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Professor here. You definitely aren’t too old, but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere. A PhD is a full-time job. It t

Professor here. You definitely aren’t too old, but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere. A PhD is a full-time job. It took me 6.5 years and was hard enough with very little outside distractions.

lixtra 5y ago
In many places of the world PhD candidates officially work 50% and more as teaching assistants, system admins or other vaguely related jobs. I see little scientific downside to work part time in a well paid related job instead.
dagw 5y ago
I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere We have several people at the company I work (in Sweden) doing their PhD part time. The company gets 'free' research in an area relevant to them and the university gets connections to industry and their research field tested on real world projects. Both se it as a win-win. This sort of arrangement seems quite common in Sweden I know several people who got their PhD this way.
soheil 5y ago
Even if the work is related to the research?
- kortilla 5y ago
  Yes. A phd has very little overlap with learning broad topics about a field (unlike masters and bachelors/associates). Unless your job is literally to do research on the subject of your dissertation, it will not help.
  - soheil 5y ago
    What about working harder than your peers? If you're 2x harder working than the avg phd student shouldn't you be able to dedicate half or a third of that time to work and still finish the phd in 5 years?
    - School-Cotton 5y ago
      How many PhD students have you known? The successful ones at least work extremely hard already; there is no such thing as working twice as hard as them.
      - soheil 5y ago
        Take the top 1% of successful phd students. Does your statement apply equally to them? What about the 0.01%?
        School-Cotton 5y ago
        If anything those denote even more time to their academic work than the average.
        soheil 5y ago
        That's my point, can someone in that group instead of devoting more time than the average to their academic work take that extra time and devote it to their job?
        tomrod 5y ago
        No. If you plan to be successful, there is little to no time outside of being a PhD student. If you want to be in the top 1%, and especially the top 0.01%, you should plan to spend your free time researching to become an expert in your field. But such numerical distinctions are typically meaningless since, by virtue of working towards a dissertation, you should be pushing the boundaries of your field of knowledge and thus have few exact comparables as peers. Source: me (several years now complete w/ PhD), my cohort in my program, and my PhD-earning friends outside my field.
        soheil 5y ago
        Take olympic athletes. There are differences not only in the level of work but also physiologically between those who win gold medals and those who can't be olympic athletes. If you're a would-be gold medalist why isn't it possible to settle for getting into the olympics and have a job on the side?
tombert 5y ago
> You definitely aren’t too old By "old" I didn't mean actual biological age exactly. I guess the more appropriate word would be something more like "settled". As it stands, I have a mortgage and whatnot to take care of, it's not really realistic for me to quit my job and focus full-time on a PhD for the next 5-6 years. > but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere That seems to be the consensus in the US for the most part. Ironically, it's actually easier for a working American to get a distance-learning PhD from a British university than it is to get a local PhD in person in the states. Right now I'm in the process of trying to get into University of York's distance part-time PhD, while remaining in NY. It's a long shot but it's basically my only option.
- anon946 5y ago
  The biggest issue is the remote part, not the part-time part. I'm a professor, and myself and others in the dept. have remote, part-time PhD students. However, they have finished their coursework, which must be done in person for the most part. The coursework could be done part-time, though.
  - bumby 5y ago
    >which must be done in person for the most part. I think COVID may have changed some of this paradigm for many schools
- melvinmt 5y ago
  Yes, part-time PhD's are pretty common in Europe. They also commonly take 3-4 years instead of 6...
  - tombert 5y ago
    Which I find weird; are European/British PhDs generally considered less valuable than American? I didn’t think they were but there’s a lot I don’t know about this.
    - 5y ago
tobmlt 5y ago
Experiences vary. I was just at the point of qualifying exams when a full time job op came up in a tightly related field. They (profs and managers all) understood, my new co-workers mostly being phds themselves, and I hired on at 32 hrs a week for full time - health insurance etc, and dropped my dicey gov research funding. I loved every second of working mon-thurs, phd by,… every other spare second. But I could live on chewing gum, beers, and ideas at that age, I guess. I also took about 6 years all up. God it was fun when it was fun.
