h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm going to do a PhD.

I don't know where yet (although there are two obvious candidates). And I don't know how. I naively thought you basically needed to take time out, but a friend pointed out that they actually pay you () plus I could get a research grant...or maybe even (worst case scenario) stay in my job. But I have it kinda mapped out and I know some professors to talk to. (Meeting my favourite one in London next week).

What really clinched it was my friend saying 'You'd walk it.' I'm not meaning to boast vaingloriously about my capabilities. It's more a matter of being old enough and having been round the block enough and various strands coalescing into a thesis topic.

I don't see any reason you wouldn't "walk it", to tell you the truth.

Thank you. You're very kind.

I know.

Wow! Huge news! Hope it works out, I agree that from what I've seen you shouldn't have any problems. Not a great time to be looking for funding though .

If you want to meet up in London let me know, I'm there at the moment.

Got for it!

Will F/b you, D.

ooer, get you



celebratory ?

Well it's got me where I am today, Peanut.

Damn. I meant to...

End with a song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXAfWKOgo2Q

I won't add because I don't think you'll need it.

Was I the only one who assumed you had one already?

Good luck... if it's in the social sciences, I may be of some limited use in terms of finding funding, or at least where to look....

Well it's kinda applied social sciences. Applied to big, steel-bashing engineering stuff.

Go BoNoBo!

'I am the first Kinnock in a thousand generations...'

But you can be damn sure that I was set on an autodidactic path by two previous generations of readers who were no less intellectually capable.

Ww are shaped by our material circumstances and I'm the one who's got the break.

From 1/2 way through.

You will at times want to kill your supervisor. Annoyingly they are probably right.

Never be too paralysed to start something, be it a chapter, a paper or an abstract because you don't think you are brilliant enough.

There's a book from the OU on 'how to get a PhD' Get that book.

Part time is an option worth considering - part time fees are probably affordable for many people in a full-time job.

Well it probably will be part time - but the only option that will work is getting someone else to pay the fees. Also it has to *be* part of my job, otherwise it would interfere too much with family life and if it does that it's not worth doing.

This is the tricky part that I haven't worked out yet - but it's do-able.

I have a few friends at various stages of their PhDs - all of them are hugely stressed no matter what the subject (relating to work or not, "fun" or not) and no matter what their family circumstances (married, single, dependents, commitments etc)

Aside of cost (like me, they manage it somehow...) it's a commitment your nearest and dearest have to make with you - no matter if it takes 1 hour a week or 24 hours or more a week, because there are times when you just have to give it time and everything else has to take 2nd place.

Actually it's a LOT like what I'm experiencing now, and I'm only just starting the 2nd part of my degree

On the other hand: I've spent years and years doing stuff for everyone but me, so I've sort of bullied everyone into going along with it. For my sanity

Well I guess I've a little domestic capital still banked from the time my wife did her MSc.

(She was the second Kinnock in a thousand generations to etc. etc. The first was her brother, a Professor of Russian Politics)

Tiochfiadh ar la.