Moving on to a PhD
So you’ve finished up (or are finishing up) the M.A. in TESOL, and now you’re thinking about doing a PhD?
I think you should go for it. Doing a PhD is life-changinglygreat. And it’s also terrible. But it’s still great.
From my experience, it is also a very different experience than doing the M.A. in TESOL at the New School. That being said, I feel that the format of the coursework of the M.A. TESOL courses actually helped prepare me to be successful at the PhD level (more on this later).
The purpose of this blog post is to just tell my story of how I moved from the M.A. TESOL program at the New School to ultimately completing a PhD in Applied Linguistics at the Institute of Education, University College London. As I have just recently completed this degree, I will try to provide a few pieces of advice and observations on what it’s like to do a PhD. Hopefully, some of this will be useful for anyone out there who is thinking about pursuing a doctoral degree.
I will try to structure this post in terms of some of the questions I have fielded. Feel free to send me an email or leave a comment below if you have any other questions or concerns that you think I might be able to help with.
When reading my answers, I think it is important to keep in mind that my PhD experience was largely positive. Others’ experiences (and certainly your own) may vary!
Q1: Did you go directly from the MA to the PhD program?
No, there were a few years in between when I completed the M.A. TESOL program at the New School (Spring 2009) and when I started the PhD program at Lancaster University (January 2012).
To give a brief summary, after finishing up at the New School in the spring of 2009, I spent another year working at a language school in Brno in the Czech Republic, where I also completed the DELTA at International House Prague on a part-time basis. At this point, it became clear that I would never pay off the student loans if I stayed in the Czech Republic so I took a job in the Foundation Program at Qatar University.
Although I had always been interested in pursuing a doctoral degree, it was at this point I really started looking into different PhD programs and thinking about what topics I would like to research. With encouragement and support from friends and colleagues, I put together a research proposal over the next 6 months, and was offered a spot in the thesis and coursework PhD program at Lancaster University (which I highly recommend).
What happened next was that my supervisor accepted a job at a different university so I followed her to the Institute of Education, University College London, where I completed my research project, wrote up and defended my dissertation, and received my PhD degree.
Q1: Where should I study?/Why did you study in the U.K.?
OK, so there are number of excellent PhD programs in the US. Off the top of my head, Georgetown, Michigan State, Hawaii, Indiana, Northern Arizona, and Columbia are all world-class programs (this list is meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive—please no offense if your school isn’t on my list above 🙂 ). If it is feasible for you to study at one of these universities, then I think this is what you should go for. These universities tend to provide a good deal of job support, training, and opportunities for teaching that will be of benefit later on.
Although there were a number of factors that weighed on this decision, I ended up choosing to study in the U.K. largely for reasons of practicality, both in terms of time and cost. My own personal situation necessitated that I continued working full-time while working on the PhD. The PhD programs in the U.S. that I was interested in had more stringent residency requirements than the programs in the U.K. For example, following the first year, I only needed to be physically present at the university when I was collecting data, which I was able to do when it suited my own schedule. Coupled with the fact U.K. programs are relatively affordable, this meant that I was able to minimize my time away from work and also to avoid going further into debt to pay for the degree.
Obviously, there are advantages to the system in the U.S. as well. Speaking generally, PhD programs in the U.S. offer more opportunities for students to gain teaching experience in content courses. This is an advantage later when searching for jobs. Also, U.S. programs typically require more coursework and training in research methodology than U.K. universities. In my experience, this means that U.K. students might need to be more independent and proactive in acquiring the skills and training they need to carry out their own research.
In addition to universities in the U.K., some of my colleagues have looked into studying at other universities worldwide. For example, many universities in Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand have excellent TESOL/Applied linguistics programs. I can’t vouch for any of these programs personally, but I do know that there are a number of world-class researchers producing world-class research within these institutions.
The point here is, even if you work full time, or are unable to relocate, it might be worthwhile to look beyond nearby universities as many programs offer flexible pathways towards a doctoral degree.
Q3. How did you balance the PhD with a full-time job?
As I mentioned above, flexibility was one of my criteria in choosing a PhD program. However, I was very lucky in that my employer was likewise flexible in providing me with the time and support I needed. That being said, many of my weekends, evenings, and all waking hours were spent working or thinking about some aspect of my PhD.
Regardless of your situation, completing a PhD requires a great deal of work and, simply put, you’re not going to finish without putting in the time.
One difference between the work required on the M.A. courses at the New School and my PhD experience was the fact that the M.A. courses had deadlines, often weekly, for the work. In contrast, there were no deadlines for the PhD except those that I set for myself.
As is probably the case with all PhD students, I found that my motivation ebbed and waned throughout the project. It became clear early on that I was not going to finish if I only worked when I felt motivated to do so. What worked for me was to take “an MA TESOL approach” and to set myself mini-goals and assignments on a weekly basis and to do something every day towards the ultimate goal of completing the dissertation. Some days this was a goal of reading and writing a small summary of a single journal article, other days this was as small as proofreading a single paragraph, but the point was that every day I was a little bit closer to the end.