fsloth 5y ago
That sounds really weird to a european. A manager at my job in his 50's I know is doing is PhD studies along side his quite demanding workload. To my knowledge as he described the process it was no problem to the department to work on his courses and thesis "only part time". This is CS so domains may differ.
renewiltord 5y ago
Interesting. My dad is an MD PhD and he got the PhD while being a full time trauma surgeon in his forties. I think perhaps this is like all the other things people have told me are impossible: if I (or all the people like me) want to, we’d find it easy.
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  I work with surgical MD PhD's in my work and I'm pretty sure it's different in medicine. You must constantly stay in practice to stay relevant and your research area overlaps with your practice.
onion2k 5y ago
A PhD is a full-time job. That should mean it's a 40 hour a week commitment, not that it's the only thing you do for half a decade or more.
- tomsmeding 5y ago
  Indeed. And while I get your point that it's often more than 40 hours, the reality is also that an 80 hour work week (PhD + job) doesn't work for the vast majority of people. There are people for which it works, but chances are -- statistically -- that you, the reader, are not one of those. So a PhD being a full-time job, even if that means "just" 40 hours, is indeed a reason why full-time job + PhD does not work in practice for most people.
  - azalemeth 5y ago
    The main problem in academia is that worldwide those who work a 40 hour week seem to be far less common than those who work, or claim loudly to work, more than 100 (particularly at the earlier career points). I'm lucky enough to have gone beyond the point where I sleep in the lab, but I definitely have done so. The OP should be able to do a doctorate part time, and in Europe that is definitely doable. The funding and the practicalities are very much subject specific, but it does take a long time -- and is very much a labour of love.
CalRobert 5y ago
Why should someone give up several years of income for a PhD?
- vaylian 5y ago
  Because money isn't everything. Indulging in an intellectual pursuit in an environment that fosters investigative minds can be a wonderful thing.
  - tombert 5y ago
    > Because money isn't everything. I agree, and neither is a PhD, but I don't think that's a great reason. "Why don't we pay teachers a decent wage? Because money isn't everything and helping students grow to the next generation is something that is inspiring in itself." It's easy to say "money isn't everything" when you don't have to worry about money. A single parent is unlikely to be able to quit a decent-paying job to work with the low wages of a PhD program; are we just going to say "single parents need not apply" or "your kid should learn that money isn't everything while you live on subsistence wages for the next six years"? Obviously there are single parents who manage to their PhDs, and that's really cool, but I don't think it's realistic for a lot of (otherwise qualified) people.
    - purebullshit 5y ago
      > Why don't we pay teachers a decent wage? Perhaps you meant why teachers are not getting paid more than NBA players. The answer is those people are rare thus in high demand. Teachers are not rare and are not in high demand.
    - bumby 5y ago
      Indeed, the GP admitted it's an "indulgence", i.e., a luxury to be able to pursue a PhD for the love of the process. I don't think it's realistic for many people, particularly a single parent, nor necessary to have a fulfilling career that makes significant academic contributions.
- bumby 5y ago
Zababa 5y ago
> A PhD is a full-time job. It took me 6.5 years and was hard enough with very little outside distractions. Interesting, in France in computer science, PhDs are often made while working part time on something related to the PhD.
- programLyrique 5y ago
  Are you referring to CIFRE-funded PhD thesis?
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I don't remember the specifics, I had a presentation on PhDs during my license that mention this system, and CIFRE-funded PhD thesis seem to fit it, but I don't know if it's the only mechanism that exists.
barrkel 5y ago
This is a similar attitude that you sometimes still see in employers with pregnant employees. Your total justification seems to be that because it was hard for you, it will be hard for others too. Fwiw my partner got her PhD part-time while working for the university as a researcher and consultant, actively authoring and publishing papers. It took her many years, but mostly it was finishing that was tough.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
JofArnold 5y ago
My partner took 10 years doing her PhD thesis part time. It was very hard for us both - especially close to the end. I'm 100% with you on this.
imutemyteam 5y ago
what kind of field? I have helped make "theses" for people in "banking"/"management" and those require no work.
aidenn0 5y ago
My dad did his PhD while working full-time. He had previously been working 70 hour weeks at a startup and switched to a 9-5 job with an NGO and used the extra 30 hours a week of time to work on his PhD, so it is doable.

