I moved into a new career at 31 and then another at 33! So it's definitely not too old - everyone's right; it is about transferable skills. I spent nine years in the travel industry after my BA in Linguistics and then after a very short stint in uni admin, I was able to use my considerable intercultural skills developed during years in travel to land an EFL job, along with the basic CELTA qualification that I got in a month when I left the travel industry. This EFL job coupled with my MA in TESOL, taken during the uni admin years, got me my first lecturing roles and that subsequently led to a successful PhD application and here I am...

So, one thing leads to another and as long as you demonstrate good skills, I can't see you'll have a problem.
Hope you get what you want.

Ooh you just made me check our regs and I can also choose any font as long as it's no smaller than 2mm (ie. size 11 in most fonts)! Great news!

Oooh if you have the choice, I'd go Book Antiqua. Classy yet informal - italics particularly gorgeous!

I guess it depends a little on your subject area but I read somewhere that there's kind of an expectation of around 18 hours per week for a PT PhD. I suppose that's just halving a 37 hour week, considered as a full time job though, so how useful that is I wouldn't like to say for sure.

I've just started a PT PhD too. Am just getting my head round schedules etc. but I'm in a different situation for most here, in seems, in that I think I'm half way between FT and PT and I would love to finish in 4/5 years rather than 6/7! I've cut down my working week so am teaching for anything between 6 and 13 hours per week (depending on the time in the semester) and PhDing for the rest of that. Currently that's equating to 2 days a week on campus doing a 6/7 hour day but will go up to 3 days a week from next week until at least February which is well exciting!

I think your MSc experience will have set you up well in terms of the pitfalls ie isolation etc. And you sound like you're doing it for all the right reasons and with a good support network in place. So go for it and good luck!

I get you. I did a five day trek in Peru for charity and we had a problem on the last day which meant me and my bf (at the time, hubbie now - it was a v bonding experience...) had to basically leg it up a mountain at altitude to catch the rest of our group up. I made it, although it nearly killed me, and I just burst into tears when I saw the group and pretty much didn't stop all day. Had to wear sunglasses in all pics of me at Machu Picchu! Exhaustion can be very draining...

Your motivation is a fabulous one and I'm pretty sure that if you focus on that at the hard times, you'll keep going and be soooo proud of yourself when you've done it. Good luck!

Today has not been a total waste because I:

-Got a key for a locker at the research centre so I can leave my books here and save my bookshelves at home
-Started reading Vygotsky's Thought and Language
-Arranged my next supervision meeting
-Stopped my husband applying for a job in Brussels
-Went Spotify premium...
-Wrote my third blog post: http://clarabellephd.wordpress.com/

Hmmm not exactly phenomenal but baby steps...

Maybe pretend your lit review is a novel and write it like this: www.nanowrimo.org. National Novel Writing month started today and the aim is 1,667 words per day! OK, so you're not writing a novel but at least you know there are many others out there with a difficult but do-able amount of words per day to write... ;o)

From my point of view, I'm really impressed at where you sound like you've got to already. I'm in week 4 of a part-time PhD and couldn't put anything together at all at the moment... Good luck!

Eurostar is definitely the best option and no problem for a day - first train about 7am gets you in at 10.17 Paris time and last train back is just after 9pm, so plenty of time to explore the city. And if you book soon, you should get a reasonable price too. Best price possible is about £59 each way.

www.eurostar.com

I'm using Zotero, which works a little like Mendeley. I'm hoping that I'm lucky as I've started using it right at the start of my literature collection and hoping if I'm careful in tagging etc. I should be able to use all the literature I find coherently...

I've been impressed by the number and quality of PhD student blogs out there and I sense they will be offering me a lot of support over the next few years. Instead of just perpetually stalking on or commenting on them though, I thought I'd give my own a go, I'm using Zotero for my annotated bibliography and keeping most of my notes on reading there, so thought a blog may sometimes help me pull my thoughts together, or at least give me a space to rant.

My first post is here: http://clarabellephd.wordpress.com/ but there will be more, I'm sure!

Book Antiqua tends to be my font of choice.

I agree with JenJen re. your sup suggesting Comic Sans. How bizarre - have they not seen this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11582548 ?

I have short, layered hair and I use the wonderful Bed Head stuff, that's a really light wax (and a cute purple ball of a bottle!). Gives me some oomph as I have fine hair.

I'm starting officially on Monday (week 0 this week) but went to campus today for a Brush Up on Your Referencing Skills session from the Graduate Student Association. Nice to get onto the campus and got a couple of books out of the library and picked up the all-important NUS card (discounts for years now as a part time PhDer!)...

However, I kind of felt weird. It now feels like such a massive commitment - I'm interested (but probably not totally passionate) about so much in my area (language learning) but am hoping I have chosen the right area... impact related mainly...

Anyway, hoping I'll be fine when I get to have a welcome meeting and meet my sup...

Hi

I'm 34 and just about to start a part-time PhD (although like Ubu, I'm aiming for 4 years...) with a teaching load of between 7 and 13 hours per week. I landed myself a one-off bursary payment to cover about 1/3 fees for Yr 1 and also won a research award from the British Council, which almost covers two years fees for writing a lit review/ observations report by this time next year.

I live with my husband in a house that I bought in 1999 - just before prices went up so we share a £450 per month mortgage for a 2 bed house. My hubbie has office space in the loft and my desk is between our kitchen and lounge (that works better than it sounds...!). he's also selling the house he owns so hopefully we'll have a little pot of money in a couple of months.

I teach at a uni only 12 minutes walk away and my PhD uni is 15-20 minutes cycle ride. All seems pretty good and under control at the moment but we'll see once I start next week.

Hi

I was thrilled that you responded to this post, BilboBaggins - I've seen your name in so many inspirational posts already!!
Thanks for your thoughts - I've been so lucky to sort out my teaching (in 2 different faculties in an entirely different university!) to fit into 2/3 days during the whole of this first semester, which means I can do exactly what you suggest - at least for this semester. Fingers crossed for the remainder of the marathon!