I had a bad couple of days to kick of the COVID-19 pandemic. My primary business was slowing down due to the economy and the deals I had almost complete for ancillary business lost their funding. Then my wife was transitioned from a salary employee to an hourly employee for the duration of the work from home period. I was complaining to my parents and my mom suggested going back to school and retraining. Since I’m almost 40 and told her to mind her own business and I was just blowing off steam.
The next day my wife got a second work from home hourly job with her dream company and the hand sanitizer craze went off. We both have more work then we can handle but for whatever reason going back to school stuck in both of our heads. I’ve been interested in getting a PhD in my field for a couple of years and my wife was poking around for me and found a top tier college that just started a research institute in 2019 that is focused exactly on my specialty. The college also does a lot of research tangentially related to her PhD. I sent an email to the professor at the institute that was basically the job I would want on graduation and after a couple of emails we had a call yesterday.
In talking to the professor, his biggest concern is that this specialization has trouble getting big research dollars at this point. After talking a bit, he offered me a partially self-funded position, the school would pay for all of my fees and tuition while I would pay for my stipend and insurance but I could keep my current consulting company through the program since it would be directly related to my research. That was basically the offer I was hoping for since living on $20K/year sounds horrible and I can earn more than that working 4 weeks per year. Right now, they are seeing if they can waive the GRE for me since it’s not being offered, they will waive the application fee, work with the fact my undergrad degree didn’t focus on this specialty and I’m 4-5 undergrad courses away from what they normally look for, and they want me to start in the fall. All of that was pretty awesome but I’m not moving across the country without my family and my wife needs a job too.
So, my wife emailed the head of the department that was closest to her specialty who she knows through their professional society. He responded 12 hours later with an offer for a post doc position, a teaching position, and several other ways to make money since his current research focus is directly in what she does for a living and what she studied. He is really happy to get her on the team immediately. There is also the potential for both of her part time work-from-home jobs to follow her across the country.
That means at this point we both have job offers with people who are very excited to work with us. We just have to pack up our lives and kids and move 1,200 miles in the next 5 months. That’s a little intimidating. I’m a bit scared to get a PhD in a subject that, while I’m well regarded in the field, I’m basically self-taught. I have a lot of interest in research and teaching inside my subject but I also don’t want to give up my consulting so that makes the academic life afterwards seem like a good goal. My wife generally likes where she is in her career and was hoping for another 5-10 years before she went into being a professor so she could have a solid industry background to teach from. We both really like our home and our town but we haven’t developed much of support system here. Lastly, this seems rushed and we’re at the start of a major recession and don’t know what to expect for the next 5 year so we’re not sure if this will be shelter from the storm or flying into its teeth.
I know a lot of people here have received their PhDs so I figured you guys might have some insight into what we’re doing that can convince us this is a bad or a good idea. Right now, either way, I’m applying for the program since I can always turn it down if it’s not right for us.
I’d warn off a 22-year-old with an offer that wasn’t fully funded, but you’re in a very different situation.
Make sure you have a handle on the time commitment, especially if you plan on working another job. This varies field to field. Sometimes it’s 70 hours per week for five years. This includes possible classes in the first year or two. Some programs require you to teach a bit, regardless of funding.
Being poor and desperate can be a strong motivator to get things finished. When spending a little less time on your dissertation this week to do some extra consulting means bringing in more money on the short term, it can be easy to keep putting things off.
Regarding your academic background not quite matching what they’re looking for, see if you can get some syllabi to make sure you can handle any required coursework. Prereqs are sometimes just nice-to-haves, but not always.
If you’ve been thinking and learning since college, your “how to learn” skills will likely give you a leg up.
There’s also the risk that the country will still be fucked up come September. But I guess if that happens maybe you just stay put.
Take risks with your career. You can always back track if necessary.
I don’t believe that we are at the beginning of a major recession. A recession, yes, but not major. When all of this COVID stuff passes by, which it will, the economy will come roaring back.
The dissertation vs work especially near the end when its getting old is one of the things I’ve thought about. We’re planing on starting out living on what the stipend would have been do we don’t "need"the money. So instead of buying a house equivalent to what we have now we’re looking at buying one half the price or renting instead of buying with a rent 1/3 of our current mortgage.
One nice thing with the regards to the prereqs is that my wife studied most of them in grad school herself so I’ve got a built in tutor. I’m also pretty good at teaching myself stuff. I self taught mechanical engineering well enough that I passed my PE on the first try. I’m just not certain how big of a gap I have between my self taught O chem and taking grad level O chem, neither is the prof I talked to who will most likely be my advisor.
Hopefully, you’re right. I have no doubt there will be pent up demand for a nice meal out in a restaurant when its over. In either case the goal is to head towards something more stable then my consulting/oil field career has been, I’m a little tired of the roller coaster.
Re: prereqs again, you do have a few months to prepare if needed. Plenty of online resources. And cheap used textbooks. And the SDMB, even if we’re a cranky bunch.
Another thing to check on is if there are any field-specific research techniques you might be expected to know more about than you do now. You’ll learn as you go, but you might be able to save yourself some early frustration. How important this is obviously varies by field.
Yep, once this becomes official I was planning on diving into great course and other online resources for the 4-5 months before I place a butt in the seat.
Where would I look for field-specific research techniques. My undergrad was very applied with no research.
I’m mostly out on this board any how so the field I’m looking at is Chemical Engineering.
Ok chemical engineering is a huge field, with research ranging from butts at computers to clean rooms to organic chemistry labs. I would find papers from the lab you’re looking at and from people performing related work and check out how they’re actually operating.
You’ll probably do way more learning-by-doing but it’s good to know where the deficits are going in.
Thanks for the advice about what’s coming out of the research group. The specialty I’m looking at is process design related to beverage alcohol production.
The original chemical engineering, according to some. This is really cool. I recall you’ve had insightful things to say on this topic elsewhere on the board so I’m excited for you.
I think there are so many sectors facing a severe shakeup, I think I’d be inclined to convert my assets to liquid, wait it out, and then be prepared to buy back in. This, assuming my net to be in the million-or-so range.
I appreciate the compliment. Unfortunately,the University announced late last week that they are freezing all new hires and graduate admissions. It looks like we’ll have a bit to get our lives together rather than rushing it in a time of upheaval. I’m disappointed I’m not starting now but their decision has lowered the family stress level a bunch.
I don’t think this is sound advice for a roughly 40 year old (my age as well). It’s effectively timing the market, but in a way that gravitates towards selling low and buying higher.
Unless you don’t have good emergency reserves already in a liquid form I’d advocate leaving less liquid investments (e.g. stocks) alone. That’s my plan. Largely a “don’t look at it”. strategy.