lixtra 5y ago

In many places of the world PhD candidates officially work 50% and more as teaching assistants, system admins or other vaguely related jobs. I see little scientific downside to work part time in a well paid related job instead.

dagw 5y ago

I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere We have several people at the company I work (in Sweden) doing their PhD part time. The company gets 'free' research in an area relevant to them and the university gets connections to industry and their research field tested on real world projects. Both se it as a win-win. This sort of arrangement seems quite common in Sweden I know several people who got their PhD this way.

soheil 5y ago

Even if the work is related to the research?

kortilla 5y ago
Yes. A phd has very little overlap with learning broad topics about a field (unlike masters and bachelors/associates). Unless your job is literally to do research on the subject of your dissertation, it will not help.
- soheil 5y ago
  What about working harder than your peers? If you're 2x harder working than the avg phd student shouldn't you be able to dedicate half or a third of that time to work and still finish the phd in 5 years?
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    How many PhD students have you known? The successful ones at least work extremely hard already; there is no such thing as working twice as hard as them.
    - soheil 5y ago
      Take the top 1% of successful phd students. Does your statement apply equally to them? What about the 0.01%?
      - School-Cotton 5y ago
        If anything those denote even more time to their academic work than the average.
        soheil 5y ago
        That's my point, can someone in that group instead of devoting more time than the average to their academic work take that extra time and devote it to their job?
        tomrod 5y ago
        No. If you plan to be successful, there is little to no time outside of being a PhD student. If you want to be in the top 1%, and especially the top 0.01%, you should plan to spend your free time researching to become an expert in your field. But such numerical distinctions are typically meaningless since, by virtue of working towards a dissertation, you should be pushing the boundaries of your field of knowledge and thus have few exact comparables as peers. Source: me (several years now complete w/ PhD), my cohort in my program, and my PhD-earning friends outside my field.
        soheil 5y ago
        Take olympic athletes. There are differences not only in the level of work but also physiologically between those who win gold medals and those who can't be olympic athletes. If you're a would-be gold medalist why isn't it possible to settle for getting into the olympics and have a job on the side?

tombert 5y ago

> You definitely aren’t too old By "old" I didn't mean actual biological age exactly. I guess the more appropriate word would be something more like "settled". As it stands, I have a mortgage and whatnot to take care of, it's not really realistic for me to quit my job and focus full-time on a PhD for the next 5-6 years. > but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere That seems to be the consensus in the US for the most part. Ironically, it's actually easier for a working American to get a distance-learning PhD from a British university than it is to get a local PhD in person in the states. Right now I'm in the process of trying to get into University of York's distance part-time PhD, while remaining in NY. It's a long shot but it's basically my only option.

anon946 5y ago
The biggest issue is the remote part, not the part-time part. I'm a professor, and myself and others in the dept. have remote, part-time PhD students. However, they have finished their coursework, which must be done in person for the most part. The coursework could be done part-time, though.
- bumby 5y ago
  >which must be done in person for the most part. I think COVID may have changed some of this paradigm for many schools
melvinmt 5y ago
Yes, part-time PhD's are pretty common in Europe. They also commonly take 3-4 years instead of 6...
- tombert 5y ago
  Which I find weird; are European/British PhDs generally considered less valuable than American? I didn’t think they were but there’s a lot I don’t know about this.
  - 5y ago

tobmlt 5y ago

Experiences vary. I was just at the point of qualifying exams when a full time job op came up in a tightly related field. They (profs and managers all) understood, my new co-workers mostly being phds themselves, and I hired on at 32 hrs a week for full time - health insurance etc, and dropped my dicey gov research funding. I loved every second of working mon-thurs, phd by,… every other spare second. But I could live on chewing gum, beers, and ideas at that age, I guess. I also took about 6 years all up. God it was fun when it was fun.

fsloth 5y ago

That sounds really weird to a european. A manager at my job in his 50's I know is doing is PhD studies along side his quite demanding workload. To my knowledge as he described the process it was no problem to the department to work on his courses and thesis "only part time". This is CS so domains may differ.

renewiltord 5y ago

Interesting. My dad is an MD PhD and he got the PhD while being a full time trauma surgeon in his forties. I think perhaps this is like all the other things people have told me are impossible: if I (or all the people like me) want to, we’d find it easy.

