Why do you need a degree to study a PhD?

[MajorLook]

So. Education in this country works like this: Broad spectrum undergraduate degree, more specific Masters degree, then if you have an original idea, you can study towards a PhD.

Question. Why do you need a bachelors (and/or) masters degree to do a PhD? Surely there are people out there who can have original thoughts, can research under supervision, and can write a PhD all without previous degrees?

Is it just the way it is? Is it because you have to 'prove your worth' to education? Is it that you have to learn specific skills along the way?

I would love to work towards a PhD and have a few ideas that would work very well, in a serious academic discipline, but I don't have a degree.

Couldn't you go down the investigative journalism route? Or make a website or documentary or something like that. Think about it, have you read a journal? Do all hcps keep up with every single new publication? You could already have the skills you need to achieve what you want.

I've just finished a BA and you learn that it is extremely hard to claim that you have an original idea. Or even if it is you have to explain how you came up with it via literature already done on the subject. There are hundreds of different academic journals published every year so see what's out there already.

Also searching journals are a pain in the arse, in the past I've struggled to find exact articles that I need never mind finding new ones. One tip I've found is find one article, then search for the articles they have cited too. Sometimes I've found really interesting ones then I've realised no one has cited them anywhere and they haven't actually been published so you have to be careful.

It might be worth begging a student friend for their log in so you can search all journals, otherwise you will meet lots of pay walls.

Oooh and try Google Scholar it's quite good for finding more academic type stuff.

Good tip on Google Scholar karalime, thanks.

I used to be a journalist so it's funny you should mention that. It could be that that is the way to get more into this, start a web campaign or something.

Thanks

Searching journals is really easy, come on people! I remember the pre-internet days when you had to spend days amongst the library cards and the only way from one journal to the other was via the references.

There are loads of search engines: Google Scholar and PubMed cover an enormous amount plus there will be subject specific ones (e.g. in my subject the Philosopher's Index cites pretty much everything).

Access to journals is a different matter. It can be quite costly for independent reserachers to access journals, most sell on an article by article price but it is expensive. Try JStor which allows access to a limited number of articles at a time for free, or the British Library which stores pretty much everything (for a much more reasonable price than the publishers the BL will e-mail you copies of articles or chapters in books).

Some professional bodies offer subscriptions to journals via Athens and some Uni libraries allow for lay members (local residents?) to join them in which case you get access to vast resources for free.

pubmed, scopus, google scholar are good places to look for peer-reviewed articles. for medical purposes pubmed is probably the best place to start.

most university libraries will allow a certain amount of access to walk-in users, so give your local university library a ring (this is an example of what i mean

this is a search in pubmed using the terms "psychology" and "childbirth" - purely as an example

in terms of paywalls, you may find that there is a certain amount of freely available content, especially if the research was publically-funded - if not on the original journal's site (which you should be able to click through from pubmed), then have a check at the author's institution. they may have an institutional repository where the accepted manuscript has been posted. a bit more time-consuming (and it may depend on how recently the paper was published) but if it gets you access without having to leave the computer then so much the better!

A lot of people place their research on academia.edu for free.

Major are you me?!!!

I'm interesting in doing a PhD for exactly the same reasons (people listen to Dr Potter more than Bunny Potter) combining the same areas, or which I have limited experience in one and neither in another, and my undergrad is in an entirely unrelated find, so it's be the 6 years OU course for me too.

I haven't ruled out the OU, but I found someone who works in something close to where I'm wanting to go and spoke to them about it and how they recommended getting into the area. It was very useful. Maybe there's someone professional or academic who you could get in touch with. I think that if people see you're genuinely passionate about it (and they're nice!) they'll speak to you.

Subjects of PhDs only usually become public knowledge after they are published as books or articles. Do your research & write a book. It isn't particularly difficult to get non-fiction books published (as long as you don't expect to make money).

Do you still know any OU students? OU student access to journals is free, online, and easily searched.

What about doing a degree or MA through the OU? They are not as cheap as they used to be (sadly), but cheaper than the 9k tuition fees. You can sometimes go to MA level with them without the BA/BSc degree.

