I recently completed a PhD at the London School of Economics. For a number of reasons, that you can read about here, this is an unexpected result. At the beginning of the PhD journey I promised to take what I learned and use it to serve my community in whatever way was useful.
As a teacher and mentor, students often ask me about PhDâs. Someone helped me to understand this system once (đđŸââïž Sandra), so I don't hesitate to brain dump on prospective PhDs about the process. I know how important it can be to have someone make the process intelligible. But, I have had that conversation with many different people and as life gets busier, it gets more difficult to make space for these conversations. I figure that one way I can serve my community usefully is to share this knowledge more widely.
What I've written below is pretty much exactly the information that I give to people who come to me for advice about PhDs. My future self may direct you here if you ask me about it.
This advice is mainly aimed at working-class first-generation PhDs and Black students, because this is the perspective from which I write. But it may have value for other people too. If one, or both, of your parents are academics then you probably donât need to read on. There's nothing here that your parents canât tell you. Same goes for people who have inside connections through family, friends or colleagues already. This one is for âoutsidersâ.
If youâre still reading, here's how its gonna go. First I need to say some things about what a PhD is and who, broadly speaking, is in a position to apply. Then I'll walk you through a three step process to securing the ̶b̶a̶g̶ PhD interview (if you get that far its time to seek out people in the department you are applying to, especially current supervisees of your potential supervisor). In all of this, I am mainly discussing British academia, although we are moving much closer to an American system so there are some parallels. I also focus on social science PhDs, natural science PhDs are a bit of a mystery to me since the LSE doesn't have any natural science departments.
What is a PhD?
There is a misconception that a PhD is the pinnacle of education. In this view, one moves naturally from Undergraduate, to Masters, and then PhD. This is false. Actually a Masters degree is more like the âtopâ or âendâ of education. More specifically, its the end of âtaughtâ education i.e. its the highest level of education where the main activity is learning from an instructor.
I teach masters students. They have lectures and seminars, where I stand at the front of the class and say things. Students take notes on these things, and along with the readings, office hours, seminars and interactions with classmates, form their opinions on the subject matter. A PhD is nothing like this at all.
The PhD is more like the bottom of a completely different pyramid called âAcademiaâ. In this pyramid the PhD student is like an apprentice, often with some of the responsibilities of the fully fledged academic such as teaching (or being a teaching assistant), marking and most importantly â producing research.
A PhD is assessed by the submission of research. That research must âform a distinct contribution to the knowledge of the subject and afford evidence of originality by the discovery of new facts and/or by the exercise of independent critical powerâ (lifted from the LSE regs here).
More simply your PhD must tell us something we didn't know before via independent research. There is no similar requirement for a masters degree. Actually you will probably do very well at Masters level if you tell us things we already know but in an interesting way.
As it currently stands, you will probably need to do a Masters degree before you do a PhD. In the past it was much more normal to go from a bachelors degree to a PhD but its becoming less common, particularly in elite institutions. This fact in and of itself increases the barriers to entry for working-class people.
You can still apply without a Masters but you would need to have had significant research experience. Even if you have a Masters degree having some experience as a research assistant is still useful. Not least because it would help you maximise the amount of time you have to change your mind. A PhD is a 3â4 year commitment (sometimes more â life happens). Its wise to have as much experience under your belt as possible to make an informed decision about your future.
If you still want to do one â here's how to apply.
Step 1: Are you sure fam?
If you are the target audience for this post, you need to think hard about whether a PhD is something you want, or need, to do for the future you envisage. Some people who are more advantaged than you will do PhDs because they canât think of something else. They see it as just the next step in education and because they will land on their feet it really doesnât matter.
During your PhD you will not earn a lot of money, for some people that is fine, but for others that is a deal breaker. For about 4 years you will need to budget very, very well. After your PhD, job prospects in Academia wonât be great. Frankly there are many more PhD students graduating each year than there are permanent academic jobs and you will be competing for permanent jobs with people who have done multiple post-docs (post-doc is essentially coded language for a precarious post-PhD job, usually somewhere between 1â3 years long). The reality is that after a PhD, if you want to stay in academia, you will live precariously for probably another 3â4 years. Maybe more. According to my twitter feed there is a mass exodus of academics from higher education into âindustryâ (read â private sector) where the earning potential is greater and some benefits are better.
If you just want to do research as a job, there are other avenues. I suppose the difference between doing a PhD and having an academic job, and doing research in another environment, is the extent to which you have control over the question. If you have a burning question that you need to answer, then maybe a PhD is right. If you just enjoying finding things out and donât mind what the question is (within reason), then maybe post-MSc/MA you can work in research, earn money and have some stability â things a PhD doesn't offer.
The other thing to consider is whether that burning question you have can sustain you for 4 years? Will you still be interested in it in 2 years time? You canât really change your research question part way through a PhD. So if you get bored, disenchanted, if the studies you conduct don't reveal interesting things, you are stuck.
I canât really tell you whether a PhD is right for you or give you a quick and easy checklist. What I can say is that doing a PhD was the best thing I ever did. I will never again have the opportunity to think about something in the level of depth that I did during those 3-and-a-bit years. Iâm heading out of the university space soon (into something like a pracademic role) but I have no doubt that one day I will be back. Knowing everything I know now, I would do a PhD again. But that's just me, only you can decide what's right for you.
