Working full-time during your PhD?

[Minerva1917]

Hi all,

does anyone here have any experience working full-time during the all-but-dissertation (ABD) phase of their PhD? I'm really interested in getting a full-time job outside of academia when I'm ABD because I don't think I can support myself on PhD funding.

At the moment, I am a high school English teacher hoping to pursue a PhD in English, history of American studies. If I get into any PhD programs, I would like to do a leave of absence from my current job so that I can fulfill my coursework requirements (which usually conflict with current 8-3PM high school schedule). Ideally, I would then return to my high school job once my course work is complete and I am ABD.

Is this too ambitious? Will I burn myself out?

[Warelin]

It depends on the regulations of your program, but I can see a few conflicts arising:

-Most programs require you to teach classes at their university during all or part of your ABD phase
-There may be some programs that require you to attend events hosted by the department
-Conferences that you're interested in presenting at may occur during those times
-Your adviser might like to meet with you during those times to discuss your dissertation
-You might have students who would like to meet with you during that time
-The Graduate Director might want to meet with you
-You might find after working a full day that you might not have the energy to focus on the dissertation
-It might be a violation of your contract that you signed with the grad school. Some schools prohibit it; others say that you must seek special permission.
 

[Adelaide9216]

Don't want to repeat what's been said above, but I don't think it's realistic to work full-time while doing a PhD full-time in my opinion. I think it's setting yourself up to failure. 

[amayadoli]

My colleague worked full time during his ABD phase lecturing at a different university after funding ran out with our department. Because of that, he had almost no time to work on his dissertation, and it took him a lot of extra time to finish. That, and I don't know how your institution works, but we have the continuous enrollment system here, so once you hit ABD, you have to be enrolled/pay tuition every semester until you finish. If you have the funding (and tuition waiver) with your department, you should definitely stick with that until it's no longer viable.

[annae]

I'm doing it now and it's very, very tough. You will be behind your peers and if you have any interest in academia, you won't have time to form those relationships or publish that you need to do be doing alongside it. If I had the funding I would not be working. 

[juilletmercredi]

It's possible and people sometimes do it, if they have to. But it's not ideal - I'd go so far as to say it's not really advisable.

It sounds privileged to say this, but a dissertation really requires a lot of sustained time to think. It's not just about the actual process of banging out pages; sometimes, I would only produce 2-3 pages a day, but I'd muddled through some difficult theoretical problem. Once, I spent an entire weekend making a graph...but that's because the graph was a representation of a statistical model that I was essentially building myself.

When you're working full-time (particularly as a teacher!) that sustained time devoted to careful thought and research just isn't as possible.

And that's not even considering the fact that if you're working full-time, you will basically be able to work, work on your dissertation and not much else. You won't have much if any time to spend doing the professionalization necessary to secure a job in academia, should that be your goal. If you're a teacher, will you be able to take time off to go to conferences and present? What about when you're on the market and you have to go to conferences/on campus to interview?

I think substituting or a paraprofessional/part-time job in schools would be more manageable.

[Sigaba]

The gravitational pull of extra-academic forces can be tremendous. 

Or so I've heard.

[ZeChocMoose]

I know people who have done this in education PhD programs.  It usually takes them a lot longer, but they don't have plans to go into academia after they finish.  Rather they stay in administration and earning the PhD gives them a promotion/pay raise.  I should also say that some of them don't finish because work obligations get in the way and/or they lose interest/motivation especially at the ABD phase.

I won't actively plan on doing this.  Some people are forced into this because their funding runs out.  If I was going to do this - I would chose a full-time job where there is more flexibility to spend mornings working on the dissertation and then afternoons at the job or vice versa.  Usually the people that I know who are ABD and are working full-time have negotiated with their boss so that they can work on their dissertation during work hours.  I don't see how this would be possible as a high school teacher though so I think burn out could be a real possibility.

Edited August 28, 2018 by ZeChocMoose