Hello everyone,

I'm nearly finished with master studies (M.Sc.) and I would like to continue with my education and do a PhD. Hence, I would like to apply for a scholarship and pursue my PhD in Europe. However, the duration of the fellowships is up to 9 months. In that context, I'm not sure whether how long does it take to complete the entire PhD dissertation process. For instance, I've wrote my MBA thesis within a period of 4 months, considering the fact that my MBA studies were on English which is btw not my first language. I'm aware that its impossible to determine the exact time frame required due to a variety of factors such as complexity of the research, collaboration with your mentor etc.
Can somebody (how is currently in the process of writing the dissertation or have already completed his research) give me a rough estimate regarding how much time is needed to complete you dissertation.

Best,
ACM 1899* :-)

======= Date Modified 23 Mar 2012 15:46:24 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============
Most subjects take 3-4 years for a PhD. But in business? Probably about 3 minutes.

A fellowship tends to be different from a scholarship. *content / link removed by mods*

======= Date Modified 23 Mar 2012 14:34:07 =======
My science-related PhD thesis took over two years to write with an intensive period of 18 months once a few bits of experimental work were wrapped up. The length of time wasn't helped by my being able to produce too much usable data (i.e. my efforts were a little too effective). At my Uni., PhD thesis were supposed to be 40,000 words plus and no longer than 100,000. I hit 94,500 words, translating to 366 pages. I submitted just over the four year mark.

When I was submitting, I saw a humanities theses going in at the same time as mine of 900 plus pages (maths works out at not too shy of 280,000 to 300,000 words?). I think Humanities were given more scope for length from memory.


Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Thank you for the honest answer.
However I truly doubt that you can do your PhD dissertation for 3 minutes, regardless of the discipline. The thing is that in my country if you want to pursue a PhD in management or marketing you will have to spend 3-5 years. The program is intentionally structured with various courses (general and major) and research and publishing of course. Thus you have to pass all required courses (mandatory and elective) publish few papers and than you will be fully eligible to start working on your dissertation. So compared to European policy of conducting doctoral studies, you only have to submit a RP and if you proposal is accepted you can immediately start with research. When I say Europe in my case I'm referring to Switzerland where I want to apply for grant. For instance a I have a friend of mine who did his PhD in London (UK) and he only worked on his dissertation and neither courses nor exams were involved whatsoever. The same concept is also applicable to Swiss Universities. Can somebody explain why is this so having in mind that PhD usually involves courses?
Further, the reason why this concerns me because I can only apply for a grant scholarship for a research fellowship and this grant is however limited (9 months) after that you will have to finance your self. Overall, I'm not sure whether should I apply because if I'm constantly under pressure due to a shortage of time I'm afraid that my research will not be relevant. If someone have/had the same situation your comments are welcome.

Best,
ACM1899

First off I don't think you can do a PhD in 9 months so you have to either find additional funding or funding that will cover 3-4 years (UK) worth of research or consider self-funding.

I'm in the sciences so what I have to say isn't really relevant to this thread!