student I was pretty much only looking at programmes with full funding since lab equipment and consumables are super expensive – far too expensive for me to self-fund. These programmes generally have advertised projects so I knew I wouldn’t be proposing a topic myself.

I took some time to really think about the areas that were of most interest to me and did some research into them, searched for projects on that topic and decided the little blobs of membrane released by cells (known as extracellular vesicles) were my thing!

Hannah: I chose to apply to three different universities, mainly because they housed academics with the expertise to supervise me. The field that I had chosen doesn’t have many academics in the UK, so I was fairly limited. I also didn’t want to study abroad, partly due to the cost and partly due to the distance.

Jennifer: I applied for only two PhDs. Since the area I wanted to research was quite specific and the project needed to be funded, there weren’t tonnes of options. I looked through the projects on offer and contacted supervisors for those I was most interested in and if I got on well with them, I applied for the PhD.

Hannah: Stressful. As I wanted to apply for Research Council funding from the AHRC, all my PhD applications were due in late January. This also happened to coincide with two other essays for my Masters course. I distinctly remember spending most of the Christmas and New Year period writing and editing my research proposals, alongside my other coursework.

But that’s not to say I had a bad experience. The academics I reached out to as potential supervisors were all very helpful and offered excellent advice on how to improve my application. It just happened to be bad timing, that’s all.

Jennifer: It was actually alright. I was applying to advertised projects, so I didn’t have the headache of writing research proposals, which took a lot of pressure off. Both applications were directly through the university websites, though for one I also had to send an email with an attached CV to the doctoral training programme leader. The most challenging part was writing a summary of my motivation for wanting to do a PhD, so overall, not bad at all.

Hannah: I had one interview which was specifically for funding at one of the universities. Honestly, it didn’t go so well. I was given about a week’s notice, and having scrambled to get all my other applications and Masters work done, I was exhausted. So, I probably didn’t prepare as well as I should have, nor did I really know what to expect.

Mostly, I prepared to discuss my proposal. I knew what I wanted to research and why. I also knew my sources pretty well and which archives I’d want to visit. My issue was that I didn’t know the theoretics of the field all that well, and that became pretty obvious in the interview.

In hindsight, I know I could have done better. But, if I did, I wouldn’t be where I am now. So, I guess it all worked out in the end anyway. Mistakes happen!

Jennifer: I had one interview, which was for the doctoral training programme and the university rolled into one. It was my first panel interview, so I didn’t really know what to expect walking in, but I had prepared for all the usual PhD interview questions. They did ask me some of these, but they were particularly interested in the research I was doing at the time, on my MRes. I wasn’t really prepared for this (silly, I know) and I just managed to bumble through it. But it got worse…

Hands down the worst part of the interview was the maths test. I had 15 minutes before the interview to answer five maths questions. I could literally only answer two of them (and one of those was just analysing a graph and proposing an appropriate statistical test). Luckily, my analysis question was good enough and they didn’t seem to mind my poor maths knowledge as the training programme involves a module in maths.

Hannah: I was accepted into all three universities that I’d applied for, but I got no offers for funding. At the time this devastated me and I began to feel like I wasn’t good enough to do a PhD. But I’m also a pretty stubborn person so I was enrolling come hell or high water!

I’m glad I did. I’m no better or worse than the other students in my department, funded or not. And there are plenty of options out there to help students cover their costs.

Unfortunately, not receiving funding meant that I couldn’t go to one of the universities I applied for. The city was far too expensive for me to sustain myself on a student loan and part-time job. So that left me with two options, one being the university I was already studying at, with the supervisor I was already working with. Both were pretty good options, but I loved the place I already was at, and so I decided to stay.

Jennifer: I was offered an interview for both programmes I applied for, but I only went to the first as I was offered a place on the programme and was absolutely thrilled to accept! This might seem crazy, but I knew this was the university I would rather attend if given the choice, since I had got on so well with the project supervisor.

Applications and interviews aren’t the only part of a PhD that differs by discipline. Take a look at the other blogs in our Arts vs Science series, or some of the many other student stories here on our blog.

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