It is possible to do an MA or a PhD part time (I did my MA part time while working full time and am now doing my PhD part time) but it depends where you are - some part time masters are in the evenings so fit around full time work but others you have to attend during the day. PhDs are easier to do part time from that respect although you may still need to go to research methods classes but part teim study is hard (I did my MSc full time and it was much easier to fit in even with young children)

How are you planning on funding this? My part time PhD fees are £1750 per year and student loans aren't available (although you might be able to get a career loan) plus I spend nearly the same on books, equipement, travelling for conferences (and fieldwork).

Do you know what area of tourism you want to do - you need to have some idea if you are planning on doing before you contact a department (unless you go for a funded PhD which has a defined project already). I did a lot of reading before I approached a department with my research proposal. I decided to do my PhD at the nearest unviersity to where I live as I am not in a position to mvoe around the country but you might decide to go where the best expert is.

Feel free to PM me with more questions.

Kindle might be Ok but trouble is a lot of the books I want arent' on it
Can't watch anyting in 3d due to bad eyesight / astigmatism - husband alway has to take kids to 3 d movies as I can't watch them.
Eveyone I know seems to have an iphone (except me and husband) and I get so fed up of the "Sent fomr my iphone" crap on teh bottom of e-mails. And they all are aleways telling me how hard up they are and how they can't afford x or y. Don't buy every gadget that comes along and then you won't be broke.

THink I'll have to resort to Inter library loans...

Hang in there - you will get there. I did my MA at night school while working full time in a very demanding job in the city. At the begining of September when I started my maternity leave I had written 600 words (but had collected, although not analysed, data) and I submitted the dissertation (18,000 words plus appendices) on time (I was offered an extension but figured that if I couldn't do it without the baby I would need a long extension til I got round to it once he had arrived). Three weeks after I submitted (end Sept) I had my son (now nearly 12) and in November I got a letter from the unviersity (which I asked my husband to open as I was feeding the baby and I thought it was about over-due library books) to say I had got a distinction (the only one in my year!).
If you can get it done before the baby copes it will be much easier. The first few months with a baby go by very quickly in a fog of exhaustion, lack of sleep, total obsesison with your new baby and adjusting to your new life. But it is so worth it.

Based on your posting you should definitely get someone to proof read your spelling and grammar errors.

Prentice, R, Davies, A and Beeho, A (1997) Seeking Generic Motivations for Visiting and Not Visiting Museums and Like Cultural Attractions in Museum Management and Curatorship, Volume 16, Issue 1 , pages 45 – 70

David D.M. Mason, Conal McCarthy (2006) ‘The feeling of exclusion’: Young peoples’ perceptions of art galleries in Museum Management and Curatorship, Volume 21, Issue 1, Pages 20 – 31

JM Litwak, 1992, Enhancing museum learning by facilitating the visitor social agenda in- Visitor Studies, (can’t find any more details)

Anyone able to help?

I always pass things by colleagues to take a look - it's fairly standard practice (even the Prof gets us to look over things he has written)

Should be editing a paper so really brief reply (as a parent).  While it is technically possible (sometimes) to work at home with a baby you MUST have someone else (partner, mum, nanny) to look after the baby otherwise there it is morally wrong to claim to be working when you are partly looking after your baby.  You are paid to work and so that is what you must do (of course everyone has the odd day when they work at home to look after a sick child and doesn't get much done but a regular arrangement of trying to do research while baby is there is not on - and you would find it really hard)

I worked part time when my children were babies (and even did a bit when on maternity leave with no 2) - they went to nursery on my working days but occasionally if there was something important on one of my non-working days I would dial into a conference call (or even when I was on maternity leave have meetings in my house). I had the baby with me but I wasn't actually being paid on those days.

As people have said depending on your work you may find you can't go into the lab or can't do fieldwork - on the other hand if your research involves interviewing people or running focus groups then that is like any office job (at least as far as pregnancy is concerned) and so for most women with straight forward pregnancies it would be fine.

You have legal protection form being sacked etc but if your pregnancy put the research back (because you can't be in the lab and no-one else can do your research) then you may find colleagues are resentful and don't want you on the next project.

After long summer break (but I was doing some research) I ahve come back to a paper which my head of department has reviewed for me and I need to make some changes. Don't have a porblme with that at all - some of his suggestions are really good.

Problme is that even having taken out chunks which are superfluous, the paper is nearly 6,000 words long already and needs probably another 1,000 words adding in (to cover off what he says is a key contribution which I have really only superficially covered). I have just checked the journal guidelines and they want papers of 2-5,000 words. So what do I do?

Carry on and then try to edit around 2,000 words out, not bother adding bits, carry on and then try to split into two papers, find another journal?

But then lots of us have friends at other universities or people on the forum (and similar) who will help us out :-)

I'd agree with previous post.  What I would do though is make sure I made some contact at the conference, ask a question (if there is Q&A at end of the session), go up to them at the end of the session, join a conversation over coffee, exchanged business cards etc.  That way you have made the connection (and hopefully impressed them) without compromising your position, then when the enquiry comes about external they'll think "Oh that was the interesting person I met at that conference - I'd like to find out more about their research" and not "never heard of them, not sure I want to do any more PhD externalling".

