PostDoc Discussion Forum

I went to do a PhD at the age of 30. In answer to each of yor concerns.

1) I was single at the time I did the PhD. I know there's plenty with family on this forum who've tackled one. It's about you time management.

2) I'd left after Masters at 24 feeling I was too old at that stage, however, upon returning having other older fellow PhD'ers around me helped. The main point for me was the nature of a PhD meant it felt more like a job than studying. PhD'ers are "separate" from the general student population unless there are teaching requirements thus to me there was no feeling of "going back to school".

I met one man taking a PhD part-time in his late 50s. Also during Masters, there was a man on my course doing it full time with a family in his mid 50s.

3) The normal route is PhD, followed by post-doc then going into teaching. The PhD helped me into two post-docs in succession and you generally need the PhD in scences, maths and engineering to to start an academic career. Finding a job after depends upon your ability to sell yourself just as much in academia as in the real world. There's a risk, but there's also a risk on changing any job.

4) Your last point sums it up for me in that had I not done a PhD, I'd have always regreted it. So I did one and have no regrets. Things did not work out for me after my second post-doc thus I'm out of academia, however, as with anything in life you take a risk.

After Masters, the subject had been broched with me and over the next few years I finally decided I had to do one despite leaving a job to do it (there was a redundancy threat anyway).

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Ian[url=showthumb]http://www.wearthesis.talktalk.net[/url]

I started my PhD at the age of 40! However, I didn't have any children. The term early career researcher is not usually qualified by age but rather by years post-PhD, so there shouldn't be any age discrimination. I haven't been aware of any thus far.

I think there are two things that can be issues for mature students, one of which is easier to fix than the other.

The easier one is understanding that the odds are against any PhD student regardless of age getting a permanent academic job, and that anyone wanting this has to use the time to get their academic cv into the best shape possible. This applies to mature students as well as younger ones. I have seen a number of mature students fall into the trap of believing their greater life / work experience overrides the need for this kind of continual career development, whereas the reality is you need to have the publications (in good outlets), conference presentations, teaching experience, evidence of getting funding available etc regardless of age.

The harder one is that for most fledgling academics, the first few years of an academic career feature financial uncertainty and frequent moves to different cities / countries. Naturally more mature students tend to be more likely to have family responsibilities / mortgages etc that make this more difficult. So I think early on you need to think this one through and accept that if you can only apply for jobs in a small geographical radius that your chances are lower. In that case, a non-academic plan B (which frankly everyone should have anyway) becomes more important to develop.