Dear Blog members,

I am currently working on my Phd in my home country but I am mostly looking for a Phd in the Uk and this are my questions: Can I do 2 Phd's ? If so, can I tell my prospective supervisor that I am already doing a Phd?
I have no prior experience regarding Phd's in the Uk.
I would greatly appreciate if somebody would help me out.
Thank you again in advance

Why do you want to do a second PhD?

You definitely couldn't do two simultaneously, firstly due to workload and secondly there might be issues with being registered at two institutions.

You could in theory start another one after your first is finished, but I'm not sure it is advisable.

I have no understanding of why someone would spend almost 10 years of their life to do 2 phds. But I agree that the workload would make it impossible to do at the same time

Dear lil,

Before you start your second PhD's in the UK whilst you are doing your current PhD in your home country (which I assumed it is not the UK), you should answer this question:

How can a physical object be at two different locations at the time?*

If you can answer this questions correctly, you not only deserve the second PhD, you also will receive a fast-track Noble prize in physics even before you finish your second PhD!

Best wishes,

Kim

*) Note that based on the quantum theory, this is hypothesized and somehow shown by some spooky experiments that it is possible for some subatomic particles to be at different locations at the same time but that has not been tried on macroscales!

I love your reply, @KimWipes. Saved me from dropping dead from my chair while working on a presentation in the middle of the night ;-)

Back to lils original posting:

I have only experience in life sciences/medicine, but here its highly unlikely that you manage to do two phDs at the same time. One phD is normally considered at least as a full time job (40 hours minimum, 3 years) - normally its more like 50 to 60 hours/week that you end with. If you do the phD part-time and have a normal job on the side to provide you with income, the duration of your phD will increase up to 5 years. And it is expected that you work twice as hard to cram as many hours or phD work within your day beside your "normal" work - hence its "easiest" to have a phD related work where you can actually do some things for your phD in your working hours. I doubt that its even possible to do two part time phDs - let alone on two different continents!

And I am pretty sure that no sane supervisor will accept you if you tell them that you are already working on your phD.

Thank you all for your answers

To answer Kim Wipes ironic response I have to inform you that in my Department there are Phd students living in other cities that communicate with their supervisor via Skype and try to stay in contact several times throughtout the year. There are no obligatory teaching hours assigned to us, there are several offers to teach but this isn;t mandatory. There are no courses we have to follow so the Phd mostly depends on our personal effort and the communication with our supervisor. We receive no funding whatsoever for the duration of our studies, only if look on our own for financials sources outside the university.

Maybe my question was a little unorthodox. Maybe I should rephrase it or elaborate a little bit and ask a different question. Let's take things from the top: I started on a Phd which looked interesting and I did manage to get through with the theoretical part. Now I m busy with the research part of the Phd and I realise that I need to enhance my studies and acquire more knowledge on the subject, one which cannot be offered from my Department. I realise I am totally on my own regarding the practical research part. I think it exceeds my supervisor's background knowledge. He might have the best intentions but I think at this point he can offer me limited help.

I found several tempting Phd abroad and if there are funding opportunities then they present a far better option.

My dilemma is that on the on hand I do not want to throw away the work I have already done, on the other hand I feel that Ι am in deadlock.

Of course It would be foolish not to tell my supervisor I understand that now.

So, let me ask this: Is there an alternative to a Phd that I could do abroad and enhance my knowledge while continuing with my Phd, so it will give me the time to think if it's worth continuing with my current Phd?

P.S. I don't understand why some people find it so amusing making fun of everything. Even if some questions are considered stupid by you, give us the time to explain ourselves. Some of us subscribe to a forum to get advice, because we find ourselves in a dead-end or difficult situation. If some of you feel so "experienced in a field" or so superior why bother answering in the first place?

I am a person deeply interested in my field of research and I just found myself in a difficult situation.

Anyway, thanks to all the rest of you for being polite to stupid question and taking the time to answer a somewhat ....panicky PHd candidate.

Being able to see the lighter side of life, especially as a PhD student can help greatly. The concept of doing two PhDs at the same time is funny, you have to admit.

"Making fun of everything" is a slight exaggeration. Usually a PhD is fulltime and usually a PhD is funded and that funding is bound to criteria. Therefore, it might be a bit ridicolous to some people that somone plans to do two PhDs in parallel. How should one know that you neither get paid, nor that you have to be present? You could have explained that all in the starting post making it a lot clearer ;)

On topic : I don't really understand what a placement abroad would get you. I assume we are not talking about lab work or complicated devices for your research part . Is there no way that you learn that stuff and get the expertise by reading a bunch of papers? I would assume that they expect you to learn that stuff by yourself and that supervisors in general have other stuff to do than actually teaching their PhD students how to do their research (as stupid as it might sound). At least I never had a PI or professor that actually taught me practical things. They were just available for discussion or maybe suggested another method. However, how I practically implement what he/she suggested was completely up to me. Maybe that differs from university to university but keep in mind that another university probalby also demands you to work on something, which then leaves you with no time for your first topic. How should that work out?

This is quite normal for a PhD... once you get into the practical side of things you are quite often left to your own devices to make decisions and plans. Yes, you should discuss options with your supervisor, but you should be leading the research... not them.

If you need extra help with a particular aspect of your PhD is there someone else in the department you can talk to? For instance, my supervisor has no knowledge of a particular programming practice that I wanted to use in my PhD so I did a lot of reading and discussed this with other students/members of staff to decide if it was feasible for me.

I don't think doing another PhD is the answer to your problems.

The only thing why I would actually consider the UK Phd is the funding - IF you get one! Its normally not the case that you see a paid offer, apply for it and actually get it! Beside from that I would rather prefer to organize a lab exchange where you learn for a limited amount of time a new technique at at partner university and then come back home and implement it there. Thats at least how it works in life science . Since your not paid I highly doubt that somebody would pay your bench fee - let alone travel costs.

No chance of using your supervisor networks? He hasn't to know everything, you know? ;)

If are currently enrolled in a full time PhD, no you cannot register for a second Full Time PhD, you can register only for a second Part-Time PhD.
If you are currently enrolled in a Part Time PhD, yes you can enroll in one more Part Time PhD.
For finding answers to your research deadlock, you need access to research literature. For this you need to request the libraries of those top universities to allow access all their Online Research Journals as guest for some stipulated fee. If you cannot still understand the research content of such literature, find the email addresses of those authors online and email them as to what topics you need to learn so as to understand their research paper. Then you may make some headway. All the best.
And by the way, the question is not stupid. It just happens that one might get interested in doing more than 1 PhD at a time, and I am sure there are more than countable number of such folk who have done so already.
Best
Ramesh C. Bagadi

Are there any labs in your country that specialise in the type of work you are trying to do? It's not uncommon to collaborate with labs at other universities to get the hands on knowledge you need to run experiments or even to gain access to specific equipment if that is your main issue. If possible, networking and fostering collaboration with other institutes would be much more worth your time than a second PhD.