Soledad's Journal

The thing that really shocked me about the UK university system was that a Ph.D. is also only three years; in Sweden it is a four year full time degree, and the university can ask you (if they pay you for that separately) to undertake up to 20% 'departmental duties'. These can include things like being lab demonstrator (in science/engineering) and holding tutorials/seminars. If you undertake these extra duties, that means added on extra time for you to finish your Ph.D. so that most Swedish Ph.D.s take closer to five years, than four. With an experimental based research subject, most of your worthwhile results usually come in the last year, to year-and-a-half, because it takes time to learn the techniques, get the samples and make some mistakes along the way. This is an education after all, and mistakes are one of the best learning tools, so I think factoring in time for those is essential. With a three year Ph.D. there isn't really time for trying things that didn't work out, so I think students in the UK system either really miss out, or end up incredibly stress at the end of their Ph.D.s.