Hello Everyone

I am thinking of trying to do a PhD in the humanities (philosophy or social sciences) but I am not sure it will be worth my time applying, given principally my grades and lack of funds.

I am 30 years old and have been working at a supermarket for about 7 years. After I left uni I never had any idea what I wanted to "do" with my life, so I took the first job I could find after graduation and kind of stuck with it. Somehow 7 years have passed. Anyway, I have a 2.1 in Politics (not a great 2.1 either) and a Merit in my Masters (just missed out on a distinction unfortunately, did much better there).

I've been thinking about going back to uni half-seriously for a while but assumed I would never get funding and that people wouldn't want to take students on with less than a First. But having read a bit on this forum I notice that I may have misjudged some of this. Mine aren't bad grades at all, just not excellent. I also notice that there will be 25k government loans available from next year, so I might be able to take that for study and work part-time for the rest of the money.

So my questions: am I right in now thinking I have a reasonable chance of doing this? Or is it still a tall order? I guess I have to decide what I have to lose.

Any feedback will be appreciated, thanks.

Dear LordHargreaves,

Rather than think about whether you can do a PhD, have you deeply thought about what you want as a career after the phd? You did not mention this at all.

Do you want to work in academia? If yes, then a PhD is the way to go. However, you may wish to check on the job prospects of a PhD in humanities to help you make your decision on whether to invest all those years of PhD study.

If you want to do a PhD to get out of the supermarket job, I would suggest that you reconsider aligning your current skills to get a better job. Would a diploma or masters in business, sales, marketing or client management help you climb the career ladder better in addition to your work experience?

I agree with tru. But if you already know you WANT to do a PhD but are just feeling unsure about whether you'll manage to get funding etc, then I hope you'll give it a go. It is challenging getting funding, even if a student does have a first. But that doesn't stop people getting funding who have less than a first. And your Masters results is the more recent of the two - and in that I've heard merits and distinctions aren't regarded as majorly different from one another.

I don't think you've anything to lose. If it didn't work out, I am sure you could easily find another job. Just to share where I'm coming from in this - I left my job of 4 years after not being in education in a while. It was the best thing I've ever done. No regrets whatsoever. All the best with your decision!

if you do decide to go ahead with a PhD, you can look at these two websites for funding:

https://www.findaphd.com/

https://www.internationalscholarships.com/

It is not essential that you have a clear vision of what you want to do with the PhD afterwards. It is far more important that you simply want to do one in a particular area you are interested in.
You really cannot plan your life 3 to 5 years ahead. Especially not when you are as young as 30.
Life will almost certainly change your plans. You will be a totally different person when you come out the other end.
There is no guarantee that a PhD will get you out of supermarket work.
You have mentioned your age so you are clearly concerned that it migt be a factor. It won't be. You grades shouldn't cause too many problems either.

If you are genuinely interested in this I would go for it. You might regret it if you don't. Try and find a fully funded position first though. Borrowing that sort of money for a PhD is bonkers.

Hi everyone, thanks for the replies. They are greatly appreciated.

I do suspect my motives slightly. Perhaps I would feel happier if I just change jobs? And I need to consider possible career paths if I decided to do more studying. But at the moment I feel like this is something I want to do, even if for its own sake.

Very easy way to find out: switch jobs.

: D

Your marks coupled with a decent proposal and a feasible choice of supervisor would be enough to get you a place, I think. You are, I'm afraid, right that you are unlikely to be competitive for funded places. In the areas you mention, the vast amount of funded places are through the AHRC (philosophy) / ESRC (politics) Doctoral training centres / partnerships. These are competitive and in my region (not geographically as desirable as some), we're not seeing any success for students with neither a distinction at MA nor a 1st at undergrad. Compared to the sciences, there are so few funded places, that it's ridiculously competitive to get funding. (And there's the same issue at the end - far fewer postdocs). But that means that you would need to get even further into debt for a qualification that statistically is very unlikely to result in academic employment, and as others have said may not be so valued by non-academic employers.
If you'd had some experience of professional level employment and thus had the skills and contacts to give you a route back into non-academic employment, and really wanted to do a PhD at all cost, then so long as you went into it fully informed of the risks, then fine. But in your case, you might end up no better off in employment terms but with more debt. Is that a risk you are willing to take? Or might it be better to at least giving changing job, to something that stretches your brain more, a shot first, in case that makes you happy? There's no time limit for starting a PhD if you become certain that it's the only route for you.