PhDetour
February 6, 2024 8:42 AM Subscribe
I am curious to hear anecdotes from people who entered PhD programs later in life, after years in the non-academic workforce. Things like: What motivated you to do it? Did you get what you wanted out of it? Was it a difficult transition? Would you do it again? as well as logistical questions like how you approached applying to programs would all be helpful (plus anything else you'd want to add). Thanks!
Response by poster: I'm in an engineering/STEM field, but I don't want to limit people's responses (and to be crystal clear, I'm not asking for advice on whether this is something I should do). The different experiences and reasons are the point of asking! If this is too chatfiltery then please feel free to flag.
posted by btfreek at 10:03 AM on February 6
posted by btfreek at 10:03 AM on February 6
I wrote a couple of reddit posts to warn people (one, two).
They apply less to people in STEM, but perhaps not drastically so. I would say the two big PhD surprises to be aware of are (a) your level of almost complete powerlessness in relation to your advisor and (b) the high financial risks and low rewards for many PhD graduates.
Do it because you love being in school enough to take a major lifetime financial hit; work a few years beforehand so you can appreciate what is good in comparison about school; and save a good bit before you start, because funding packages are often not enough to live on, especially for schools in cities with hot housing markets.
posted by sindark at 11:40 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
They apply less to people in STEM, but perhaps not drastically so. I would say the two big PhD surprises to be aware of are (a) your level of almost complete powerlessness in relation to your advisor and (b) the high financial risks and low rewards for many PhD graduates.
Do it because you love being in school enough to take a major lifetime financial hit; work a few years beforehand so you can appreciate what is good in comparison about school; and save a good bit before you start, because funding packages are often not enough to live on, especially for schools in cities with hot housing markets.
posted by sindark at 11:40 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Best answer: I’m 58 and just learned yesterday that I’ve been admitted to a PhD program. Waitlisted for funding, so we’ll see where that goes.
I’ve been to grad school twice before, entering a PhD program when I was just 21, and leaving it two years later. I applied now because my life fell apart in the past 5-7 years. Last year, I left a marriage of 29 years that I really believed would last forever. Financial mismanagement on my ex’s part was one reason I left, and he stopped paying child support last July (our very independent 16yo lives with me).
I love being a scholar, I have a couple of projects I’d really like support to work on, and I learned more or less by chance about an amazing, unique program that just calls out to me. I made peace with not getting a PhD a long time ago, and wouldn’t have considered it again if not for this program and the people in it. I did look into other programs once the idea came back into my mind, and there weren’t any others that drew me enough to even apply. It’s this program or none for me, and, given my age, kind of now or never, so I may try to find a way to make it work even if I don’t get funding, or may discuss with them the possibility of deferring a year. I’m a really solid scholar in my field despite being out of academia for a little over 20 years now. I’ve raised four children and survived two major illnesses in the past ten years (3.5 years and 1 year almost bedridden), I’m disabled and poor but thriving right now, and this is a way I would very much like to spend a chunk of my remaining years.
posted by Well I never at 12:05 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
I’ve been to grad school twice before, entering a PhD program when I was just 21, and leaving it two years later. I applied now because my life fell apart in the past 5-7 years. Last year, I left a marriage of 29 years that I really believed would last forever. Financial mismanagement on my ex’s part was one reason I left, and he stopped paying child support last July (our very independent 16yo lives with me).
