Be realistic about a PhD

[dobeessneeze]

I am considering an MSc/PhD. It would be in an emerging area of social sciences research and would be fully funded (fees and stipend) and involve a taught Master's for one year followed by 3 PhD years. I have 2 DC (aged 8 & 14) who are home educated, DP works full time and we generally have a very full and busy life. It would be a big boost to my employment credentials, as well as an achievement of a personal ambition in an area that I feel very passionately about. But I am feeling very uncertain about how realistic it is to take on this project with everything else. I currently work around 15 hours per week from home which I would stop while studying, DH may be able to reduce to 4 days at work, and I'd have family to help a day or two per week. In theory it would be possible to do part time, but the idea of it dragging on for 7-8 years is not really any less daunting than the idea of full-time over a shorter period. I'd be really grateful for any views on what is a realistic weekly time commitment for a taught Master's, year 1, year 2, and year 3 of a PhD - I know it's supposed to be equivalent to a full time job, but that surely doesn't mean 37 hours a week sitting at a desk?

I can't afford for this to take over my life - please tell me is it possible to do a PhD and keep it firmly in its box?

Hi. Obtaining funding is a big deal so that is a major draw. It IS possible, but extremely difficult for a PhD not to take over your life. It can be uneven in terms of time commitment, but essentially yes it is the equivalent of 37 hours a week, or more (if you are working towards your master's assessments and later with data collection and then writing up). It will occupy a significant proportion of your heads pace. Where will you work if the kids are home educated? Who will be educating them?

You won’t be able to adequately home educate your children through GCSEs and A Levels on top of doing a PhD. That just isn’t realistic. Either their education will suffer or your PhD (which can result in loss of funding/stipend).

I would start looking to enroll them in school.

I'm a lecturer on a teaching contract and my university sponsored me to do a PhD part-time. I've just quit, it was awful. I didn't have a passion for the subject which didn't help, but it was just so hard to fit around my other commitments (teaching, an admin role and my young DC). It came bottom of the heap every time and was making me feel like shit.

My quality of life improved dramatically the instant I decided to pack it in.

I don't think you will be able to complete a PhD while home educating. It's not realistic.

I worked a lot more than 37 hours a week on my PhD.

I'm afraid it does mean at least 37 hours a week, and in the write up stages, and the masters dissertation phase potentially a lot more. It is also very difficult not to have a PhD take over your life, particularly in the final year. And to some extent living and breathing it, is part of the process. I know women who have successfully completed PhDs part time while raising children, but I don't know anyone who has completed a PhD while homeschooling their children.

I agree with the poster above that homeschioling your children through GCSEs and A-levels while doing a PhD would be extremely challenging. I would not recommend it, I think someone is bound to lose out.

Congratulations on obtaining funding but I think this plan may need to be put on the backburner until you have more time.

If you've got fees and stipend funding then go for it!! My PhD was the best three years of my life. I picked the right subject (i.e., I really cared about it), and so never got fed up. I wish I could do it again! I am lucky enough to now be in an academic job, but think back so fondly on my PhD years.

Were you home schooling and had kids?

PhD is a huge commitment. Do you teach your kids or do they have full tuition from external sources? If it's the latter then you could do it, I had some part time jobs as a PhD student, but was young with no commitments. If you teach your kids yourself then no way can you balance that many plates

I did an MBA then straight into a PhD whilst working full time with young kids. My study was part time so took double the time but it was manageable. My PhD was also fully funded.

Thanks everyone. You're right that one of my concerns would be that we could keep up with the children's education and over a really critical time for them, especially for the eldest - we have a good structure in place that works for us at the minute, but this will also be something that changes over the next few years as the kids get older. The Master's wouldn't start until next September, so at this stage I am trying to work out whether it's just out of the question, or whether it would be doable with a bit of careful planning and putting in place the right structures and support to make sure that everyone's needs are met.

The other thing I should have mentioned is that doing it part time is really hard, no matter what you're doing with the rest of that time. As someone said upthread, you need to live and breathe it and it's not something you can pick up and put down like you can with other work.

We do it through a mixture of in-person classes that I take them to, online classes that they sort out themselves, self-directed learning and 1-1 tuition for Maths and English.

