Pursuing PhD Scholarships

in Social Sciences and Humanities

A course where PhD applicants learn to structure and write successful PhD applications in order to maximise their chances of getting a scholarship.

Structure and write highly successful PhD applications with proven strategies, community support and practical feedback.

Have you been dreaming about becoming a PhD student and carrying out research within an area dear to your heart but see this dream as quite far-fetched due to the exorbitant course fees?

Not many people can afford to pay £80k (and that's just the course fees alone for 4 years)

Besides the concern with the course fees and stipend, applying for PhD programmes can be overwhelming. Imagine applying for 5, 6, or 10 doctoral programmes?

You might get overwhelmed figuring out how to start the application process.

You might have written a research proposal but you are unsure whether it is strong enough to get a scholarship.

You have applied before and received rejections.

Been there, done that.

Introducing myself

I am Cecilia Nobre and I help PhD applicants from various backgrounds and fields to prepare strong and competitive PhD applications so that they can maximise their chances of getting accepted into PhD programmes and fellowships and obtain full funding.

In 2022 I accepted the Midlands ESRC scholarship to pursue my PhD at the University of Warwick, in the UK. I had been granted the Hornby scholarship to complete my MA at the same university in 2017. I have been an English teacher for over 20 years and I have been a teacher trainer for 5. My love for my profession has fueled my passion to further it by becoming a researcher in the Applied Linguistics department. My research interests include teacher development, peer observation, video and technology.

Before being awarded 3 scholarships in 2022 from universities in the UK, Northern Ireland and Australia, I had been applying for PhD scholarships for 2 years in a row (2020 and 2021), without any strategic plan or support, only to get rejections. I received more than 10 rejections before. In 2021, I decided to stop and focus on what I had previously done wrong. I worked on my application with the support of the right people, collected feedback and re-wrote all my key documents: the research proposal, personal statement, CV and also rehearsed for the interview.

That's why I created the course Pursuing PhD Scholarships, a blended online course where PhD applicants in Social Sciences can learn my strategies and get support from me ( if you want to pay for consultations).

I have also invited 2 experienced colleagues who have brought their expertise in applying for scholarships and assistantships to this course.

Guest speakers

Chara Triantafyllidou is a PhD Student and Gates Scholar at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. She is also a Teacher of Modern Greek as a Foreign Language at Trinity College Dublin and has worked as an Associate Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. She is currently serving as an MCR Welfare and Education Officer at Downing College, Cambridge. Her research looks into the role of prosody and socioeconomic status in the reading comprehension of bilingual children in the UK.

She was offered 3 scholarships to pursue her PhD and chose the Gates Scholarship from the University of Cambridge. She has declined the International PhD Studentship from the University of Reading (UK) and the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship - Irish Research Council from Trinity College Dublin ( Northern Ireland).

Dr Larissa Goulart is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Montclair State University, in the US. Larissa received her PhD in Applied Linguistics from Northern Arizona University. Her research interests include corpus linguistics, research methodology and register studies.

She received the Hornby Scholarship to complete her MA in ELT at Warwick University; after her MA, she got a Fulbright scholarship to teach Portuguese at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. She also received offers of GTA/GRAships from seven universities to complete her PhD.

What is the course like?

Pursuing PhD Scholarship is an online course that allows you to prepare your PhD applications at your own pace.

You will find invaluable resources and tools, including over 2 hours of video-recorded sessions from finding scholarships within Social Sciences to getting prepared for an interview.

You will learn the right strategies to craft a strong personal statement, and proposal, to get prepared for an interview and much more. I will walk you through a meticulous analysis of such documents as well.

The course will definitely maximise your chances of getting a PhD scholarship.

What's inside + What will I learn?

What should I include in the personal statement? How many research questions should my proposal have? How many potential supervisors should I contact? How can I approach them?

Instead of wasting your time googling these questions and perhaps finding some dubious answers, you can find the answers to these questions and many more within training videos, sample documents and other downloadable handouts and summaries.

Among other things, you will…

Find an effective structure that will help you get started and progress with your application smoothly.

Feel confident to craft a unique and strong proposal, personal statement and other important documents for your application.

Learn and analyse authentic successful samples of proposals, personal statements, and CVs and understand how to apply such strategies to yours.

Have unique access to a 1:1 coaching session with me, Cecilia, and 2 rounds of tailored feedback on your research proposal, personal statement and interview after you complete your course for an additional cost.

More than 10 captioned training videos with slides (over 2 hours) to watch at your own pace.

Quizzes and self-study tasks after each module. They're bite-sized video lessons with analysis of documents with slides and captions for higher accessibility.

Downloadable samples (different versions of my own personal statement, research proposal, CV, checklists, organizational planner, summaries, and email template to contact potential supervisors)

Content

Module 1- How to find studentships

Module 2- Gathering information and documents

Module 3 - Choosing the right potential supervisors and contacting them

Module 4 - Writing a research proposal

Module 5 - Writing a personal statement

Module 6 - Preparing for the interview

A candid disclaimer

I cannot guarantee that you will obtain a fully-funded scholarship or fellowship to a PhD programme through this course. It wouldn't be honest or ethical.
As this is a self-study course, you must be aware that you will be the sole responsible for the completion, quality, development and submission of your applications. Therefore, besides external factors, the level of effort and focus that you devote to this course will impact the outcomes of your applications.

What is my role in the course? Can I offer any guarantee?

If you follow the course, watch all videos, do the readings, exercises and tasks and actively attend the 2 Q&A live sessions per month and participate in the forum for a minimum of 6 months, you will be fully equipped with the skills, tools and mindset to write significantly impactful applications that can maximise your chances of getting at least one PhD scholarship or studentship.

£97 or 2 monthly payments of £49

Pursuing PhD Scholarships

Course
21 Lessons

This is a self-paced course that will maximise your chances of getting a PhD scholarship within the areas of Social Sciences and Humanities.

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