Is it at all feasible to do a part time masters course alongside a PhD in an entirely different subject area? I'm absent mindedly considering it a possibility, though not necessarily a probability, in the words of a FIFA 13 commentator. PhD in drug discovery and masters in financial investment (or financial mathematics) if you're interested.
That sounds like a recipe for absolute disaster. Good grief, lad, have you ever studied before? How someone would set about doing something like that I've no idea, sounds like a good idea for a documentary though.
In theory it might work - but it depends so much on context. For example, if the masters is taught, and 2 years part-time, and the PhD is research and only requires a 3rd year thesis submission.
For me, a MA full time took up a full 9-9 daily schedule. I wouldn't have had time to do any additional studies at all. I guess you could free up a lot of time if you weren't aiming for a high grade though. Those doing the same course as me, but part-time, had a fair amount of free time, and it was far less balls-to-the-wall. I reckon you could fit in a PhD with that.
Having said that, now that I'm doing a PhD it's so flexible and hands-off I could feasibly fit in a part-time job or something without damaging my chances. Possibly a part-time MA course.
But the bigger problem is surely the institutions - nobody is going to want to supervise a PhD student who is spending X amount of hours per week doing a completely unrelated course. I'm not sure how drug discovery works, but if you need to spend a lot of time in labs and so on it would be a problem.
You would also have to pretty much forgo normal life while doing it (unless you are a genius savant, but then...) and suffer through some ridiculously stressful periods when assessments/deadlines line up.
All-in-all probably not worth it. Just pick the direction of most relevance, interest and prospects and run with it.
>>5379 >In theory it might work - but it depends so much on context. For example, if the masters is taught, and 2 years part-time, and the PhD is research and only requires a 3rd year thesis submission.
That was the basis I was working off of, not a one year or research masters. Good grief.
>But the bigger problem is surely the institutions - nobody is going to want to supervise a PhD student who is spending X amount of hours per week doing a completely unrelated course.
Well, I guessed that, I didn't think one necessarily had to know about the other though...
I have a PhD. Right up until the end of mine I was rolling out of bed, typing then rolling into bed. Physical tiredness was bad but mentally, I'm still not recovered some time later. I can't personally speak of part-time but anecdotally I would expect it to be difficult to balance the work and everything else you have to do to support yourself.
Ugh, I'm really split. I like the drug discovery side of my chemistry course, but I'm also fascinated by economics and politics and such, so I'm not sure. I've been reading about masters in financial mathematics, and I think that'd strengthen my science side through the maths as well as opening doors in finance. I'm really not sure.
Politics and economics open up careers in the civil service, politics, the financial sector, journalism, consultancy, management and dozens more. Science opens up doors in, well, science.
I'm thinking of.going for a.phd but I.want to.earn lots of.money doing something unrelated to what it is my studying, subject area and all. I'm guessing thesis pretty feasible but I feel so far out of my depth it's unreal.
