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All change please, all change
13 August 2010
By Sarah Davies
A friend of mine is currently considering an about-turn in career: after a humanities first degree and several years working in project management, he wants to go back to study physics. He’s been taking an OU degree in maths part-time for a while, but it looks like – to get towards an MSc and PhD – he’ll need to start over with an undergraduate course. Frustrating – but it seems that this kind of change of direction requires investment.
His dilemma – give up four years and a lot of money so as to be able to do something you’ll really enjoy – got me thinking about transitions and changes for researchers. For example, I’ve often wondered, when scrolling through jobs.ac.uk and coming across interesting-looking and well-funded PhD projects, whether I’d be able to apply for one despite the fact that I have a PhD already. I’ve also wondered how easy it would be for me to change disciplines. What could I do if suddenly got the urge to go back to being a natural scientist? Or if I decided economics was where it was at? Would I also have to go back to the start – or would the skills I’ve gained in research carry across?
I don’t know anyone who’s pulled off this kind of dramatic change of direction. And, of course, the very fact that I would consider applying for PhD studentships is probably primarily indicative of the dire state of research as a career path: it would be easier to be an eternal student (with those sweet tax-free grants) than carve out a stable career as a ‘post-doc’. But the world is an interesting place, and sometimes finding out about something new is incredibly appealing. Has anyone else managed to successfully negotiate an abrupt change in research focus or role?
Sarah Davies13 August 2010 at 03:59 PM
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Reading this back, it strikes me that in some ways I've answered my own question: I started off with a natural science undergraduate degree, and now work in social science. But my transition was at the MSc level, with a course that specialised in taking scientists and training them in social science and humanities skills, and so came before I'd developed any specialist research knowledge.
Hannah Dee14 August 2010 at 10:55 AM
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As someone who's got BSc, MA and PhD in different (but slightly related) subjects, I know what you are talking about. And I have often said that in the highly unlikely situation that I come into a lot of money I would go back to studying something different again. I love doing research in computing - don't get me wrong - but I do sometimes feel that the pace of the discipline leaves me running to stand still. One thing to be aware of is the recent HEFCE move to cut funding to students doing equivalent or lower qualifications (ELQ). This means that second degrees are likely to cost more, fees-wise. Some institutions have waived this, and it's unclear whether it applies to PhD study (I think it depends on the funding source). But you can be fairly sure that doing another batchelors or masters will cost you much more than the first one.
Sarah Davies14 August 2010 at 02:42 PM
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Ah yes - you mentioned you'd studied philosophy. How did your transition (from that to computing?) happen?
Hannah Dee14 August 2010 at 02:48 PM
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My BSc was called Cognitive Science - and turned out to be basically psychology with minors in philosophy and artificial intelligence; so I had a bit of phil (the MA) and comp (the PhD) from the start. But I then got a job as a teaching fellow in a computer science department, and the technical experiences I gained from 4 years there helped me talk my way on to the PhD! I think switching disciplines has been very good for me, the philosophical and psychological insights have helped a lot working in artificial intelligence. Although I do sometimes envy the straight computing people their broader understanding of the technical stuff.
Matthew Salois20 August 2010 at 08:44 PM
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Just out of curiousity, Sarah, what specific area are you interested in breaking in to? Is it something related to your current skills or completely different? Like you, I transitioned fields at the undergraduate to graduate level. I did my B.S. in a health-related science but then decided to switch to economics as a masters and then a phd. I, too, have scrolled the jobs.ac.uk website and thought "this looks interesting, I wonder if I could convince my wife to let me go back to grad school again!" The constant learning process is very appealing.
Sarah Davies23 August 2010 at 02:53 PM
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I hadn't got as far as choosing a particular field, Matthew - it's more a general sense of wondering if it would be possible and being snagged by intriguing job ads! As Hannah says, if only someone would fund us to do whatever we wanted...
Andy Humphrey01 September 2010 at 01:08 PM
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I briefly considered the option of a second Ph.D. (in molecular biology) to go alongside my chemistry one, a few years ago. This was really because of the direction my research was taking at the time, and the fact that it was far easier to get posts or funding for a molecular biology approach to the science than it was for a chemistry-based approach. All my molecular biology knowledge to date has been acquired on the job and so it's never been very systematic. Having the second Ph.D. would, I thought, widen the range of posts I could apply for and give me much more scope in actually developing my research field.
It never happened, partly because the finances just weren't there, and partly for family reasons. I still can't help thinking I'd be much more employable now as a scientist if I'd done it when I first thought of it.