Echoing everyone else that it's a full time job, so there's no way you'll be able to adequately homeschool your kids alongside. You're also kidding yourself that it'll give your career a boost. A phd is nice, but outside a few niche areas pretty much worthless besides personal satisfaction. 4 years full time focused on career building and networking would pay back a million times better.

Yes, this is partly what makes me think that part-time wouldn't necessarily be any easier.

If I were you I’d start full time, get through the masters and see how that goes - then evaluate whether to quit with a masters (making applying for a phd in the future possible), keep on full time, or switch to part time. Check what the part time options are with your funder and university but you should be able to change at any point - there’s often a low point in a phd where it will all feel completely unmanageable whatever your situation, you could have the part time option in your back pocket for whenever that hits. If they let you do 0.5 for example you can just do that for tha last year and it’ll give you one extra year.

I'm self-employed and it would give me a specialism in an emerging area that very few people are engaging with, so I think there would be clear benefits, but I take your point that it may not be as beneficial as I think it would be, and that there are other ways to go about it.

I think part of what I am grappling with is the size and scale of the impact on the family life and whether it would be possible to create the space to accommodate this between a combination of me stopping my work, DH reducing his hours, help from grandparents etc.

This is a great idea. Thank you. I will speak to them about this option - I think it is possible to switch between full-time and part-time but it's not an option they are keen on.

If anything it's harder. FT working hours are enough to get stuck in, even if you can't do overtime. PT hours aren't really. But of course, if you're home schooling, you can't magic up FT hours.

If it's scientific-ish, you'll be able to build the same specialist reputation by writing a conference paper or two then advertising to clients to take on that sort of work, with lots of pop-science LinkedIn posts. You only need to be specialist enough that your name comes up on Google. A masters should help you learn the skills to do that. I've got a PhD in something specialist but the field has changed so much in 10 years it's not really valid any more and clients rely on previous project experience. Plus, writing a book on a topic is no proof that you can actually deliver anything useful to a client. I did enjoy my phd, but I tell my students to view it like running a marathon: painful, rewarding, time consuming, and outside the immediate academic community really no one cares.

I'm self-employed and it would give me a specialism in an emerging area that very few people are engaging with, so I think there would be clear benefits

You're working FT hours now though, so even if it did lead to more work, presumably you wouldn't be able to take it on. Or would you be able to charge substantially more?

Starting the MSc next September seems sensible though, and being prepared to drop to PT once you're a year or two into the PhD stage. What are the plans for the older one? Might they involve going to sixth form college once the Masters stage is done - might help?

I can't afford for this to take over my life - please tell me is it possible to do a PhD and keep it firmly in its box?

No it isn’t really. A PhD isn’t anything like anything you’ll have done before. Writing my first book was easier in many ways.

Yes, the older one will probably go to college at 16.

I would be able to charge substantially more - but yes, you're right that the benefits in terms of being able to reap the rewards would probably be delayed due to time constraints.

I'm working part-time at the minute, but the hours I can set myself so I tend to start working at 7.30 in the morning and do a few hours while the kids get themselves breakfast and sorted for the day, and then pick up again evenings/Saturdays. With a taught Master's this would be impossible, although easier to set my own hours for PhD to an extent outside of fitting in with meeting schedules.

This is really useful - thank you. I think I have the idea that only academics can write conference papers - I have no idea where I have got this idea from, and have only just realised that I even think this.

Adding further - if you have funding and at a decent research-led university, there will be a lot of mechanisms to get you through in the 3 years, with a possible 4th “writing up” year during which you’ll receive minimal supervision.

If you don’t, there can be sanctions, because research council PGR funding is dependent partly on our completion rates. If one student crashes and burns, it can jeopardise future funding for future PGRs at that institution.

So processes will be in place to keep you on track quite rigorously. Your private life is not relevant: we assume you are able to devote full time hours - minimum of 40 hours per week.

I would say it is full time hours, yes.

The part time PhD can work well, but generally as set days (e.g. Mon/Tues/Wed with paid work Thurs/Fri), not a few hours here and there to fit in with other commitments. It's very very hard to do PhD level work part time in that way. You might not be on the same page as others about what part-time usually means in this context.