Masters degree with two young DCs & a 4 day working week?

[gemloving]

I'm looking into doing a masters degree. I've decided to go down to four days a week until both my children are in school (I'm still on mat leave but will return to work in 4 weeks).

I saw someone post about degrees and to specialise in my field, I could do a masters degree which would help my career once the DCs are a bit older and I would go back to working full time. I could do distant learning.

Are there any mums on here who have done this? I can imagine it to be incredibly hard but would hate to not give it a go. I do feel passionate about it.

Would you have childcare on the 5th day so you can focus on studying?
Do you have a partner who can take the kids out for a half day at the weekend or do bedtimes a couple of evenings a week so you can study then?

I started a masters on maternity leave and have just finished it. Mine was all remote / self learning which made it a lot easier to manage because I didn't have lectures or tutorials and just had to find lots of time to read and study. I also work four days a week but have never really been able to use my fifth day for studying as my DS is at home with me. I tended to study in the weekends and evenings.

You might find it helpful to browse some threads on the Mature Study and Retraining board, here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mature_students

Countless people doing exactly what you’re considering.

@AwkwardPaws27 I would be able to send them to nursery or send them half day as we could afford it. The plan for now is for me to have them of course but the course wouldn't start before September. My husband is brilliant with the kids. We now split bedtime anyway, so I do 4 days, he does 3, then we alternate or see what plans we have in the week/ weekend.

@mynameiscalypso that makes sense, I wouldn't be able to get anything done when I'm looking after the kids.

@TottersBlankly thank you - I wasn't aware!

It’s a pleasure!

I did a vocational masters degree while my DC were both in primary.

I only worked 3 days a week 3 days a week but my course was all in person (pre covid) so 2 days a week at Uni in the first year and the second year was one day at work plus I had a placement day as well.

It was hard but actually eminently doable.

Planning was absolutely key, I would plan out when I'd do my assignments and block out days in my calendar and I absolutely HAD to do them then, I'd stay in the library until they were done no matter how late it was.

Usually did assignments on a weekend while DH had the DC but if there was a random day I wasn't at Uni I'd ring fence it for study.

I had a very flexible wfh job so didn't have childcare for the DC either, worked around school drop off and pickup and I also did childcare swaps with a SAHM friend who would have them after school for me on Uni days and then I'd have her two after school another day.

Looking back I'm not sure how I managed it but I did. Got a distinction too :)

If you really want it you can make it happen just go for it and don't look back.

Sorry that didn't make sense!

Had a job 3 days a week all through.

First year went to Uni 2 times a week.

Second year went to uni once a week and placement once a week.

Hi @gemloving - we're going to move your thread over to our Mature Study and Retraining topic as suggested by TottersBlankly

Best of luck with it all!

Blimey I am finding it a struggle for it's more kids and only working one day a week!

What’s your subject gemloving?

(There will almost certainly be others here involved in the same thing, or something similar.)

Having a really strong interest in the thing gives you a head start, though. It’s very apparent that after a period away from academic study, and with the added responsibilities one has acquired along the way, it’s impossible to rely on auto-pilot. Or sitting up all night with an essay crisis.

But in all likelihood, once you start you’ll find you enjoy and appreciate postgrad study far more than your first degree.

Mine should say "no kids" here.

Also I went straight from a second degree into the masters so have had 2 years of experience of doing essays and coursework's and learning my way round the research tools /academic articles.
Doing it cold would be tough. There are no "practice essays" at masters where we had tons of them at undergraduate, at least one for each module, so had an idea of what was expected of us.

I couldn’t have done mine like that.

Does yours have a breakdown of modules and the amount of expected work required for each? Mine did, and I spent about 2/3 of what they said. Which was 25 hours a week. I think it depends whether you can work in the evening or not. My children were only in bed for 8/8.30pm at that point and I can’t sleep straight away after working so it really didn’t leave me with much study time in the evening.

I'm doing it right now. I work 4 days and have a fairly demanding job and I have one primary age and one nursery age DC. I am doing a master's apprenticeship through my job.

It is demanding. I'm on a challenging technical course. I do live virtual sessions once a week during my workday and I study evenings and also during the 3hrs on my non work day that DC2 is in nursery. I was working on an assignment last night after dinner. I enjoy it though and I'm managing.

I did mine between kids so only had DC1 and worked a 4 day week

The masters was a part time setup so over 2 years with blocks of lectures

Really enjoyed it; handed my dissertation in around 35 weeks pregnant with DC2 so it all worked nicely !

I really enjoyed it; completely different to work and home, new thinking, new ideas

To the question on childcare we paid for FT nursery so I had the option of taking her in / not on that 5th day, a bit of a luxury tbh but worked nicely

@whistlewhileyouwalk thank you! Well done on getting distinction! Planning is key - you're right!

@TottersBlankly Economic Crime and it's the field I work in.

@burnoutbabe I finished my degree 9 years ago and got a first. It'll definitely be harder than doing my undergrad with no children and a part time job.

@SheWoreYellow yes it does! It's part time though, not full time. Kids are asleep by 06:30/7 and wake up 12h after that.

@pitterpatterrain yes it's the same for my course. Nice to hear a positive story. We have the same luxury as we could put both DCs full time in nursery.

Is it the new Manchester one? I'd love to do that at some point!

@mynameiscalypso Portsmouth!

Ah yes, I know some of the Portsmouth people and that's a really great option!

The only thing I would add is, depending on your area of focus, it might be worth considering a more vocational qualification like the Certified Fraud Examiner, ACAMS or ICA. I didn't do the Plymouth course but did a Masters in Law that specialised in Economic Crime and my CFE/ICA qualifications are more recognised in industry. Totally depends on what you do though!

Portsmouth not Plymouth!