First Year of a Part-Time PhD
I'm now 12 months into my PhD and wanted to share what it's been like. This is partly a self-reflection but also may be interesting to those who are considering starting their own PhD.
Why did I start a PhD?
At the 2024 AIOH conference, my now-supervisor brought up the idea to think about doing PhD. It had never occurred to me as something even possible for me. And to be honest, it took months before one night, apropos of nothing at the time, I decided to jump in. What ultimately got me to convince myself to do a PhD was:
For a few years I was already reading papers, and textbooks in exposure statistics, and watching statistics lectures in my own time anyway.
I figured a PhD would offer a semi-structured way of learning with external pressure and goals as opposed to just winging it myself.
I thought it would be an excuse to get access to collaborators, and subject matter experts I wouldn’t otherwise be able to work with.
I have a general urge to keep up with myself and a real fear of falling behind, so the PhD is a way of proving to myself that I’m continually learning.
From the start, I've never been super worried about the actual attainment of the PhD, and it is probably the least important part for me. Not to be overly reductive but I think of it as "a floppy hat and certificate". Much like any qualification or certification, it means you’ve met the minimum requirements to get ‘the thing’ but what ultimately matters is what you’ve learnt from the process. At least, that’s what I think at the moment.
The Start
Some universities require a really detailed application for a PhD, essentially requesting a full literature review and a highly detailed description of the research projects that you'll be conducting. My application was far less intense. I was required to come up with ideas, but they didn't necessarily have to be fully fleshed out before commencing the PhD. As such the first thing I was asked to do by my supervisors was to conduct as much reading in my field of interest as possible and then generate the detail for my research ideas.
Most of these were rejected by my supervisors, and quite rightly. Some were too complex, some were just not good ideas, and some relied on research strategies that would be inherently problematic or tricky to do. Then, in consultation and with some refinement, we arrived at a set of ideas. One of the recommendations made by my supervisors was that the first project should be a scoping review (a literature review to identify the current state of research). In truth, I was a little bit hesitant because I just wanted to dive straight into doing statistics, but it ended up being a really good idea — to read literature in a structured way, identify what has already been done, and provide justification for my future work.
Where am I up to now?
Now 12 months in, I have started doing my scoping review and am midway through drafting. It's an interesting process, because work continues to be published, so it's an odd feeling having to go back and make amendments to previous work as things come to hand. I have also started working on my next project, but this has taken a backseat as I've had some delays from a third party providing some information that would be required to complete that project. But because I’m studying part-time I still have another 6 years to go… plenty of time to get everything done.
What’s next?
Next steps will be to finish the scoping review draft in consultation with my supervisors and then look to get it published. I'm also looking at starting my next project, which I may talk about in a future post. This is what I’m genuinely most excited for, sinking my teeth into a major modelling project.
At the end of one year of full-time equivalency (which, for me, is two years), I'm required to do a ‘confirmation’ which generally involves a presentation and an interview with an external third party who will review, critique, and provide recommendations on my project. This process is really to ensure the work is original, likely to make a reasonable contribution, and reasonably accurate.
How I’m feeling about it
In general, I'm enjoying the PhD and I think it's interesting. I feel lucky to be able to work with my supervisors. A lot of what I'm doing I'm doing for the first time, and it is a challenging experience. There are certainly feelings of inadequacy that need to be managed. Thankfully, one benefit of having such good supervisors is that they can be moral support (as well as technical). They have done a PhD themselves and have managed other PhD students, so they understand what it's like. I'm also grateful for the support of my friends and family, particularly those friends who are doing a PhD or have done one before.
I've also become more aware of the competing interests of researchers, publishers, and journals, and how those interests can pull against simply doing the best possible work. It's been fascinating reading a lot more papers and seeing that not all work is of the highest possible standard. While I understand doing research is difficult and people have different demands on them from work and life, I really hope that I can maintain at least my own personal standards on my work.
General advice
One suggestion for figuring out whether the time commitment is something you can handle, given your personal situation, is to work out how many hours you'd need to commit (for example, 16 hours a week), and then to dedicate that number of hours, for several months, to reading in the field you're interested in. This helps you understand whether you're interested in the topic and willing to spend the next few years researching it, and whether the time commitment is manageable without fully committing to the PhD beforehand.
I found it incredibly helpful to talk with friends and colleagues who have started a PhD, are most of the way through, or have recently finished. Talking about common experiences is helpful, because doing a PhD can feel tough and frustrating. Sometimes having a place to vent or discuss feelings and processes can be helpful mentally. I'd be interested to hear from people who have had different experiences, or if anyone has any questions that I might be able to help with about getting started.