I love being a scholar, I have a couple of projects I’d really like support to work on, and I learned more or less by chance about an amazing, unique program that just calls out to me. I made peace with not getting a PhD a long time ago, and wouldn’t have considered it again if not for this program and the people in it. I did look into other programs once the idea came back into my mind, and there weren’t any others that drew me enough to even apply. It’s this program or none for me, and, given my age, kind of now or never, so I may try to find a way to make it work even if I don’t get funding, or may discuss with them the possibility of deferring a year. I’m a really solid scholar in my field despite being out of academia for a little over 20 years now. I’ve raised four children and survived two major illnesses in the past ten years (3.5 years and 1 year almost bedridden), I’m disabled and poor but thriving right now, and this is a way I would very much like to spend a chunk of my remaining years.
posted by Well I never at 12:05 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
Best answer: I’d add, just before my first illness hit in 2024, I’d been admitted to grad school for Speech Language Pathology, a move I hoped would help my family financially. I wasn’t able t go because of my illness. At that time, I thought I was pushing being too old because I would have graduated at 52. Now, at 58, that seems amusingly silly to me. If I hadn’t gotten sick, I’d have been in that field for six years now. So I’m mostly undaunted at the thought of getting a PhD at 63 or 64. I think one asset I could bring to the program is being an oldster with a lot of life experience behind me in a cohort of younger students.
posted by Well I never at 12:10 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 12:10 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I did a PhD in manufacturing engineering part time starting at 36, finishing at 41. I had finished undergrad at 22, done my masters in my mid 20s, so had been out of academia for just under a decade. I wanted to do my PhD because:
- I had a question I was curious enough to want to answer that work, at the time, wasn't very interested in and it was deep enough to also be good for qualifying as a PhD question.
- I liked the idea of having a gender neutral honorific.
- I wanted to do the hooding ceremony
- I was curious about moving to academia full time
I did hit the first 3 bullets, and found out that academia was ABSOLUTELY not for me. I also ended up with some severe burnout 2 years after the PhD that the PhD experience probably helped precipitate. I really, really loved doing the research, but the classes were mostly a joke, and I received mostly incompetent (for me) mentorship, resulting in no academic publications (which is generally fine, since I didn't have any interest in staying in academia; I did get some industry publications out of the work, which means nothing to academics, but I was quite happy with) and a ton of unneeded stress.
Since I did it part time, there wasn't much of a transition. When school was being annoying, there was work to distract me and vice versa. I had recently come out of a time at work when I was regularly doing 50 - 60 hour weeks, so putting 10-15 hrs per week on something I wanted to be doing on top of 40-45 hrs/week at work was actually nice. I got work to pay for part of it, and I arranged to take 4 months off, partially paid, when I was doing the final writing on my dissertation.
I think I would do it again, because I really loved the research. I would have liked to get one or two publications out of it, so I would tell my past-self to get someone to actually mentor me competently on doing academic writing. It might have required changing advisors or brining someone else onto my committee, but I think that would have been worth it to better get my work out there. I do think my PhD helped me get my current job, and bump in my salary, which I really like.
From a logistical perspective, I did my PhD with my Masters' advisor mostly because it was easy and he liked me. He stayed out of my way and let me do my work in the direction I wanted to do it. I tailored the question I was interested in doing in a way that was interesting to him, and that worked from the getting work done perspective and answering the question to my level of interest.
Being older, a part time student and paying my own way (that is, I wasn't a research assistant or a TA or otherwise required funding), meant that I could hold tight boundaries over my time. When my advisor would ask me to look at a question, I would ask him about how that would help me complete my research. This kept me out of many of the black-holes I saw my friends who got their PhDs in their 20s as fulltime students get sucked into, where they were often doing work based on the professor's whim that would not support their research in any way, stretching their PhD out, in one case for almost a decade. That was one thing I really liked about being a bit older.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to MeMail me!
posted by chiefthe at 12:46 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
- I had a question I was curious enough to want to answer that work, at the time, wasn't very interested in and it was deep enough to also be good for qualifying as a PhD question.
- I liked the idea of having a gender neutral honorific.
- I wanted to do the hooding ceremony
- I was curious about moving to academia full time
I did hit the first 3 bullets, and found out that academia was ABSOLUTELY not for me. I also ended up with some severe burnout 2 years after the PhD that the PhD experience probably helped precipitate. I really, really loved doing the research, but the classes were mostly a joke, and I received mostly incompetent (for me) mentorship, resulting in no academic publications (which is generally fine, since I didn't have any interest in staying in academia; I did get some industry publications out of the work, which means nothing to academics, but I was quite happy with) and a ton of unneeded stress.
