Shadowing Practice: UK VS USA PHD - WHICH SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?! // WHATS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHD'S IN THE UK AND US? - Learn English Speaking with Video

I still never get used to this.

Hello everyone and welcome back to my channel.

So for this week, I want to focus on the number one question that I get asked when I'm talking about grad school applications and that is what is the difference between PhDs in the UK and PhDs in the USA?

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It is so important to make sure that you weigh up all of the pros and cons of the different PhD programmes before you make a commitment.

A PhD is a very, very, very long time.

I'm sorry, I was a bit cold.

So I've just put my jumper on and we're going to start again.

I have had a bit of experience with both the UK PhD side of things and obviously I'm doing my PhD in the US.

So I just wanted to dive a bit deeper into this topic.

We've got to cover a lot of ground today.

So before we dive in, I'm going to fill up my water bottle and let's get started.

So let's get started.

What is the number one difference that I've noticed between a UK and a US PhD?

I would 100% say courses.

So classes in the US style of PhDs are very, very common.

In case you hadn't guessed already, you do not have to take classes for your UK based PhD.

It is not a requirement to graduate.

your PhD would mainly consist of your project in most cases.

I will cover some exceptions to this later on in this video so keep watching if you want to know more about that.

But in general you don't have to take courses as part of your UK based PhD.

In the US you do have to take courses so I think it does vary between college.

For me personally I have to take a set number of courses per semester and a set number of courses overall to then qualify for my major specialty or your minor specialty.

If you are from the UK and you don't know what a major or a minor is, don't worry, I didn't either.

I don't feel this is explained very well a lot of the time.

So basically your major, it's kind of like your major concentration.

It is the thing that is your PhD is designed to make you an expert in.

So you also have to take a minor, which is something that's designed to give you a broader overview of a topic or the general topic.

So you could have a major in immunology and infectious disease and a minor in biochemistry or genetics.

So it's something designed to sort of complement what you're an expert in, but you also have a bit more of an understanding on the whole of that field.

That's basically it.

The second biggest difference I would say between US-based PhDs and UK-based PhDs is probably money.

They are funded differently.

Obviously, very much varies by institution depending on how much of a stipend you get.

But what I'm touching on here isn't how much you get, but it's the way that you get it.

So in the UK, a stipend is not taxable.

So you do not get taxed on your income in the UK when you are a PhD student.

So that means you receive X amount of money and that is all for your living costs.

It is marginally less than the amount of money that you would typically get from a US-based PhD.

But in case you hadn't already guessed, US-based PhDs, the stipend is taxed.

This is not something that I realized when I initially started looking at PhDs because in the UK, when we say stipend, we mean non-taxable sort of student income, right?

Whereas in the US, it is taxable um this again varies depending on whether you are an international student or not international student i would definitely say that this isn't something that's explained particularly well and i am going to make a video on how to sort out your taxes because i think that's something that's super important and we don't talk about finances enough let's be honest you're generally considered an employee by the university in the usa whereas you're considered a student in the uk like a professional student and so even though you're you might be a phd student in the US for tax purposes you are considered an employee and so fill out your tax forms remember to do that if you are an international student then you might need to fill out an additional couple of forms to see whether you need to be paying dual tax in your home country or this country but again I will cover that in a different video but it is just something to bear in mind when you're thinking about which PhD to apply for UK non-taxed US taxed another difference that I have noticed when it comes to UK based PhDs versus US based PhDs is the actual requirements that it takes to get into the PhD program.

So US grad schools, it is not necessary to have a master's degree when you apply.

So you can apply for a PhD straight out of undergrad.

This is definitely something to bear in mind if you know that you, what area you want to do and you know what PhD you want to do.

I guess also a PhD program in the US is kind of like combining the master's with grad school.

And that is why they have this huge emphasis on courses in your first couple of years is essentially just getting you i kind of compare it to it's a bit like having a master's from the uk is what i'd say so um it's kind of like two in one but the key point here is that you do not need a master's to apply for a us based phd i was very very very very surprised because i did not know this when i got here and i was one of the few people with a master's degree because in the uk you basically have to have a master's you do not really have realistically like you don't really have a chance of getting into a good phd without a master's purely because everybody else who's applying probably has a master's.

So why would the PI choose you over someone who does have a master's?

So in the UK, it's generally the safest bet to have a master's first.

That being said, it is a good way, I think, if you're not sure what area exactly you want to do, a master's is a great way of experiencing life as a full-time researcher before you make that commitment to the three, four, five, six-year-long PhD scheme.

The final main difference between UK and US-based PhDs is probably the project itself.

In the UK, you apply to a project rather than a program, except in some cases, which I'm going to come to in a moment, but in general, you would apply to a project rather than the graduate school program.

Whereas in the US, you tend to apply to the graduate school program.

So when I applied to the USA, I did not know what project I was going to be doing, who I was going to be working with.

