to ask if you have a PhD?

[Morgan12]

Looking for advice basically. I'm seriously considering applying for a PhD which hopefully will be funded by the uni as I can't afford the tuition fees (based in Scotland).

I was just wondering if you have one then do you think it was worth the hard work? Did it help your career?

Ideally I'd like a career in academia so would be great to hear from people in this field. If you would be willing to disclose what you earn then please do, even a ballpark figure. What are your day to day duties like etc?

Just really any experiences of PhD study welcome. I need to make a decision asap.

I do & yes, didn’t do it with an eye on career.

My work history is complicated. If you want to work on academia then you need one obviously. I decided very quickly that I did not want to work in academia (although I have run a business related to acadmia for over ten years now). My PhD is not directly related to work I do but isn’t really a waste. But I have ambled around between areas.

One of my siblings has a PhD. She now has tenure at a respected university and believes all the hard work was worth it.

It is great that you might be funded - she had only a small amount of funding which soon ran out, so it was really hard.

It’s an area she is very passionate about and if she wasn’t lecturing, researching and publishing about it she would be spending all her free time on it anyway

Money wise it’s not spectacularly highly paid in her case (I know it must vary a lot between universities) around GBP 63,000 (equivalent) but she is comfortable and has the satisfaction of loving what she does.

Good luck with the application!

I got mine because at the time i wanted to be a university scientist. no jobs after i finished, so went into industry. my phd has been incredibly valuable, i earn easily 3 times as much as none PhD colleagues (mainly because without a PhD you just don’t get the good job offers and the recruiter interest). i could always pick my jobs, never had to actively search which is nice (fingers crossed it stays like that!)

add on : i’m in social sciences. the job market is bad. being able to just pick very well paid permanent jobs as I want is a massive advantage over non-phds. my discipline usually offers fixed term contracts for not so great pay. fingers crossed!

My husband does, I don't. We both did similar undergrads, and when I did my Masters my husband did his PhD. My husband needed his PhD as he's stayed in academia, but I moved to pharma and earn twice as much as him. A lot of my colleagues have PhDs but it's not necessary for the role. Be really careful that you'll actually need it in your intended field, otherwise it could be wasted years.

I completed my PhD part-time and worked full-time throughout. I was self-funded and it took a long time as I took a year off twice for maternity leave for 2 children. I work as a researcher in the voluntary sector, I head up a team so I earn about 50K.

I wouldn't have the job I do now without it as most of the people I manage also have doctorates.

I was a school teacher in the past and the anti-intellectual snobbery was rife.

Crikey - that's depressing

If you want to go into academia then they are useful.
I was due to do one but after doing a masters I realised that I hated the politics of academia!
In my team about a third have them the rest of us have masters. Technically it's not a condition of the job it just seems to be the case but it's science related.

In scientific fields there are a number of careers for which a PhD is advantageous and in some cases essential

This ^

I have a PhD in microbiology and work in academic research, but not all the jobs I have done since completing my PhD have required it. However, it looks good on my CV and it definitely improves my employability even when it hasn't been a requirement of the job.

BUT studying for my PhD was hugely stressful and nearly broke me. There were many times I nearly quit. In the end I completed it but at the time I thought it probably wasn't worth it. It has become more useful as my career has progressed.

MeltingWax it really is. There are absolute bun fights on teaching forums about this. There were even science teachers who would do the silly 'ooh I can't do maths, me' thing. One of the reasons to leave!

Placemarking as considering but not for career reasons.

I have PhD. It has been instrumental in my career, but it was extremely important to me in terms of my confidence and self esteem.

My doctorate has also been very helpful with respect to setting up a small business as a private tutor and the process of studying for the PhD has given me a lot of empathy with students who require additional support in their academic work.

I really enjoyed the research elements of my study, but the writing up was long and tiring.

