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As somebody from the UK, six years feels such a long time. Our PhDs are usually three years, although there's more specialisation earlier on at the undergraduat
by jvvw 4y ago
As somebody from the UK, six years feels such a long time. Our PhDs are usually three years, although there's more specialisation earlier on at the undergraduate levels, and people might have done masters first, so you are launched straight into research pretty much when you start. You generally have four years from the start to submit your thesis and three years of funding, although I don't know if that has changed at all since I did mine.
I knew two years into my PhD that it wasn't what I wanted to do - I did see it to the end as I was concerned how it would look on my CV if I quit (not sure if that was a good decision or not, but I think I am glad I did finish it!). But I think it'd have been really hard if it had been four more years rather than just another one or two.
- MereInterest 4y agoIn the US, PhD programs will usually be combined with the Masters, and will start with ~2 years of coursework. This can cause no end of communication issues when discussing how far one is along a PhD.
- jvvw 4y agoCan you leave with a Masters after two years then? I was vaguely aware that Grad School in the US wasn't quite equivalent to here. I went straight from my undergraduate to my PhD, but I guess because of the earlier specialisation that the second half of my undergraduate was vaguely similar to a Masters in the US say.
- lapcat 4y agoYes, granting a Masters after the completion of required coursework is commonplace on the way to a PhD, regardless of whether you leave or stay in the program.
- MereInterest 4y agoYes, but there isn't that much of a point to it. For fields where the terminal degree is a Masters (e.g. Master of Fine Arts, Master of Business Administration), there's usually some jobs that will require them. For fields where the terminal degrees is a PhD (e.g. STEM fields), there isn't much you can do with a Masters that you couldn't have done with a Bachelors.