teaching, marking and the PhD?

I am interested to hear some experiences. I began teaching at the start of the academic year and I managed to input a good 38 hours on my PhD per week with 12 hours of teaching on top of this. Yet, with the marking at present, I am lucky to find a couple of hours per day to dedicate to my PhD.

Do people tend to push the PhD to one side whilst marking? Or do you limit your sleep and increase your caffiene to stay on top of both?

Yep, sometimes the PhD has to go to one side. I haven't worked on my thesis for 2 weeks because of tutorials, tutoring, marking and applying for jobs. I still work 60 hours a week doing this.

Thankfully, this week is completely clear of any of that, so I can just work on my thesis again.

Funny to see the differences. In most other countries teaching is a minor task and your supervisor would never "allow" to spend so much time on this, if it means that you do less work for the project. You may supervise a bachelor/master student or a practical course from time to time but never to that extend.

If it is like that I would just accept it and not try to work 60 hours + each week. You will most likely burn out after a while if you overdo it and that won't be beneficial for neither project, nor teaching

I definitely found that there were periods when I was getting very little phd work done, but I was always able to make up for that over times when there was no teaching. It is daunting at first, but I found that it all balanced itself out in the end.

Just make sure that you're really organised and, although it may be tempting, try not to spend too much time on the teaching side of things. Remember that the phd must be your priority.

Also, if you're really struggling, speak to someone - your supervisor or someone else if you don't feel you can speak to them - before it gets too much.

Good luck!

I'm trying to finish my thesis and pay my mortgage. I've got few alternatives. My supervisors might not like it but they can't do anything about it. That's what they get for allowing 4 year PhDs to be only funded for 3 years.

Hi thank you for your replies,

Yes I believe I took too much on, and thankfully it will be finished in a few weeks until the next academic year (where I have agreed to just one role as opposed to the three that I am currently doing across two institutions!)

I am hopeful that it will balance out as you suggest glowworm, and TreeofLife- thank you for your comments on this. I have not completely neglected my PhD but feel as though there are not enough hours in the day I suppose!

I am quite lucky that I don't have any teaching or marking to do with my PhD as I am at least 4 hours away from my University.

However, I am doing a full time PhD and working full time as I have a house to run and can't live off fresh air. I am also required to carry out unpaid work for the University as part of my PhD, this can be anything from developing questionnaires, collecting data, analysing results and writing reports for staff members who need a hand. I totally agree with Zutterfly, it is hard to juggle everything and there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day, some weeks I've been that snowed under with work I haven't even thought about my PhD and other weeks I have had the chance to work on my PhD during a quiet shift. Its easier to say its all about gaining the right balance but everybody works different and you need to do whatever works for you.