Am I biting off more than I can chew?

[JanuarySnooze]

I'm a single parent to 2 year old dd and want to go to uni in September to study a masters in Psychology and then a further 3 years study doing a PhD to become a psychologist.

I'm smart and already have a first class bachelors degree but that literally squeezed every last bit of life out of me when I was going through exams etc and I'm worried about doing it all again now I have dd.

Should I go for it or settle for something less?

Go for it! If not this year then when DD starts school. You will always regret what you didn't try to do. Xx

How much research have you done into the course requirements? For most psychology PhD courses you need a year or more of clinical experience, I'm looking at doing educational psychology to PhD level and the courses I've looked at require a minimum of 9 months paid experience working with young people before applying for a PhD place.

I'm not trying to out you off bit the paid experience requirement has thrown a spanner in the works for me. I have volunteer experience but not paid so that's my next task when my youngest starts school.

If you can meet all the requirements for experience then I'd say go for it but wait till your dd starts school. That way you'll have a few hours child free time each day to study as there's a huge amount of work.

Yeah I know about the paid experience part but by the time I get around to that dd will be in full time school so it shouldn't be an issue (finding a job might be though).

Have you started the masters yet tiny?