Life as a PhD Student

Successful candidates will be enrolled onto the new 4-year PhD programme. 

• Students are either enrolled on the with internship option or the without internship option. 
• Students need to enrol in either the teaching or industry stream. Students on the former will have the opportunity to complete a teaching fellowship that will be counted as an internship.
• International students will be enrolled on the with internship option by default, as transitioning out of it is always possible, but for international students not vice versa.

In Course Training Requirements

• Students need to obtain 90 credits worth of training. 
• Internships should be arranged for Years 2-4 and are worth 30 credits.
• Students on the without internship option need to obtain 30 credits by other means.
• 40 credits should be obtained in Year 1.  

A range of graduate courses, organised through the Scottish Mathematical Sciences Training Centre, are attended by PhD students during the first 6 months of the programme. Further research-level courses are available afterward. At the end of the first year, each student's progress is assessed by means of a prepared talk and a brief written report. It should be appreciated that some students may have to change registration for an MSc by Research as a result of this assessment.

The first year of PhD studies is focused on the video-conferenced general mathematical taught courses provided by the Scottish Mathematical Sciences Training Centre in cooperation with 7 other Scottish Universities, and weekly meetings with the supervisor to establish background in the student's area of proposed research.

Depending on the research area of your PhD, alternative courses may be available from NATCOR (National Taught Course in Operational Research) or APTS (Academy for PhD Training in Statistics).

The remaining years are focused on the candidate’s development of independent research, culminating in published papers and a doctoral thesis. Throughout the programme, most doctoral candidates are active in the teaching of mathematics in the school, and attending research seminars to develop breadth of knowledge.

Facilities & Resources

• Year 1 - You will use shared office space in the Bayes Centre in central Edinburgh. 
• Year 2 onwards - you will have access to PhD office space in JCMB. 
• Computing facilities - a laptop will be offered to you with either Linux or Windows as standard.  There are also a large number of open access computers on campus.
• Common room - join our PhD community for lunch in the School Common room
• Graduate Student seminars/colloquia
• Libraries - The Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library is on The King's Buildings campus