Doing a PhD

[Phdhumanrights]

I'm wondering if I'd be mad to do a PhD. I currently can't work due to a disability. I am at home twiddling my thumbs and thought that I could spend this time studying.

My interest is human rights. I have an LLM in international human rights law and development.

I'm thinking of doing a PhD in something to do with human rights for example Refugees, human trafficking or some other relevant area.

Ideally I'd speak to someone who specialises in human rights law and get advice on what to study.

Does this sound like a silly idea?

@parietal gives good advice.
I'd encourage you to go for it. It's too late probably for this year but there are scholarships e.g. ESRC, Scottish Graduate Social Sciences that you could try for. I think you need a supervisor who applies for you - there are schemes where you create the topic and apply for the funding.
You've nothing to lose by applying. Good luck!

I say go for it, it sounds like the challenge you are looking for and I’m sure it will open doors for you.You certainly won’t be twiddling your thumbs 😂

All those saying you won’t get work or you can’t do it with a disability have no idea what you are capable and anyone’s PhD can be derailed by any number of things. I had to deal with COVID, financially supporting my young adult children, nursing a terminally ill relative and contributing financially to my household. On paper I should have avoided a PhD but I didn’t and now im a Dr in a post doc position.

definitely start talking to people who work in the area you are interested in, and begin to put a proposal together.

Good luck, this sounds really exciting

Thanks everyone, some really, really good advice. It's a huge undertaking and needs a lot of consideration. Age is not on my side though I have a few decades until retirement.

I think the best place to start is with professionals in the field to get an idea of direction. Then I can contact the head of department from my LLM for advice.

This sounds a sensible approach. It's really worth putting a lot of thought and work into things at this stage and really getting your head around your proposal in terms of where it might take you (in your research and afterwards). You will need to do this for a funding application in any event.

Then I can contact the head of department from my LLM for advice.

No, contact the Director of Postgraduate Studies, or a similar title. The HoD will just pass it on to the DPGR anyway.

I did my PhD in this area and my experience was that it didn't help me with policy roles, even though I had nearly a decade of experience in NGOs before starting, To be recruited to NGO policy roles, you need to do NGO roles - I'd have been better putting my efforts in doing more volunteering for NGOs.

Just my experience and yours might be different. I was constrained by where I lived and by being a single parent. But I also found that a PhD wasn't the best preparation for the role I wanted - too narrow, too much theory, too weakly associated with advocacy, and it dated too quickly. I'm not saying it's impossible for anyone to succeed on this route - you might succeed where I failed - but it's a path that won't necessarily take you where you want to go.

I'm sorry to hear that. I live in London but as you know, NGO work is difficult to find. I'm not completely set on policy work, I gave it as an example of what opportunities may be available.

Since you work in the field, what is your suggestion on what I do while I'm not working? There are lots of free courses I can do available online. I can also look into volunteering at home.

Hi OP, I don't work in the area now so I'm not sure I'm best placed to advise, but I think that a combination of free courses and volunteering would be interesting. It may be obvious, but it's worth spending time browsing ads for your ideal jobs to see what they are looking for, and maybe staff profiles on websites. In terms of eg supporting refugees & asylum-seekers, I think I'd have been more useful if I'd learned how about immigration law rather than doing the PhD.

Go for it! I’m in the last year of mine now (four years in total with 1 year of maternity leave taken in the middle), and I’ve used it to prevent a gap in my CV whilst essentially being a stay at home mum for my two children. I got a fully funded scholarship that also pays me a salary.

I’ve worked on it around the small amount of childcare we have, so have done a lot of research and writing in the evenings etc. It’s in a humanities subject so very flexible in terms of home working.

It doesn’t need to be super stressful, you can get out of it what you want/need! I’ll submit just as my second child starts school, then I’ll decide what I want to do next. It’s been fab.

I'm already trained in refugee law, that was part of my LLM. Looking at job descriptions is a great idea.

I'm really pleased to hear you had a good experience. It's quite a daunting prospect and it's nice to hear positive experiences.

This is true, it will need to go to the doctoral studies lead, but I would rather a student email me as they know me already and I can do a wee e-intro, especially if the student doesn't feel confident/comfortable emailing directly. I get former masters students contacting each year about possible doctoral studies and it's always lovely to hear from them!

Fair enough, @Justkeepingplatesspinning - I was just thinking as an HoD - I get far too many irrelevant emails as it is. If someone contacted me asking advice on fairly vague ideas about a possible PhD, I'd send it straight to my DPGR. I don't have the headspace for that sort of thing.

OTOH, if someone contacts me with a brief outline of a likely topic for research, and makes it clear that they're interested in being supervised by me, because their topic is in my research specialism, then I can respond productively.

I agree with those suggesting a PhD could hold you back.

Mine is not unrelated to my job/profession, but also so specific that it's not a job in itself. It's helpful, but it kept me out of the job market fur nearly 4 years.

Interesting. What would you do in my position?

doing A PhD primarily prepares you to be a university lecturer. But there are v few jobs as lecturers as the moment so that is a v risky career path. If you don’t want to be a university lecturer, think hard about what skills you’ll get from a PhD and whether it might be better to get those skills in a different way.