Hello,

I'm presently enrolled in a full-time PhD programme and will be finishing up my first year in Jan. A job opportunity that's related to my research has come up, and I'm now thinking of switching to part-time study. In reality it'll be more like 3/4 PhD, 1/4 job, but I like the idea of paying half the school fees, since I'm self-funded.

Is there anything I should consider before doing the switch? Will the level of supervision continue to be the same?

Thanks!

Hi,

To be honest I think that entirely depends on your supervisors and your department. I went part time due to family circumstances after 18 months and have had exactly the same amount of supervision, if not more. The best advice I can give is to discuss the implications with your supervisor(s) and for you both to agree on expectations, timescale etc.

Thanks Yve! Yes, absolutely, am going to talk to my supervisor. I just wanted to go into the discussion with a general idea of how the part-time/full-time courses of study differ.

Your university will halve the number of hours your supervisory team is given on their work load allocation to supervise you, so it might depend how overloaded they are already as to whether they can continue to offer the same level of supervision. Remember that you will need to fulfil a minimum period of candidature and that this will be longer if you are part-time, so will mean the time to degree is longer. All that said, a job opportunity related to your research is one you should grab, given how awful the post-PhD job market is, so definitely worth taking!

Hey Bewildered,

Thanks for your advice. Re: minimum candidature, I've checked, and the min. registration period in my situation is 3 years, which is what I'm aiming for anyway.

As I'm presently located off campus, I no longer see my supervisor face-to-face. We communicate over email. So I wonder if the "net" amount of supervision will remain the same seeing how there are no office hours I can make use of. In fact me being off-campus is one of the reasons why I rather not pay full fees - I'm not there making use of any of the resources in person, so why should I!