Part-Time PhD

paulo6891

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone here is doing a part time PhD on top of full time work, and if so, how do you find it?

I am currently in my early 30s, working, and have the desire to do a PhD. Won't make a huge impact on my career part, but it's like an itch that just won't go away!

Full time funded or part time self funded are the options. Would obviously be taking a bit hit money-wise with the full time option, but the part time one would impact on quality of life.

Keen to hear feedback.

Thanks

castaway_lady

From some currently doing one and crawling through it, frustrated, struggling to find blocks of time I can tell you it is quite difficult to fit in with full time work. But no impossible if you're willing to limit or eliminate other things from your life and are quite disciplined.
I was the same in that it was an itch, because I didn't find masters level particularly challenging. I think it would be easier to do for people working in academia as their day job and in that environment.

In advance of starting into the process of applying I'd say spend your time getting a well formed idea of what you want to research, do a lot of reading around it first, come up with your plan for writing, get everything you can around it organised in advance etc and be ready to hit the ground running.

I don't know what your area is but there also also a range of professional doctorates in the UK uni's which can be done full time, have PhD equivalency and can suit some career pathways more.

intheclouds

Have you studied part time while working full time before?

I havent done a PhD (yet!) part time but I have done a BA, a Masters and an currently doing a BSc part time.

Im making the distinctions there because by far the most difficult to manage time wise was the BA, followed by the BSc and easiest was the Masters.

Its because of how the courses were organised. The BA culminated in summer exams each year meaning that you had a very dense period of study (and if that coincided with a busy work period it was even worse) followed by trying to get the time off to do exams etc... The BSc is a bit looser but its still quite structured.

The Masters was the one that really allowed me to manage the time as I pleased and it ran over the summer too so there wasnt a push to get things done in a semester.

So I think if a part time PhD offers similar freedom of time management itd be totally do-able.

paulo6891

Hi all,

Castaway_lady, how long are you expecting to take to complete the PhD?

I have never studied part time before - I quit my job a few years ago to do a full time MSc. I really enjoyed it and did quite well, hence why I would like to see how far I can go in it.

My area of interest is Machine Learning. Since it is self-funded, I have been told that I will be quite free to manage my time as I please.