Tell me about masters and PHDs

[Reallyareyousure]

I'm interested in further professional development and considering a PHD or masters in an education based field. I currently have a degree and a PGCE as well as multiple NPQs and middle leadership type courses. I would have to do further CPD while still working and fees could be an issue. I'd be grateful if anybody has any info I should consider when looking about. Thank you.

A PhD will never repay your investment in terms of work and money. In fact it may even prevent you getting a job as you’re considered to be overqualified and employers assume they’ll have to pay you more. A recruitment consultant once jokingly said she’d have more chance of finding me a job if I took my PhD off my CV and said I’d been in jail for that time.

Only do a PhD if it’s needed for your job, like if you want to be a university professor or something. For every other type of job it’s a disadvantage.

I disagree with @Blamunge

I did an applied business type phd in a niche area and it got me my current job. I literally went from funded phd student on a stipend to a high wage in 2 years.

If you want to do it it is worth considering. But you have to really really love the subject and really really want to do it. And be quite self motivated and resilient.

I loved mine it was the best thing I've ever done except for my kids.

I'm not in academia by the way.

I also disagree with @Blamunge. I have a PhD and one of the stupidest reasons to do a PhD is because you intend to be a university professor (or even a lecturer). You might get there, but it's a very long shot. Most people who do PhDs do not become academics, but do other useful things. And given the OP will need to continue working while doing her Masters/ PhD, she would find it easy to omit it from her CV if she really needed to - though frankly, I always suspect this is a bit of a polite fiction. Recruiters who can't get jobs for their clients will always be able to find a reason, won't they - and they won't want it to be 'erm ... you just weren't as good as the person who got it'.

OP, presumably if you're expecting to continue working, you'd be wanting to do your Masters/PhD somewhere fairly local? If so, that narrows the field enough that you probably could just do some digging on the local universities. I'd be looking at how many students they have, what sorts of dissertation titles they come up with, what sort of research the faculty are doing. That way you can see if it looks interesting.

It's totally fine to email academics who are potential supervisors, btw. People get busy so it's possible you wouldn't get a reply, or you'd get a fairly generic 'I am not looking to supervise anyone right now' type response. But, equally, you might get quite a lot of advice, especially if you're looking at a PhD.

I did my M.Ed and got a student loan. I really enjoyed it and I leant a lot. I also have done an NPQ and a PGCE and would say it was much harder than either of those, but then I was much younger and not doing it alongside children, running a home, and a full time job. I did it via a UK university that offered remote learning. I did all my assessments and testing from home, seminars were remote and recorded so I could catch up, and there was a Facebook group so didn't feel like I was totally on my own. I don't think I could have managed it if I'd had to commit to fixed lectures in a specific place at a specific time.

Thanks all. A lot to think about.

I have a PhD which has been useless for my career. My only advice is to choose something you're passionate about. I didn't and it was a long slog.

I've recently finished a PhD and before that a Masters, as a mature student. My advice, in particular re the PhD, would be to have a very clear idea in your mind what it is that you are aiming for in doing it. That could be as simple as "I'm interested and would like to spend a few years researching and thinking about X for my own pleasure"- it doesn't have to be a very grand reason but it needs to be reasonably clear and your goals need to be concrete and achievable.

My experience (and that of a lot of my fellow students) was of going into it with too vague an idea of the point (I mean, the point to you at this stage of your career, not the research questions you look at)- too much "well, I'm interested in the subject and maybe I could have an academic career but I haven't really researched that much or maybe do something else I haven't thought of yet but it would be nice to be Dr X, wouldn't it?" Because it is a big commitment, really big, and there will be times when you think "why I am doing this again?"

So in your shoes I would really look into what sort of concrete professional development you might achieve by doing it- talk to people in your industry, talk to potential supervisors- and really understand how a PhD would improve your professional prospects. (IME academics aren't necessarily great at answering this and tend to assume that a PhD is always valuable.)

To echo a PP, it's not always that helpful a thing to have on your CV, depending on what it is that you do. I work in an area in which everyone has post-grad qualifications and academic qualifications are prized, but even so people are slightly nervous about PhDs and you have to convince them that you won't be too academic in your approach (by which I mean something like "too liable to get bogged down in detail and unable to make a clear decision"- with apologies to any academics reading). At a recent job interview the interviewer only raised my PhD in order to ask whether I thought that was a risk, and I was able to answer by talking about all the bits of doing a PhD that point the other way- teaching, presenting, organising conferences etc- basically downplaying the qualification itself and playing up the surrounding bits.

I've just finished an MBA paid for through the apprenticeship levy. Look up NCE (National College of Education). Most schools are happy to use their apprenticeship levy for level 7 qualifications