Hi

I have the opportunity to finish my PhD after many years gathering dust in the cupboard. I've already written a draft, but I will need to seriously update the theory and rewrite. My potential supervisor has suggested I will need another year of fairly intesive work. He made it clear that this final stage will be hard work requiring lots of commitment.

I have two questions: first - I would like to finish for my own sense of completion, but I'm not sure whether it will help me career-wise (the PhD is in Social Anthropology - if it does not help me to get a job, then I'm wondering if it is worth putting myself and my family through the pain and undoubted agony. Does anyone out there have a view on the value of a PhD/has experience a similar thing.

Secondly, I can afford the fees, but would like to earn a little bit alongside the PhD. Does anyone have bright ideas/creative ways to earn a bit of money while writing up AND looking after school-age children??

Any input gratefully received.

Promise, this is my last post on this: I left my email on my very first post.

I certainly did not intend, nor expect, to get into a big discussion about this, but I was asked to explain myself and wanted to make clear my intentions.

Just to add my own point of view to this. It is an extremely brave thing to decide to quit, and in some cases it is the best thing to do. If I had the sense to quit earlier it would have saved me a lot of problems. Quitting is not necessarily a 'failure' Stu - there are positive sides to everything.

OK.

I don't like journalists either for the reasons you state. You can take a positive or negative perspective. Most of you see this in negative terms. As I said before, learning about the experiences of others can make you feel a)less alone b)less of a failure c)aid your decision whether to plug away or not. I take the point that this is not the place to ask, so point taken and lesson learnt.

Apologies if I have annoyed any of you, this was not the intention.

Fair comment Freddy,

What I said is true. I have contacted universities as well, but it's not easy finding people who are out of the system. This is only one of the routes I have taken. I don't feel it's capitalising on people's misery - there can be a kind of therapy talking about it and hearing about/talking to others in the same boat.

Regarding DanBs question, I think it has a lot to do with differences in subject matter and lack of paradigm in the social sciences. In anthropology, one of the main problems is that you spend at least a year in another country away from a library, supervisor and intellectual exchange: you are in a different culture and can lose objectivity easily ..then you come back and have to get immediately into academic writing.

In my case, admittedly a long time ago, anthropological theory was in flux and academics were looking for new and different ways to write ethnography. With no formulaic structure to a thesis it was hard to know where to start and there was no post-fieldwork support at all then. All my supervisor said was just try to get it all down.

Didn't mean to! Actually, I'm in sympathy, but I get your meaning.

Zara

Don't know if you've me reading the thread I've started, but I'm researching an article on doctoral students who don't complete. I'd be interested in why you have decided to give up.

There doesn't seem to be a private messaging system on this forum, but if you're interested you can email me: [email protected]

So...does anyone know of anyone who would be willing to be a case study?

um, not a book, only an article.

3/10 doctoral students do not complete. The point of the article is not only why they do not finish, but the effect that this then has on their lives or not, as the case may be.

Reading about the problems some people have come across can surely help others decide whether doing a PhD is a good idea or not or whether they should give up or keep going.

This wasn't really about me - rather what happens to others who don't finish.

Just to lay the questions to rest: I was persuaded to apply for a ESRC grant in my final undergrad year. My tutors suggested a topic likely to get a grant: but I wasn't very taken with it and there was little expertise in the department. Being young I went along with it.

I got a first and got the grant.My research was in anthropology and required fieldwork - full immersion in another culture for 13 months so coming home was a major adjustment. I had little support and minimal supervision. The funding ran out so I worked, but I didn't give up. Every spare moment was spent on the thesis. I did a first draft, but by then I was married and living abroad - all I needed was a year re-registered to complete. Whenever I was ready to re-register, I was either overseas, had just had a baby or there were no supervisors available.

There are many reasons why people don't complete: it's not as simple as saying they're not committed.

Hi

I started my PhD 22 years ago (!) and still haven't finished.This year finally I laid to rest any notion of finally finishing it - and it was hard. I'm left with mounds of work and a rough draft - so near but yet so far.

The fact I never finished it has affected me in many ways, especially in terms of a career/lack of it. I've recently gone into freelance journalism as a way to transfer some of my skills and I'm currently researching an article on what happens to those people who don't complete: how do they feel about it? do they go onto better things? are they better off without it? or do they wish things had been different? what are they doing now?

If you know of anyone who fits this description, or anyone who is thinking of giving up, who might be willing to talk to me about it, please email me: [email protected].