On not doing a PhD.

[fjm]

There is a very passionate post here about the downsides of a doing a PhD and I do recommend reading it, and reading the comments, because in these days when Universities are actively encouraging students to sign on for PhDs I do worry about motives all round.

But, and it's a big but, I do think that the poster, in beginning with a piece about his/her brilliance, exposes one of the most serious reasons why people fail/destroy themselves with PhDs.

A brilliant BA or MA does nothing to prepare you for the PhD.

It's simple: at BA level the longest piece of work you write is a 10k word dissertation over maybe three months. At MA level it's maybe 20k over six months.

And from there to 90k over three years? (And you can do the same maths for science projects).

So that, as a rule of thumb, I'd say that anyone getting brilliant firsts for 3k word essays written in a week is likely to be a rather fast thinker who likes to move from project to project. Does that sound like a viable PhD candidate to you? It certainly wasn't my ex-boyfriend who I may (in retrospect) have bulled to complete his thesis and who has barely written a thing since.

In contrast, I can't write a 3k word essay to save my life and look with skepticism at my colleagues who try to bring down word counts on the grounds that "students should learn to be concise". My grades started going up when the word count hit 5k. Then up again at 10k. My natural length, judging by unedited book chapters, is probably around 15k. Now that's a good starting position for a thesis. I'm also a slow thinker who has to draft and redraft, which was useless for those weekly essays, but turned out to be pretty damn good for a PhD thesis.

So when someone starts by saying they were "brilliant", I find myself wondering "at what?"


Also; nothing like everything being effortless as poor preparation for boredom and difficulty. The writer assumes that ill health, difficult background, etc, etc would all make it harder. No. What it meant in my case was that the PhD was just one more thing to deal with in a world I was used to finding difficult.

None of which means I don't think s/he has a point.

Comments

[themis1]

I applied to do a professional doctorate not expecting to be accepted, and was astonished when I was. I gave it a year before I was sussed and thrown out for wasting their time, since I really hadn't got a clue what I was doing. I was in a full-time, stressful job who supported the degree financially, but gave me no time to do it in and definitely no support. I was fortunate to have a very patient and understanding boyfriend and a 'lodger' (for want of a better word) who encouraged me to the hilt. It took me twice as long as it should have done to write 64,000 words (an acceptable length for a prof doc). My 'original' finding was that policemen were still doing much what they had always done, despite government policies ... a lot of effort for what seemed to me an uninteresting finding. I was astonished at my viva when a leading professor in my field (my external) was very complimentary about my work.

I think I'm a masochist, since in a strange way I enjoyed the whole thing. I didn't enjoy the writing; I did enjoy the feeling of being a student - something I have never had the opportunity to be on a full-time basis, as I have done all my degrees whilst in full-time employment.

I wonder based on my own experience that most people who start PhDs don't really know what they're doing but aren't prepared to admit it. Perhaps all PhD students should be given an intensive induction course that ensures that they fully understand what it is they have committed to do, and how important it is to structure their time.

Just musing here really ...

[kshandra]

Directing my mother to this post; she's currently looking at a second Master's (she got her MLIS last year) instead of a PhD.

[fjm]

They aren;t the same thing at all. I would love to do a few more Masters' degrees but can't imagine ever wanting to do another PhD (except in that writing a book is a PhD sometimes). Masters degrees are guided learning, and that can be a lot of fun.