Doing a PhD

DublinWriter

I'm considering doing a PhD in the field of Linguistics and Natural Language Processing.

I'm self employed, based in Dublin and working full-time. Most of the UK universities I'm looking at state that you have to be based near the campus while you are a registered student doing a PhD full-time.

Ideally what I want to do is a distance PhD but why this insistence on being within the general region of campus if 99% of your work will be research based?

Surely in this day and age of the Interweb meetings with supervisors don't always have to be face to face?

I'd be grateful if anyone could shed some light on this in the context of their own personal experiences.

niall2j

DublinWriter wrote: »

Ideally what I want to do is a distance PhD but why this insistence on being within the general region of campus if 99% of your work will be research based?

Surely in this day and age of the Interweb meetings with supervisors don't always have to be face to face?

I'm in the late closing stages of completing a PhD in Engineering. To an uninitiated researcher, as one usually is at the beginning of a PhD, I believe it's essential to spend as much time as possible on campus. Regular contact/meetings with your supervisor is essential in building a rapport and identifying any problems that may arise, especially at the start.

In my case, can't stress enough how little I knew about researching at the beginning compared to now. I think it's an unneccesary burden to try to learn to do this on your own when there are structures in place to help you learn on campus.

Also, there is a move now towards more structured education at the start of a PhD (taking advanced Masters level modules and the like), something which would also be more difficult from a distance. Certainly tools like the internet make life easier from working remotely but not to the point where it would make attending the university redundant.

I think it's fair to say supervisors (some at least) would have slightly less interest in taking on a student they rarely see.

In fairness, these are only my opinions of my own PhD, and it may be easier in your field of interest, but imo you'll be too far out of the loop to get all the benefits you should from postgraduate study.

Good luck with whatever you choose... it will be one of the most interesting, rewarding (and often frustrating!) things you ever do!

Tom Dunne

DublinWriter wrote: »

I'm considering doing a PhD in the field of Linguistics and Natural Language Processing.

I can put you in contact with a PhD holder who has specialises in that field and whom may be able to give you some further information, or perhaps even supervise you.

He is the head of department at the college I lecture in, located in Dublin. I know he currently has at least one PhD student on the go, so I am not sure if there is a limit or whatever. He was my supervisor when I did my MSc.

PM me if you are interested.

Red Alert

It depends I suppose a lot on how you work and how your supervisor works. My supervisor and I would have a pretty open relationship, and I'd probably see her every day and have a good long chat about work every 2-3 days. I tend to work best too when I'm actually in the lab and have people to go for coffee with / take breaks too.

If you're doing a PhD by distance there's certainly going to be some personal remove involved. E-Mails can't always capture something that would be much easier sorted out personally. Even when you're discussing directions something should take for example, often the way a one on one discussion develops pretty much determines what comes next.

You would probably be well advised to see what supervisor would suit you to work with. Someone possibly who has part time PhD students or people who work weird hours or whatever would be personally a good fit for you.

annabella_ucd

Has anyone started making an application for the IRCHSS (Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences) Post-graduate Scholarships? Anyone have any advise on applying? I know UCD is running a workshops on how to apply on December 4th. Anyone attending?
http://www.ucd.ie/graduatestudies/irchss/index.html

Thanks Annabella!