I think if you are serious about doing a PhD, you really do need to get some academic qualifications in the field. A Masters in particular teaches essential research skills that you can't really do a PhD without nowadays - searching for academic papers is only the tip of the iceberg, because without a grounding in the field, how will you evaluate them or be able to place them in a disciplinary context? You mention a survey - but gathering data is only the first step: you need to be able to make it fit within a whole academic field (survey results alone - ie. collecting new data - won't get you a PhD; the originality of a doctoral project lies in making a theoretical and methodological case for your work and the significance of your data within the wider discipline). It's pretty hard all at the same time to learn all the research skills needed, plus learn about all of the discipline you're in, plus design and collect data, test out your ideas at conferences and in draft, and then write it up (as you go along, these days - no frantic pulling it together in the last six months any more).

Almost everyone starts a PhD with an ambitious idea they think is very original, and has to change it; a (very) few people do have a genuinely original project, but the vast majority of PhDs are what historians of science call "normal science", eg. they examine a problem that fits squarely within particular disciplinary parameters, and situated itself as very much part of the wider field - there really aren't many brilliantly original interdisciplinary doctoral theses, because by and large the point of a doctorate is to "earn your spurs" in a particular discipline. Plus brilliantly original interdisciplinary projects tend not to be particularly practical and completable within the 3-4 years required for submitting a thesis at most UK universities (those people I know who did have brilliantly original doctoral ideas actually spent a lot of time rewriting and/or refining their work after the PhD - as part of a postdoc research fellowship, for example - the brilliant published book or whatever tends to take more like 6-7 years to appear: the thesis is only the first stage).

Everyone starts out with an idea they end up having to change a lot and refine - because when you start out with your initial research statement, you'll be making a claim that "no-one has hitherto done X" - but in reality, you have no idea at that stage whether no-one has done X because it's a stunningly original idea, or because it doesn't really work, or because it's just not an interesting question, or sometimes because someone else has done it, either a long time ago, or (horrors!) because someone in the US is just about to publish a monograph right on your topic. And you need to have the disciplinary knowledge and flexibility to resituate yourself and work out why some hunches lead to genuine knowledge, and why some just don't. Having the academic background is not just about the research skills, but about an essential core knowledge which informs what you do, so it's worth thinking about putting that foundation in place first.

Have you thought about applying for a Masters that includes a research dissertation, and testing out your idea there? Many doctoral theses start life as MA/MSc projects, and you can in some cases do a Masters without a degree in the relevant field. You would then have a much better idea whether it would work as a PhD thesis, and would also be more likely to be taken on by a department. I would have to say, honestly, that most departments wouldn't take on a doctoral student without the relevant prior qualifications - it would be too much of a risk, and very unfair on the student concerned, as PhD students are generally left to get on with it, often with minimal supervision, and most departments are just not set up to provide the kind of support someone would need coming to the PhD without, say, a research-led Master's degree.

FaFoutis in my field it is exceptionally rare for someone's PhD thesis to be published as while they are expected to be original and show strong evidence of indepent thinking, the field is so competitive it is unlikely that someone's PhD thesis is of sufficient quality for publication. There is absolutely no money in publishing an academic book, but competition for doing so is extremely fierce. Even out side the top publishers you'd need initial approval by an editor and then the entire manuscipt would need to be reviewed by two independent reviewers before going back to the editor for final acceptance. The review process alone can take a year or two, with required corrections and improvements and they is absolutely no guarrantee of acceptance at the end.

If your priority is to get the research done, rather than get a degree, and you have already done some work and presented a paper, then I would be tempted to suggest approaching an academic colleague and looking for collaborators for a research proposal. Universities are big on the knowledge exchange agenda and working with non-academic partners. If you are in the NHS, there will be someone in the R&D department who can advise you.

So you don't have any experience in either psychology, physiology or midwifery, or in research methodologies, yet you're hoping your research on a combination of the first three using the latter will be taken seriously. Can you see why I'm struggling with this?

OP if you are planning on doing research involving human subjects don't forget REC approval!

OP, the fact that you need to ask the question shows why someone aspiring to research and write a PhD needs an undergrad degree at the very least. Your whole view of scholarly serious research is incredibly naïve, and actually unrealistic and romantic.

It actually irritates me immensely that people denigrate serious long years of research and expertise in this way. Oh yes, I have a brilliant dea, no-one's ever thought of it before, give me a PhD. I don't need to do all that other study. because I have a brilliant idea.

Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about "my theory"

And this:

The Death of Expertise

are you in humanities booboostoo? i don't know much about that area. in STEM there are some fields where PhD students that do publish and are strongly encouraged to do so - i have been involved in training workshops that assist in manuscript preparation and advise on how to get papers published. though that's slightly off-topic here of course!

i think the advice to go down the journalistic route is a good one. and searching the literature to see whether there are people already involved in similar research who you could interview might be an idea - most people are really keen to talk about their research and would be much better placed to point you in the right direction. are their any charities or funding bodies involved in the area you're interested in? i'm thinking about perhaps the king's fund or the wellcome trust

there

I'm only an undergrad but I wonder if one of the reasons they want undergrad/masters before PhD is because the time studying will show you if your idea is actual original. I know I quite often get an idea which feel original but then within the next 3 or 4 papers find the argument or though has already been written. As an undergrad I find this both humbling and reassuring.

If feelings and birth is something you are interested please check out midwife thinking The writer is both a midwife and has complete a Phd and is now supervising research out of the University of sunshine coast. Her post are all full of references which you should than be able to follow to find more references.

i have met advocates for people with certain conditions (diabetes etc), who aren't researchers or clinicians, but experts in the experience of living with particular conditions and difficulties and assist in the education of HCPs and others involved in their care beyond pure diagnosis/treatment. is that the sort of thing you're thinking of OP?

Having gone through the exact process you describe OP, I would say that it is necessary for you to develop the skills you need to complete a PhD, including the research skills specific to your area (for example my PhD used interviews, while I had supervision, I did the interviews alone so needed to be a pretty skilled interviewer by this time), writing skills (even with two masters degrees I struggled to reach the level of sophistication necessary for a PhD), and organisational skills (managing a research project independently).
I think it is possible not to have a masters though.
Best of luck OP if you decide to embark upon the process!

I'm in the process of applying for a phd studentship (interview next week aargh) and I would really not encourage anyone to go into a phd, even if they were accepted, without an undergrad and preferably a masters.

It is a massive commitment. I believe there is around a 50 percent drop out from phd study; if you haven't tested yourself with previous research I would imagine the rate would be much higher than that. It's the academic gold standard qualification, it is bloody hard, long, soul destroying work (I have many friends who have come through - or not) and Thr thought of going, with no previous background in structuring self directed study, into a 6 year 100k word massively academic piece of work SHOULD, IMO, be absolutely terrifying if you are actually serious about it.

It's also massively expensive btw, thus me seeking the studentship.

I would be concerned that what you perceive as an original idea, within midwifery and psychology, is actually far from being so.

Midwifery students studying at undergrad degree level, qualified midwives undertaking study at masters level and beyond, the many research projects undertaken by practitioners for either their own interest or on behalf of 3rd party interests - it's more than likely that someone will have touched on your idea and either taken it further, or dismissed it for, possibly, good reason. Because they have knowledge of the job and what it entails etc. A PhD in a subject you have limited experience of knowledge about, and without the background skills gained from first doing an undergrad degree and/or masters sounds like a very high mountain to climb.

I agree with other posters who have suggested an investigative journalism piece or some such.

The best advice for anyone thinking of a PhD is, if you can think of any other way to reach your goal, don't do one.
In your case,collaborating with teams, maybe so.e researchers, and publicising some case studies may be a lot more effective more quickly.

The only example I've known of someone doing a PhD without prior quals was a guy who had worked as a lab tech for 10 years, was now running own experiments, and was persuaded to register for a MPhil. It was a huge struggle to learn writing skills - I taught him grammar and logic while he taught me PCR etc - and took about 6 years. He now gets a big kick from having a PhD and no A-levels, but lacking the wider science background from lower degrees does mean he doesn't have the range of transferable skills most PhDs have.

Willie yes Humanities, philosophy. I suspect that in the sciences there is more room for a small, original contribution that may be worthy of publication, and/or a lot of PhDs do collaborative work with their supervisors so joint authorship is a possibility? Of course philosophy PhDs are supposed to be original but that is relative to the level, so for example, Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" and Thomas Nagel's "The view from nowhere" were their PhD work turned into their first books but these are astounding exceptions rather than the norm.