Doing a History PhD while teaching full time. Can it be done?

[quaere]

I am contemplating beginning a part-time PhD in History. I got a first in my first degree, and a good masters from a top-3 department. I have a pretty good idea of what I would do for my thesis (carrying on from masters). My main concern is time. Is it too much with teaching full time? Has anyone here done it, maybe with a different subject? tia

difficult.

How much time would you have during the week for it?

Haven't done it that way myself, but it would be a hard slog and very likely to take longer than the expected amount of time if you are working FT too. What family/other commitments do you have? How much time would you be able to spend on it at evenings and/or weekends? Also, is this for personal satisfaction or with an eye to a career move?

I did a PhD, full time at first, and would have found it hard to do in dribs and drabs. I got my first university teaching post before I had finished it, and then realised how hard it was to get the focus you need in snatched snippets of time. Only the vacations really gave me that, and obviously they're shorter if you're a school teacher. The weekends and evenings got very tainted by guilt also -- you feel like you deserve time, but then you always feel like you ought to be doing the PhD at any moment when you are technically free.

I think you can finish one that way (I did!) but that it would be hard to work up the momentum to do it like that from the beginning. A friend of mine with a 4-day a week job tried, and it didn't work out for her despite her being very enthusiastic and self-motivated. But then there are also loads of success stories, and I'm so glad I did mine.

I echo EightiesChick -- why do you want to do it ?

I have a PhD in chemistry which I completed full time. I have no idea how anyone would do a PhD part time, let alone in addition to a demanding full time job! My PhD was like a job, I got up every morning, made my way to the lab or laptop and worked a full day (and often into the night). In terms of your thesis you'll need a supervisor and your title will need to be checked so it is contributing to original research (you don't say whether your masters was a taught or research programme). PhDs are very difficult, and the longer they take the more difficult they become as research is moving on all the time. I suggest a serious chat with an academic whose research you are interested is will be your best route into deciding if you can manage it.

I did exactly that. Did my masters before I started teaching and then started my PhD when I had been teaching for a couple of years. I did it part-time in 4.5 years (and had DD in the middle of it so took six months off as "maternity leave".
I submitted two days before DS was born and did my viva when he was 8 weeks old.

I think teaching is probably one of the best jobs for it. I used to work every Tuesday evening, and then did at least two full days in the archives every school holiday (more in the summer).

Currently no babies - trying to sort out life plan! I did want to do a PhD straight after the masters, but I also wanted to build a school-teaching career and be making some actual moolah (not much, ahem). I was just wondering whether it would be best to start it nowish, or wait until I'm in my 30s (by which time I'll hopefully have kids) and then go part time from teaching. But then I'll have much bigger family commitments...

I know Masters are much less demanding, but it was at Cambridge and I managed to be freakishly organised with it, doing a blast at the archives then spending a few weeks writing it up. It was a taught course, but the diss was a big part of it and was 20,000 words.

well it will never be easy but I should think a bit more manageable pre-dc

I have just decided against doing a part-time MA in Literature at the same time as a full-time teaching job. I feel all relaxed now, but I know that in a few weeks I'll have two hundred books a week to mark, and coursework, and Key Stage Three to coordinate... I just feel I would be stretched too thinly. But maybe you're more organised with me.

Quaere, I would start now and get the bulk of the archive slog done before children arrive on the scene. Writing up/literature seraching can be done from home around children, but the archives are obviously only open office hours and thus will need you to use the school holidays.

clemette, so what was the deal for you and supervisions? Full-time PhDs seem to have once a month supervisions, how often were yours? How much time did you actually have to be at the uni, and was it the local uni or further away? Sorry, loads of questions!

I was at the local uni (Nottingham). I had supervisions about once every 4-6 months and apart from that never had to go into the university.
I think the part-time option is very different to full-time. I was paying my own fees and had no pressure to write anything for publication along the way. They were incredibly helpful, but at the end of the day, the longer it took me the more I had to pay so I was very focussed on getting it done quickly.

Cool. If supervisions are that infrequent, it wouldn't matter too much if the uni was quite far away, I guess. It sounds doable, especially now a lot of stuff is going online (e-books, State Papers etc.) I think technology is a big help - my dad wrote his PhD on a typewriter! Thanks for your help

You're welcome - good luck.

Nosey nosey here. I would love to do a Phd in History. What are you thinking of doing?

Um, possibly something about the political involvement of aristocratic women during the late Victorian period. There has been quite a lot on middle and working-class Victorian women, but the aristocracy have been a bit overlooked so far...