I have my progress review meeting next Monday which will hopefully allow me to enrol for this academic year, although I initially enrolled in January 2011. I am progressing, although difficulties with my literature review and a change of supervisor have delayed things a bit. Fortunately, recent feedback from my lit review has been positive, although there is still some work to do I am fairly confident that it will be okay once I have revised it according to their comments.

The main problem is whether I will finish on time, which is supposed to be January 2014. I don't think that this is possible, at the moment I am a full-time student but because I am self-funded I have had to work part-time (sometimes more than part-time) during my PhD. Although my parents are willing to help me out, I would really like to be independent and earn my own money. I have been teaching at the university, doing private tuition and some nannying to get by, this year I have taken on another PhD student's teaching as well as doing the same as last year, and I am doing a bit of lecturing so I will be even busier when I start the private tuition as well. Therefore I think it would be sensible for me to go part-time, I no longer see this as 'failing', I just want to develop more as an academic as well as do my PhD, going part-time would hopefully give me more time to present at conferences and maybe get a couple of publications (my supervisors talk about this all the time), and put me in a better position for when I am job-searching afterwards. Basically I want to get a bit more out of the PhD process and alleviate some of the financial pressure that I have at the moment.

I think I have almost made my decision, and I know my supervisors would support it as I have mentioned it to them briefly before. I would really appreciate hearing other people's opinions on it though, especially if you have been through the process yourself.

Thanks in advance, Natassia :-)

Hi Natassia,

I think if you can do it, financially, logistically and mentally then go for it! I'm faced with a similar dilemma myself as I approach the end of my third year, and I do wish I'd changed my registration to part time last year as I'm not going to be ready to submit this year now. I think it's a great idea (up)

It sounds a very sensible move. I'm part-time myself, but for health reasons.

I think it's a great idea. Normally the risk with someone switching from full-time to part-time is that they do it because they have a new very time-consuming job, and may struggle to fit in even part-time study too. But you are continuing pretty much - albeit with some extra commitments - as you have been while a full-time student, and can judge yourself how well you will fit it in part-time.

Go for it, and best of luck with the rest of your PhD.

Sounds like a very good idea. The academic job market (which I think from your post you want to enter) is really difficult anyway and almost impossible without conference presentations & publications, so what you plan to do makes absolute sense.

Thank you for the replies - it was decided in Monday's meeting that I will get through my upgrade first (in March), then I can enroll as part time and start publishing, attending conferences etc. Basically they think that it would be best to get the upgrade done first and then it wouldn't be affected by going part-time.

So I have a busy six months ahead of me, but hopefully it will all be worth it and then I can start earning some money and enjoying my PhD process a bit more again. Fortunately my supervisors still think that it would be a sensible decision for me.