Deciding to pursue a PhD is not something I have taken on lightly. I have worked for almost 10 years with PhD students and seen the stress they go through and also the wide range of quality of work that they produce (a discussion for a later date).
Yes, I applied for a few once I’d graduated, but I’m glad now that I didn’t get them because I didn’t understand what a PhD should be. Now I feel confident enough to get the most from it and what I need it to do for me. I would highly recommend working for a good number of years to get your head clearer like this about what you want to do. It teaches you discipline and routine to get away from the student mindset. I want it to be like a job – a job where the better you do, the more you get out of it and more it should do for your career. And I want it to be like a business – a business where you are marketing yourself and making yourself a ‘profitable’ researcher.
Here are some of the challenges I have to face and also how I understand what I think I want from my PhD:
1. Leaving a full-time, decent paid job which many PhD students would likely end up doing anyway.
I have asked whether it’s possible I could keep my job but as far as I’m concerned at this time it’s a career change. It opens doors which are currently closed. The reason I want to leave is that a year or two down the line I will get bored. I crave the intellectual stimulus, the scientific discussions, the greater respect and the ability to educate to a formal level. I could argue that you can achieve this as a technician but it would be at a much lower level and by following in the footsteps of others. Leaving and doing a PhD allows me to forge my own path. It might lead back to the start but at least I’ll have discovered something no-one else knows along the way!
2. What if I don’t like it?
This would have concerned me several years ago, but now I know what it entails and the advantages and disadvantages of it. It will be stressful and hard but I like to think I am disciplined enough to see it through.
3. After three years I’ll possibly have no job or income. That’s a stupid thing to do in the current science job market, especially since I, realistically, will not be able to move around afterwards.
Definitely a challenge, but because I don’t want to end up completely unemployed at the end of it I’ll do everything I can to not be. I would always have my business to fall back on anyway – never put all your eggs in one basket 😉
4. I may end up doing my PhD at the same institution I got my undergraduate degree, my masters and all my work experience!
This is where asking around helps. It’s a commonly based assumption but is not necessarily true. Although a lot of post docs move around (what you tend to do after a PhD), the actual people in the institution who have done well actually have moved their way up the ranks of the university. My career mentor confirmed this within her section of the university as well. In saying that I think it would be beneficial for me to look at other nearby-ish options to allow me to push my boundaries and to get experience of (an)other institution(s). It can be so easy to get pigeon-holed in one area – can’t see the wood for the trees, so to speak. Largely though this will depend on funding.
My aim is to leave my job for a 2018 or a 2019 start. Now that may seem like ages away but there are only limited windows for achieving funding, if of course, I do. Feb 18 will come in no time at all as that’s when my MSc by Research is due. I also want to aim to get a paper out before I start as well!
Do/did you face any of these challenges? What challenges did you face when making your decision to do a PhD?
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