Why would anybody choose to do a PhD?
I’ve just come off the phone… we agreed that we should pursue a PhD project. I’ve agreed to fund the project and thought you might be interested in doing this.
A very small part of a very unexpected message, received whilst sat in my car, in the rain, after finishing work one day. What do you do when someone offers you the chance to do a PhD?
Why would anybody, especially me, choose to do a PhD?
To further their academic career? I don’t have an academic career to further.
To avoid getting a ‘real’ job? Nope, already settled in the corporate world.
To be called ‘Dr’? Well, that does sound nice, but it’s never been a goal of mine, I could happily live without it.
For me this decision would mean going back to University, back to the academic world after 10 years away, to commit to researching something in great detail for 3 solid years (at least). A commitment big enough that there’s no way I could keep my full-time job, I’d have to leave that… and the income from the PhD to replace my salary? That would be a little less than minimum wage.
How to decide?
One of the first things I did, was to ask other people what they thought… the responses I got were always passionate. But not unanimous. There was the fully positive ‘Yeah! Go for it, I’d love to do something like that!’, or the fully negative ‘God, no, I can think of nothing worse.’
Unfortunately, the negative crowd were the ones that had actually done a PhD themselves. So I couldn’t simply dismiss them as miserable buggers. Just asking them about it brought about a slightly vacant stare, like I’d taken them back to a darker place, their tone of voice changed, they’d seen the shadows and made it out the other side, vowing to never do anything like it again. The experience had changed them, they could call themselves ‘Dr’ now, but what kind of lasting effect had the process had on them?
Clearly I made the decision to go for it, otherwise this would be a very short and pretty pointless article. What did I need to consider, and what swayed the decision?
Going back to University after 10 years and starting again – really, I wouldn’t be starting again, I would be picking up where I left off. When I completed a Masters degree all those years ago, I got the opportunity to work with a brilliant creative consultancy called Creative Creatures… this was who the message was from at the start of this article… the PhD would give me the opportunity to work with this organisation again, along with the same academic supervisor at the same University. It’s really not new at all, I’ve just taken a (rather long) break from academic research.
Committing to something for a solid 3 years – well, if I couldn’t commit to something for 3 years of my life, I wouldn’t have managed 8 years in my previous corporate role, and erm, I’d have a few issues in my marriage too. I can do commitment.
Lack of income – I previously had a Head of L&D role, which was comfortable… I knew what I was doing, I knew the business inside out and had great relationships with my colleagues. It also paid the bills. But could that role provide the development opportunities and experience to equal a PhD? I don’t think it could, this was an opportunity that couldn’t be turned down and the gap in income would need to be addressed. A part-time job could do it, or maybe a self-employed role. Decided. I’ll be self-employed – stick to what I know without having to put anybody through the challenge of trying to manage me. A very supportive wife helps immensely in making this kind of decision!
Studying the same topic, with no variety, for at least three years – this is what seemed to pain the PhD veterans, the slog, finding the motivation 2 years after the initial optimism had faded. The part of my job I enjoyed the most, was the variety. It was in a consultancy, so having up to 40 different corporate clients to look after at any one time provided variety. The solution to this problem, was clearly to not lose this! Let’s give self-employment a go, and structure some corporate work around the demands of the PhD to help with bridging the gap on income, and also to fend off the guaranteed insanity a lack of variety would bring.
So that was all the objections handled, the sums were done, we wouldn’t lose our house, it all looked do-able.
What was left to decide?
The only decision left to make was around timing.
This offer appeared for me in late 2019, with the studying due to start in September 2020. I took the Christmas break to mull over all the options and decided that I’d leave my job at the end of January, giving me a good 8 months to firstly sleep (I had been lacking some rest in the corporate world), to work out this new self-employed malarkey, and also get through the necessary PhD application process… even when an offer lands in your lap, you still have to go through the application process. It takes months. More on that another day.
So that was that decided. It’s happening.
Why would anybody, especially me, choose to do a PhD?
What made me choose to do a PhD? To further my own development, to become an expert in a topic I’m passionate about, to surround myself with experts that inspire me, to achieve something big that I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do… and to take the hint that, despite the immediate financial hit, this is clearly the right time to set up as a consultant working for myself.
Everything was planned out… with just 6 weeks to go before an unexpected global pandemic.