Another of my PhD friends set himself a daily 200 word goal. Simply put, he would write a minimum of 200 words towards some aspect of his dissertation. Even if that was all he did, at the end of the week he would be approximately 1500 words closer to the end. Another PhD friend took “an every other weekend approach.” Specifically, he would work all day (literally all day) on Saturday and Sunday every other week. Incidentally, the guy who took this approach finished in record time. Some other PhD students I know set up writing groups, where they would meet for specified times and sit together and just type away.
In the end, you will need to find a method that works for you, to take breaks when you need to take breaks, but to keep working towards the ultimate goal.
Q4: How did you choose a topic/What topic should I choose?
Most, if not all, PhD programs require a research proposal as part of the application process. This is an important part of your application, and will need to include background literature supporting your choice of this topic, the research questions, and your research methodology (including how you will analyze the data).
From my experience, most people interested in a PhD have a general idea of what area they would like to research. However, many (including myself) tend to be too ambitious in their initial proposals, and choose a topic that is that is either far too broad or too extensive for a single dissertation. Where many have trouble is narrowing their topic down so that it is feasible, and also in situating their topic within the greater literature (i.e., explaining how their topic fills a gap in the academic literature).
I have two suggestions here. The first is to do a bit of reading on your topic in established academic journals. Typically, journal articles conclude with areas for future research. From my experience, the areas listed here are not necessarily areas that you should directly research as these are often already under investigation by the authors of the article (this seems to be one method of “setting up” their next manuscript for publication). However, the areas of research listed are still worthwhile in that they provide a good starting point and can further help you see the future directions of research in your area of interest.
Another piece of advice is don’t be afraid to email experts in the area. Obviously, these researchers are very busy and you can’t expect them to read and comment on an extensive draft of your research proposal, but from my experience people are happy to provide some guidance and advice with regard to their area of expertise. In this regard, a short, polite email has never steered me wrong. The worst case scenario is that they will respond and say they are too busy or just ignore the email (though I have never received either of these responses).
Q5: Who was your supervisor? How did you choose her?/How should I choose a supervisor?
Perhaps the strongest influence on your PhD experience, and ultimate success in attaining a PhD, is your relationship with your PhD supervisor. There are plenty of horror stories on the internet that I don’t think need to be rehashed here. The worst I have personally seen is the supervisor of one my PhD colleagues was notoriously unreliable in providing feedback on the work of their PhD students…to the point where these students would spend months sending polite reminder emails in an attempt to get some feedback on their work.
This being said, I strongly recommend that you do not let the university decide who your supervisor is, and that you do some research before selecting what faculty member you would like to work with over the next 3-6 years.
Here are a few points to consider when identifying potential supervisors.
- How good is their research? Obviously, you would like someone who can guide you towards producing robust research for your dissertation. Someone with a good track record of high quality research should be able to help you do so.
- Do they have a record of successful PhD students?
- Having a big name in the field as your supervisor will look good on your CV, but they might also be too busy to provide much individual support.
- Once you have identified a potential supervisor, send an email to some of their past or present PhD students (these are often listed on the departmental website) and ask them about their experiences.
- Send an email to the potential supervisor. Tell them that you are interested in working with them, tell them about your proposed topic and ask if this is an area that they would be interested supervising.
Q6: How hard is it?/Do you think I can handle it?
The simple, (non-)answer to this question is: A PhD is as hard as you want it to be.
Despite receiving a lot of encouragement from former teachers and friends, I still had doubts and apprehensions about whether I was necessarily smart enough to be successful in completing the PhD.
What I found in the end was that the work was difficult, but not in the way I expected. I expected the PhD to be intellectually difficult, but it turned out to be the emotional/motivational issues that created the bigger challenges. It takes a long time to get a PhD, and to keep going for such a long period takes some discipline, and means you have to keep working even when you’re not feeling very motivated to do so.
Furthermore, things will not go exactly to plan. Your work will be criticized heavily and harshly. Some take this better than others. Also, every PhD student I have met has suffered a setback in some form throughout their studies. Speaking personally, my first pilot study failed to produce the desired results so I had to do another pilot study. That study too failed to produce the desired results. After hundreds of hours of work put into the project, I would be lying if I said the thought of giving up did not cross my mind.
In sum, it is hard, and it will take some determination to get through it.
To wrap up, you are thinking about doing a PhD, I would encourage you to go for it. I think anyone who has completed a PhD will agree that it is a process of transformation: Your academic writing, critical thinking, and ability to analyze research and arguments will all improve dramatically. However, it’s not the easiest of endeavors, and it’s best to accept from the start that it is going to be hard, not hard as in thinking hard, but emotionally and motivationally challenging. But I would like to stress that it is achievable, and can even be enjoyable if you approach the task with a sense of humor, realistic expectations, and a determination to succeed.
Author’s biography:
John Rogers (rogers@qu.edu.qa) is currently a lecturer and course coordinator at Qatar University. He has presented on topics related to English language learning and teaching across a number of countries throughout Europe and the Middle East. His professional interests include the development of implicit and explicit knowledge, as well as issues related to task-based language teaching.