It depends on your reasons. It also depends on your subject-discipline. If you're doing it for love of your subject and to advance yourself and stretch your thinking, it's worth doing. I also can't speak for the sciences, which differ in many ways from my own area of the arts and humanities. But academia for newly-qualified entrants can be brutal. And whilst I'm one of the fortunate ones in that I'm an established academic, Higher Education is a toxic environment just lately. Unfortunately micro-management, bullying and sexism is rife, and if fees do indeed reduce to £6K in the near future (with universities expected to make up the deficit), I suspect there will be a fairly drastic outcome in many institutions. At the senior level, all Professors at Teeside were recently asked to reapply for their own jobs and many took voluntary redundancies. The University of Hull are also making serious noises about closing their philosophy department completely (a mad decision in my view). I also agree with a PP's comment about spending your life scrabbling for grants: one application takes as much work as a journal article and the success rate is painfully, painfully low. It's a really demoralizing process.

So yes, the sector is bleak and it's as well to know what you're letting yourself in for if you commit yourself to three years' hard study which you won't want to see go to waste. But despite these pitfalls, I still love my job I've never regretted doing the PhD for a moment. Interaction with students is wonderful, and attending conferences with colleagues in my field from in universities up, down and beyond the country, is a joy. They really are like old friends and I admire and respect their work immensely. My research often keeps me sane: it's not really a life's work at all, it's a vocation and a passion.

For me, it was worth it.

I know you've had a lot of responses but wanted to put in my two cents as i have experience in Scotland.

I would always say, only do a PhD if you have the desire to further knowledge in the subject not as and end to a means. It is hard and having young children will only make it harder! Yes as some people say, if you get funding you can just see it as a job but realistically, to get far you will have to go above and beyond working "sociable hours." I have however not known anyone not to complete - i've also not known anyone who did one whilst having children, not that it means you can't but just so you know i'm not able to comment on that.

I do not regret doing mine - for me, i loved the area i worked in and still do, i was able to stay living where i loved and get paid for it. I developed so many skills that i in no way had beforehand and my confidence grew. However, on completion i still found it really hard to find a position - by then i was married and wanted to stay where i was. To get a postdoc you nearly always have to be willing to look in new areas (both subject related and location wise) which i did not want to do.

Living in Scotland, the pool of positions is smaller anyway as the population is - this pool only gets smaller the further up the ladder you move. There are also less and less permanent positions. My first job in my subject after completing was over 2 years later and a 1.5 hour commute each way!

Fortunately i've now landed a permanent position at a university - not as an academic (i don't consider every job working at a uni as an academic post like some people on this thread seem to) but still a technical job related to my PhD area. However i am getting paid around 10k less than what a postdoc would...but i have this job for life, i don't have to move on every year and i'm not unemployed like a lot of people i know trying to find work in their phd area...

It comes down to a mixture of capability, hard work and luck to get into an academic position - i would suggest trying a masters first for an idea of the step up and how full time study would fit in with your home life!

I was awarded by PhD six years ago, and I have pursued a career in academia, so yes, it has been essential. My PhD study was fully funded and I had living costs covered too. I have a 100% research contract with my current university, so I don't do any teaching (I did whilst I was a PhD student, and I had an 80/20 research/teaching contract in my previous university). This is just what I want to do, the biggest downside is the short, fixed term contracts, as I am funded by projects and therefore my contract is only for the duration of funding. I love research, and I love the projects I'm working on (and currently writing a bid for something I am incredibly excited and passionate about). But the job uncertainty is a concern, and I always have an eye out for jobs outside of academia. Do a PhD because you love the project, you want the qualification and if you have support, as it is a long hard slog, not suited to everyone. Good luck!

I’m doing one now. It’s in film so I can be a lecturer of film once the kids are in school.

This is a great question; I am considering it also, but reading these replies, the pay off does not seem worth the effort? @CarolineTheChemist; same field but MSc level, could I PM you?

@MarilynSlumroe
Correct - not in UK. I hadn’t realised tenure didn’t exist there - that must add another pressure, i.e. to keep getting your contract renewed as well as the rest.

