myUface Blog

We’ve had a few questions about how to use the myUface application, and I wanted to answer them here.

The first question is simple – so simple that we overlooked it:  How do I use the application?

This is such a good question that I’ll make a video this weekend taking you through the application step by step.  For now, let me give you a brief overview:

You’ll need to create a student account, which you can do from the main page. After that, you will be sent to an application. You simply need to fill out all the information on the application. This will probably take a long time, but when you get tired you can close the application and come back later, logging in with your user name and password, and starting the application right where you left off.

The second question is, how do I login when I come back to myUface? This is a good question because, as many of you have discovered, we kind of hid the login button in the upper-right corner of the site.  We’ve now added a login button in the center of the home page as well.

Please, keep these excellent questions and comments coming – it’s the only way we learn how to make the site better!

Three excellent questions today from a myUface user about one-year programs:

1. Are there any full scholarship programs for one-year study in the U.S.?
2. If so, can I transfer from my current university to a U.S. university, and then return after a year’s study?
3. Would a one-year program be non-degree or degree?

And answers, from us:

1. In general, there are very few full scholarships for one year programs.  If you are looking for a full scholarship, a one year program I would suggest you look into the Eurasia Undergraduate Program (we have some information about this program on our site or you can google it).  This program offers a limited number of fully funded opportunities to study in the US for one year.
2. Transfer credits.  This is a generally a tricky issue from both sides.  If you are hoping to study at a US university for one year, return to your home institutions and graduate with diplomas from both universities, this will likely not happen.  As a very general rule, you would have to study for at least 2-3 years in a US university to be able to accrue enough credit to get a diploma.
3. Almost all one year programs are non-degree.  However, there are certificate programs you might look into that are roughly one year.

A number of the hundreds and hundreds of students who have visited the site in the past few weeks have asked whether they can use myUface to look for postdoctoral fellowships.  I thought I’d take a moment on the blog to answer that question.

Sadly, the answer is no.  It’s not that we wouldn’t want to help students looking for a PhD – it’s just that our experience working with PhD candidates is pretty much non-existent.  We don’t want to say that we can do something, only to have good candidates sign up and find that we can’t in fact help them.

However, I do want to be of some use to such candidates, so I did some basic research.  Here are the results:

findaphd.com is a clearinghouse of PhD opportunities in the UK. There are also a lot of interesting links on this site, and a number of PhD scholarships are advertised there.

This site has got some good general advice about pursuing a PhD.

This wiki has the very basic step by step guide to applying to PhD programs in the U.S. It’s for science applicants, but I think the advice would apply to any subject.

Gradschools.com has a lot of information about individual graduate programs, and while it’s targeted more towards Master’s students, it will at least give you an idea of the right institutions.

Also, after having read quite a bit online, I think I can say that, yes, it’s very much possible to find a fellowship or scholarship to pursue your PhD. I’m sure such opportunities are competitive, but they also seem to be fairly abundant. For example, here’s a fellowship for PhD research through the American Association of University Women.

You can find answers to more questions at the myUface Help Section.