Since I did it part time, there wasn't much of a transition. When school was being annoying, there was work to distract me and vice versa. I had recently come out of a time at work when I was regularly doing 50 - 60 hour weeks, so putting 10-15 hrs per week on something I wanted to be doing on top of 40-45 hrs/week at work was actually nice. I got work to pay for part of it, and I arranged to take 4 months off, partially paid, when I was doing the final writing on my dissertation.
I think I would do it again, because I really loved the research. I would have liked to get one or two publications out of it, so I would tell my past-self to get someone to actually mentor me competently on doing academic writing. It might have required changing advisors or brining someone else onto my committee, but I think that would have been worth it to better get my work out there. I do think my PhD helped me get my current job, and bump in my salary, which I really like.
From a logistical perspective, I did my PhD with my Masters' advisor mostly because it was easy and he liked me. He stayed out of my way and let me do my work in the direction I wanted to do it. I tailored the question I was interested in doing in a way that was interesting to him, and that worked from the getting work done perspective and answering the question to my level of interest.
Being older, a part time student and paying my own way (that is, I wasn't a research assistant or a TA or otherwise required funding), meant that I could hold tight boundaries over my time. When my advisor would ask me to look at a question, I would ask him about how that would help me complete my research. This kept me out of many of the black-holes I saw my friends who got their PhDs in their 20s as fulltime students get sucked into, where they were often doing work based on the professor's whim that would not support their research in any way, stretching their PhD out, in one case for almost a decade. That was one thing I really liked about being a bit older.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to MeMail me!
posted by chiefthe at 12:46 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I'm about halfway through my first year in a part-time doctorate program, which I'm doing while working full time. It's definitely a lot of work, and it remains to be seen how conducting research and writing a dissertation will go while working, but I can at least talk about why I pursued it!
I got my masters degree right after undergrad and then started working full time. I entered the masters program with the idea that I would proceed on to the PhD, but I honestly had such a difficult experience in the masters (poor relationship with my advisor, poor self-efficacy and time management skills) that I was happy to enter industry. Doing a PhD was always in the back of my mind, though.
I was encouraged by a few of my mentors to think about a doctorate program about a year or two ago. That was their suggestion based on hearing about my career goals - specifically, for the type of job I want to have, doing the type of work I want to do, in the setting I want to work in, I need a doctorate. Looking around, I see that 99 percent of the people who have the jobs I want to have one day have doctorates.
I'm extraordinarily fortunate in my set up: I have a fellowship that pays 100 percent of the tuition and fees for the duration of the program. I've worked at my company for years, so my managers know me and are extremely supportive of me and the program. The program is designed to be done part time by people who are working full time, so I'm not running into any roadblocks with my schedule. The degree doesn't require any teaching or research positions to maintain funding, so really all I have to do is the coursework and then my own research. It's at the same university I did my masters at, so I'm familiar with their shenanigans and processes. I'm single and have no kids, so I have fewer responsibilities that take up a lot of time and attention.
There are some other benefits to being a later in life doctoral student. I know myself and my working style so much better, and I have better organization and time management skills now. I'm more confident in asking for help and pushing through a bureaucracy (something that was so hard for me as a 22 year old). I feel like I'm leading the process now, as compared to ten years ago when I was really being led along by my advisor or department.
posted by airplant at 5:37 PM on February 6
I got my masters degree right after undergrad and then started working full time. I entered the masters program with the idea that I would proceed on to the PhD, but I honestly had such a difficult experience in the masters (poor relationship with my advisor, poor self-efficacy and time management skills) that I was happy to enter industry. Doing a PhD was always in the back of my mind, though.