I still don't to be honest because I'm doing my rotations at the moment but in general I applied to the biomedical sciences PhD program here at Cornell whereas in the UK when I was applying for PhDs I would apply to a specific supervisor with a specific project and I would do that and that is generally how PhDs work in the UK again it does vary it does vary depending on which organization you go to so definitely check that out but in general you would apply to a main project in the UK and a program in the US so if you're not sure if you know that you want to work in biomedical science but you don't know exactly what you're interested in then a US-based PhD is probably marginally better for you whereas if you know exactly what area you want to work in and you found a PI and you found a lab then 100% you know go for it and maybe a UK-based PhD is better for you.

What I would also like to touch on here is the length of the PhD.

So as a little subsection, UK based PhDs tend to be a bit shorter than US based PhDs.

And I think that is to do with the fact that you already have a master's in the UK.

A UK based PhD would probably be between three and four years.

Whereas in the US, I think it's anywhere between four and a half to six, seven years, which is a very long time.

Building onto this in the US, there is more of an emphasis on publications before you can be eligible to graduate.

From what I've heard, I think that is fairly unique to the US.

I guess maybe there's some institutions in the UK that make you do this, but in general, in the USA, they do want you to have at least one publication before you're eligible to graduate.

Some PIs ask for more, but in general, it's usually about one.

Whereas I know some people in the UK who've graduated with a PhD who haven't published, for example, and they do like you to publish, but I don't think it's necessarily a requirement to graduate.

Do check with your specific institution.

This is just very generalized overview of key differences between the two.

Okay, so now I really want to touch on the two different types of UK PhD.

I have mainly been talking about one type of UK based PhD, which is the sort of standard PhD program that you might apply to in the UK.

Whereas there is another type of PhD program that not a lot of people know about.

And that is the doctoral training program.

Not all of them are called doctoral training programs.

Sometimes they do have different names, but a doctoral training program in general is a kind of more structured PhD.

So it is the kind of balance between the US and UK based PhD, which I think is kind of cool.

So a doctoral training program, there will often be a requirement for some courses.

You don't get the same freedom that you do in the US to take whatever course you want.

There is no sort of like major minor requirement, although you do have to take some compulsory courses.

So these could be things like business skills, grant writing, there might be some specialist courses that you might need to take for your particular project, for example, but there will be a requirement to do some kind of course.

Another thing is funding in these types of things.

So in general, a doctoral training program will tend to be fully funded in the same way that most programs in the USA are fully funded PhD programs.

That's not to say that all the programs in the UK are not fully funded.

There are a good few PhD programs out there where the lab will fund you, but there are also an equal amount of PhDs out there where you will have to pay to do PhD so that is definitely something to look into when you're thinking of applying.

Another thing about DTPs is that they do sometimes require rotations, which again is quite similar to some programs in the USA.

Again, not all programs, but some programs.

So my program in particular, I have to do rotations for my first year before I choose a lab.

And it's the same if I, if I'd gone for a DTP at home, home in the UK I would have had to do rotations for not for very long maybe just one or two a few months but I would have had to do some kind of lab rotations before I settled on my lab so yeah that's it's sort of a little a little little ground between UK based PhDs and US PhDs so it is definitely definitely something to think about when you're thinking about which program is right for you so which program is best and which one should you choose Unfortunately, I cannot give you an answer to that.

It is so, so, so, so, so individually dependent, but I will walk you through my thought process when I was deciding whether to accept my PhD offer in the UK, whether to accept the US based PhD offer.

The one thing I would say is consider your academic background.

I knew that for me, I was coming into either a biochemistry or a biomedical based PhD from a veterinary background.

that is very, very, very different to coming in from a biology or a chemistry background.

So I knew that I wanted the structure of the courses and the ability to take lots of different courses so that I could get to the same level academically as someone who had come from a biology or a chemistry background.

As a vet, you're taught how to be a vet, you know?

I'm not taught organic chemistry or biomedical engineering.

So I knew that if I'm made to take these courses and that is a requirement and that's built into my course, then I'd be able to get to that level of being an expert in your field, which at the end of the day is what a PhD is all about.

So I would say, long story short, if you're coming from a slightly different field, maybe your undergraduate degrees and something slightly different to what you want your PhD to be, then I would strongly consider either a doctoral training program in the UK or a US-based PhD scheme.

If you are wanting something where you can just focus on your project and you can really get stuck in and be an expert in that one area, then I think a UK-based PhD might be better for you.

It's a lot of your life, you know, you wanna make sure you're doing the right one and you don't have any regrets.

So definitely talk to people, consider your background, really look into the course, and then I'm sure that you'll make the right decision.

So those are the main differences that I have noticed between UK-based PhDs and more US-based PhDs.

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So I hope this video has been vaguely helpful.

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If you have any more questions or anything else you want to know, please drop me a comment down below.

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I will be hanging around sort of for an hour, half an hour after this video is uploaded to answer all your questions.

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If you have any other requests for videos that you would like me to make, then again, drop me a comment.

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Please remember to hit that subscribe button and yeah, I'll see you guys next time.

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Okay, bye.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: UK VS USA PHD - WHICH SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?! // WHATS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHD'S IN THE UK AND US? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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