Win win situation.

Break it down into smaller chunks
Cut yourself off from everything (esp facebook, forum, e-mail etc)- if you must check once in morning and once in evening (unless dissertation related it is not important)
Switch off phone (again unless it is dissertation related or an emergency DO NOT ANSWER IT
Delegate as much as you can - get someone else to deal with all domestic issues (shopping, cooking etc)
Reward yourself with things you have to do anyway (eg a bath)
Accept you won't get sleep but adrenelin will get you through
Recruit a proof reader
Don't underestimate the time it takes to print and make sure you have printer cartridges.
Have acknowledgements etc ready
Make arrangements for binding - cheaper means you need to book it in (eg at uni) - short notice means you spend more money (eg at a copy shop but even then there may be queues).
Make sure you know what covers etc you have to have.
My personal view is that music is a distraction - even if the music isn't you are wasting time selecting tracks etc.
When I did my MSc I hardly saw my children (then 5 & 3) during the last week of my dissertation. My husband shopped and cooked and told me when dinner was on the table. He did all the childcare / ferrying to school and fielded phone calls. He also did proof reading for me.

Because I had written my first master's dissertation in 4 weeks while I was heavily pregnant I kept putting things off until the last minute when I did my MSc ("well I'm not pregnant this time so it will be easier"). After three days with 3 hours sleep (one and a half hours on each of two nights) my big difficulty was that when I was ready to start printing at 9am (for 3pm submission) the printer cartridge had run out and the two spares jammed so I spent an hour and a half going to get replacements (I live in a rural area) - buy some genuine cartridges to have ready (I had cartridge world refilled ones and they are not reliable enough). I also had a 15 mile drive to the university and I probably shouldn't have been driving (but husband had to pick up kids from school)

Good Luck - lots of us have been there and we lived to tell the tale - you will too.

Ok so I am at a really prestigious international conference in London (1000+ participants) 273 sessions (with 4/5 papers each) for the first time :-). And my son is starting senior school and I am not going to be there. :-(
My presentation is written, I have lots of nice pictures (entirely suitable for my subject), I am on in first timeslot on first day so come down the day before and stay in hall of residence to be ready nice and early, I know what I am going to wear (smart casual but comfy including flat shoes), I don't have a drink night before so I will be bright eyed and bushy tailed. :-)

Reality is
1. there is singing (yes really) in the quad of the halls until 12.30am so I don't get much sleep.
:-s
2. I get to the session early but no-one there so didn't like to mess with computer :-(
3. Conveynors arrive about 15 minutes early - every one loads there slides onto the computer except mine is not on my memory stick - I hadn't saved it. :$
4. Mad panic run back to hall of residence to get it, run back (sweaty and flushed by now) :$

[That's the LOWS]

Do presentation - I managed to field all the questions (although some were - "well as I said I am at the very early stages so I will bear that in mind when I am developing my methodology") get some good suggestions of contacts. ,-)
[That's kind of NEUTRAL I think]

Went to more sessions (relaxed as the pressure is off) (including a workshop on writing for journals which made me feel more confident about writing - esp as I have a couple of things that with a bit of tweaking I can submit pretty quickly :-) ), asked some questions, met very eminent person who is to be our new external examiner (and got on v. well with him) :-)

Met up with my Head of Department (another neutral aspect) and some people he knew - one of them edits a prestigious journal in my field and asks me to write a paper for it (after he realises that I wasn't joking when I told him what my PhD research is about :-x
), another person from same uni asks me to give a research seminar and two eminent people (husband and wife but different unis) turn out to have children at the school my son is going to. :-)

So after a crappy start :-( (and as Head of dept wasn't there I haven't told him about my incompetence) I feel really positive - got a couple of ideas for one journal (after the workshop), been asked to write for another and give a research seminar and got more ideas on methodology from sessions I have been to. And there's still another day to go.

Oh and my son ran off without saying goodbye to my husband as he spotted his mate and he has had a great day and was as interested to know about my day as I was about his.
:-x

have PMd you re J Trav Res

We all do it - I am going to a conference tomorrow and despite him having no sense of style and me being fairly clued up I asked my proferssor (who has been to this conference many times and is also going) what I should wear.

I don't want to be "too dressed up " in a suit if everyone else is in cagouls (yes that is a possibility) but equally I don't want to be in jeans and converses if everyone else is in trousers and a jacket. So yes I am taking three different outfits of varying degrees of smartness (but as my session is first thing on day one I will have no chance to check out what everyone else is wearing). I think I am going to go for dark trousers, white top and a long (smart) cardigan - it's all comfy (OMG I am sounding like my grannie) but looks sufficiently dressy if that's what eveyone else has gone for but not too corporate suit if everyone else is casual. (Prior to being in academia I was in finance in a corporate environment and so black sharp suits with killer heels and killer lipstick were the order of the day when presenting)