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
I work with surgical MD PhD's in my work and I'm pretty sure it's different in medicine. You must constantly stay in practice to stay relevant and your research area overlaps with your practice.

onion2k 5y ago

A PhD is a full-time job. That should mean it's a 40 hour a week commitment, not that it's the only thing you do for half a decade or more.

tomsmeding 5y ago
Indeed. And while I get your point that it's often more than 40 hours, the reality is also that an 80 hour work week (PhD + job) doesn't work for the vast majority of people. There are people for which it works, but chances are -- statistically -- that you, the reader, are not one of those. So a PhD being a full-time job, even if that means "just" 40 hours, is indeed a reason why full-time job + PhD does not work in practice for most people.
- azalemeth 5y ago
  The main problem in academia is that worldwide those who work a 40 hour week seem to be far less common than those who work, or claim loudly to work, more than 100 (particularly at the earlier career points). I'm lucky enough to have gone beyond the point where I sleep in the lab, but I definitely have done so. The OP should be able to do a doctorate part time, and in Europe that is definitely doable. The funding and the practicalities are very much subject specific, but it does take a long time -- and is very much a labour of love.

CalRobert 5y ago

Why should someone give up several years of income for a PhD?

vaylian 5y ago
Because money isn't everything. Indulging in an intellectual pursuit in an environment that fosters investigative minds can be a wonderful thing.
- tombert 5y ago
  > Because money isn't everything. I agree, and neither is a PhD, but I don't think that's a great reason. "Why don't we pay teachers a decent wage? Because money isn't everything and helping students grow to the next generation is something that is inspiring in itself." It's easy to say "money isn't everything" when you don't have to worry about money. A single parent is unlikely to be able to quit a decent-paying job to work with the low wages of a PhD program; are we just going to say "single parents need not apply" or "your kid should learn that money isn't everything while you live on subsistence wages for the next six years"? Obviously there are single parents who manage to their PhDs, and that's really cool, but I don't think it's realistic for a lot of (otherwise qualified) people.
  - purebullshit 5y ago
    > Why don't we pay teachers a decent wage? Perhaps you meant why teachers are not getting paid more than NBA players. The answer is those people are rare thus in high demand. Teachers are not rare and are not in high demand.
  - bumby 5y ago
    Indeed, the GP admitted it's an "indulgence", i.e., a luxury to be able to pursue a PhD for the love of the process. I don't think it's realistic for many people, particularly a single parent, nor necessary to have a fulfilling career that makes significant academic contributions.
bumby 5y ago

Zababa 5y ago

> A PhD is a full-time job. It took me 6.5 years and was hard enough with very little outside distractions. Interesting, in France in computer science, PhDs are often made while working part time on something related to the PhD.

programLyrique 5y ago
Are you referring to CIFRE-funded PhD thesis?
- Zababa 5y ago
  I don't remember the specifics, I had a presentation on PhDs during my license that mention this system, and CIFRE-funded PhD thesis seem to fit it, but I don't know if it's the only mechanism that exists.

barrkel 5y ago

This is a similar attitude that you sometimes still see in employers with pregnant employees. Your total justification seems to be that because it was hard for you, it will be hard for others too. Fwiw my partner got her PhD part-time while working for the university as a researcher and consultant, actively authoring and publishing papers. It took her many years, but mostly it was finishing that was tough.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

JofArnold 5y ago

My partner took 10 years doing her PhD thesis part time. It was very hard for us both - especially close to the end. I'm 100% with you on this.

imutemyteam 5y ago

what kind of field? I have helped make "theses" for people in "banking"/"management" and those require no work.

aidenn0 5y ago

My dad did his PhD while working full-time. He had previously been working 70 hour weeks at a startup and switched to a 9-5 job with an NGO and used the extra 30 hours a week of time to work on his PhD, so it is doable.