I have a PhD in chemistry- it's pretty much the entry level qualification for what I do (writing scientific software); most of our new hires in an equivalent role have post-doc experience too nowadays. After 30 years of working with no particular ambition for climbing a career ladder (I like what I do, and have no desire to do management) my salary is a bit below the higher rate tax threshold - but I only work half time, and from home.

There are many benefits to doing a PhD if it's fully funded, both as an end in itself and a means to an end, but you do need luck to avoid the perpetual post doc trap if you're set on academia and your research isn't also a grounding for a non academic role.

I have a PhD in medieval languages, which I did for pure love of the subject. When I finished it was a toss up being staying in academia and moving to central government and I chose government in the end. But the discipline and experience of doing the PhD have been really useful. And certainly when I’ve worked overseas, the title Dr has helped get me access to people I might otherwise not have been able to access. I do feel I added to the collective knowedge of the subject and left a little legacy though!

Permanent jobs do exist though, or “open-ended contracts”, so once you have a permanent job you don’t have to keep renewing your contract. No tenure as such does mean that it’s easier to sack academics/make them redundant though.

I also have a PhD. I spent some time in academia and some time working with international organisations. It was in a technical area, and I still broadly work in that area, but not entirely. It has helped, as in having it, you can get a jump ahead in the jobs market, as an "expert", it has taught me some soft skills and exposed me to ideas and places I might not have gone without it. One other way of looking at it is that my time as a PhD student was my first job after university, where I had a nice three years of experience, and I'll always have those letters after my name. I suppose it shaped who I am today, and although I don't know if it financially paid off, I wouldn't change it.

Speaking more specifically about pay: first of all, you probably won't get a lectureship straightaway. Most people these days start off on short-term contracts, quite often part-time. Even a permanent contract may well be part-time- but will almost certainly demand more hours than you're paid for.

A permanent fulltime lecturer's contract (almost certainly quite some way into your career) at my uni starts off at around 30k a year. 63k is the final salary for a senior lecturer: you might get there towards the end of your career if you are internationally known/have a proven track record in leadership (e.g. Head of Department)/have plenty of experience of devising programmes and supervising successful PhD students. That would normally be a balanced contract so you would be expected to teach, to research (and contribute to the REF evaluation) and do some admin apart from the admin associated with your teaching.

I have been over 20 years at my uni and have just secured a contract that would pay me 38k a year were it not that my department consistently claim that they cannot afford to pay me more than half-time.

For this 19k, I:

lecture/teach seminars 10 hrs/week at undergraduate and postgraduate level (+ extra, unpaid cover for colleagues who are off sick or on research leave)

devise my own courses on subjects that fit the department profile (which may or may not relate to my own area of expertise)

mark assignments and exams

second-mark and moderate for colleagues

deal with student evaluations

supervise 3rd year dissertations and PhDs

see students in my office hour

see students outside of my office hour (dealing with suicidal students at inconvenient hours is not a rarity)

have pastoral responsibilities for students I do not teach

do own research- on a 0.5 I am expected to contribute at least 2 pieces of research at international level per 7-year period (1 fairly thick monograph would count as 2)

organise publication of said research- these days publishers expect you to do a lot of the legwork

read and discuss the research of colleagues

write grant applications: as research is expensive and my department struggles to come up with enough money to reimburse a single rail ticket, I am expected to cover my research costs through grant which I can't count as part of my work hours

attend conferences (which my dept cannot afford to pay for- so I do)

do 20% admin (this might be something like being academic integrity officer- dealing with all plagiarism cases in the department)

supply endless amounts of information for university and national surveys/box-ticking exercises

try to keep on top of my field

try to work out how to pay for teaching and research material seeing that my dept has no money

Do I love my job? Yes, I do. Do I regret having chosen it? No, I don't. Would I recommend it to somebody else. Hmmmm...

Do it! I have one in biochemistry and didn't stay in research, but I'm now returning to teaching. It will forever open doors and be the most incredible independent achievement. It's solitary and you need more motivation than intellect. It will test you in ways you never thought possible but it's incredibly rewarding.