I was encouraged by a few of my mentors to think about a doctorate program about a year or two ago. That was their suggestion based on hearing about my career goals - specifically, for the type of job I want to have, doing the type of work I want to do, in the setting I want to work in, I need a doctorate. Looking around, I see that 99 percent of the people who have the jobs I want to have one day have doctorates.
I'm extraordinarily fortunate in my set up: I have a fellowship that pays 100 percent of the tuition and fees for the duration of the program. I've worked at my company for years, so my managers know me and are extremely supportive of me and the program. The program is designed to be done part time by people who are working full time, so I'm not running into any roadblocks with my schedule. The degree doesn't require any teaching or research positions to maintain funding, so really all I have to do is the coursework and then my own research. It's at the same university I did my masters at, so I'm familiar with their shenanigans and processes. I'm single and have no kids, so I have fewer responsibilities that take up a lot of time and attention.
There are some other benefits to being a later in life doctoral student. I know myself and my working style so much better, and I have better organization and time management skills now. I'm more confident in asking for help and pushing through a bureaucracy (something that was so hard for me as a 22 year old). I feel like I'm leading the process now, as compared to ten years ago when I was really being led along by my advisor or department.
posted by airplant at 5:37 PM on February 6
Best answer: If you're open to terminal degrees that aren't PhDs, Princeton historian Nell Painter's book "Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over" tells her story of going back for an MFA in her 60s, and what it was like being very different from her classmates. It's a great book.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:09 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:09 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I am at the very edge of the group of people you're asking for replies from because I entered my full-time Ph.D. program in my mid-20s, but. I went into it having moved away from a place I loved and left a professional sphere in which I was known, respected, competent, and had a lot of responsibility and autonomy. The first year of the program was incredibly difficult for me because although my specific work experience was a valuable factor in being selected for admission, it felt like my previous identity had been totally erased; I was suddenly a professional and social nobody aside from 'first-year-student.' Because of the totalizing nature of grad school I felt very cut off from the outside world, and my program used a cohort model, so for the first year I didn't even really have a choice about my courses. It was really destabilizing, and if I were to do it again I would be sure to have a relationship with a therapist to work through this part from the get-go. If I were starting now, 15 years later, I think there are other stabilizing factors in my life that would help me feel and stay more grounded; on the other hand, I think the potential for feeling alienated/isolated as a much older student than the majority of my peers would pose a different kind of challenge.
I don't regret having gotten the Ph.D., although I do not use it (except for the occasional side benefit of the gender-neutral honorific, cheers, chiefthe). I think I might feel differently if my program hadn't been fully funded (absolutely key), or if I'd been in a toxic or exploitative department/research group. As it was, it was a few years of low pay while doing a variety of interesting things with generally kind and interesting people. I declined schools that couldn't guarantee funding and would not attend one where grad students are not unionized if I were looking at assistantships of any kind. I wanted an academic career when I went in. Having seen it up close I do not aspire to it in any way now and would not recommend it to anyone as a career path, and absent a non-academic benefit from the degree I can't imagine enrolling in a doctoral program again unless I was magically bestowed with marvelous wealth and a very low-stress life. But that's me- different circumstances and goals could warrant different advice.
posted by wormtales at 9:40 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
I don't regret having gotten the Ph.D., although I do not use it (except for the occasional side benefit of the gender-neutral honorific, cheers, chiefthe). I think I might feel differently if my program hadn't been fully funded (absolutely key), or if I'd been in a toxic or exploitative department/research group. As it was, it was a few years of low pay while doing a variety of interesting things with generally kind and interesting people. I declined schools that couldn't guarantee funding and would not attend one where grad students are not unionized if I were looking at assistantships of any kind. I wanted an academic career when I went in. Having seen it up close I do not aspire to it in any way now and would not recommend it to anyone as a career path, and absent a non-academic benefit from the degree I can't imagine enrolling in a doctoral program again unless I was magically bestowed with marvelous wealth and a very low-stress life. But that's me- different circumstances and goals could warrant different advice.
posted by wormtales at 9:40 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
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