Step 2: Finding a supervisor
First, pick the supervisor, not the university! Remember I said a PhD is like an apprenticeship and in this apprenticeship you have a supervisor (technically a âmasterâ and that isn't far off reality lol). The supervisor relationship is the most important aspect of the PhD. It will make or break you. Your supervisor should embody multiple roles. They are your boss (they can sack you), your mentor, connector, and advocate. If for whatever reason this relationship fails, the likelihood is that you will not be awarded a PhD. There are lots of horror stories online, you can look these up.
So how do you pick? I think you need to balance two things. The first is expertise. You should be looking for the world leading experts in your field. At PhD level this should not be difficult. You will know what the empirical domain of your PhD is (mine was unemployment) and you should know what theoretical lenses are important to your work (for me Social Identity theory and Social Representations Theory). Who are the people that you are always reading? Whose work inspires you? The answers to these questions are your potential supervisors.
The second thing to consider is the quality of their supervision. This is much more intangible but look at how many PhDs they have successfully supervised and what their supervisees are doing now (esp. if they are more senior). If lots of them are still in Academia that's a good sign (if that's what you want). Reach out to your potential supervisors current and previous students and ask them about their experience. People are likely to be very honest.
But do not disregard early career academics who may not have any PhD students yet. The likelihood is that early career academics taking on PhD students will be very engaged with your work and be great supervisors. At least in part, this is because supervising a PhD to completion is good for their CVs in a number of ways (more on that in another post maybe).
Once you have identified a couple of potential supervisors, reach out to them directly. This might sound strange but it is normal. You really should contact the supervisor in advance of an application. Something like âI'm really interested in your work and wanted to explore a potential PhD applicationâ. Some academics are getting this kind of message every other day and you should feel entitled to get in touch.
The most important thing to learn here is that no application is going to be accepted without the supervisors consent. The supervisor is the ultimate decision maker. Its not like applying for an under/post-graduate course. There will be some level of centralisation but not in the same way. So getting in touch early and sharing your ideas will make the rest of the application process much smoother.
If you do not do this, and you send in your application without contacting anyone (in the way that you would do at any other level of education), it will fall into a bureaucratic blackhole. If you are lucky, your application will go out in a department wide email to the effect of âanybody interestedâ? Just imagine how disadvantaged these applicants are compared with applicants who already have the inside track. Some do get through, but the success rate is much lower than those people whose applications get sent to someone theyâve already spoken to ahead of time and has invited them to apply.
Lets assume that you have spoken to the supervisor about your PhD idea and they are at least moderately keen (i.e. they have left the door open for further contact).
Step 3: The proposal
Now you must write a proposal. Donât over complicate this part â you are not expected to know everything about exactly how the PhD will go at this point. The most important thing is that you set out an interesting problem. In my case this is what I wrote:
Following the financial crisis in 2008 and the election of a Conservative government (in coalition with the Liberal Democrats until 2015) the UK has embarked upon a policy of deficit reduction through austerity. This has included changes to welfare benefits including a maximum cap, and the proliferation of so called âworkfareâ. This is said to be in aid of âfrugality, self-sufficiency and fiscal prudenceâ (MacLeavy, 2011). These austerity measures have, it seems, disproportionately affected those who are unemployed or disabled (Reeves, Basu, McKee, Marmot, & Stuckler, 2013). At the same time support for wealth redistribution has fallen and ideas regarding the reason for poverty such as âlazinessâ are pervasive (Dorey, 2010)âŠ.Overall, my PhD research aims to investigate: the relationship between the UK social representation of unemployed benefit claimants and its impact on social identity, the ways in which this effects the unemployed persons sense of agency, their treatment by significant civil servants and ultimately their ability to find work.
Notice that its quite simple. I set up a context and a group effected by this context. Of course, its also true that unemployment is largely missing from social psychologiesâ fascination with the marginalised, but that is what creates the âgapâ that the research will fill.
Incorporate the work of your chosen supervisor, show how it fits with their knowledge and interests. But donât over egg it. Readers will sniff out bad citations and misunderstandings, especially if it is in relation to their own work! And be sure to talk about the methods and how each study in your âproposedâÂč PhD will contribute to answering/solving the overarching conundrum that you set up at the outset.
Once you have a really good draft, something you feel is close to submission â send it to the supervisor and ask for feedback. This may sound shocking, but its normal practice (in my experience). If the supervisor is keen on your project then they will, of course, want the application you send to be of the highest quality. They want you, and you want a PhD, so them giving you feedback on the proposal is mutually beneficial.
Unless the feedback takes the PhD in an entirely unexpected direction, then you should incorporate all the feedback without reservation. In some ways the application feedback is the first part of the mentoring relationship. It will specifically be designed to get you in the door. It can also give you a sense of what the future relationship will be like and whether you can handle the kind of critique that comes with PhD life. I have been known to give harsh feedback (but with love â I hope). You need to learn early whether you prefer direct or indirect commentary. Someone like me might say âThis needs a lot of work and isnât coherent right now. Here are some pointersâ, others might say âthis is good, consider reformulating xyzâ. They mean similar things, but they don't land the same.
Once youâve dealt with any feedback youâre good to go. The supervisor should already have talked to you about internal deadlines related to funding. Needless to say, earlier is better, much of the time applications are ârollingâ, meaning, when all the available funding/places are filled you are stuck until the following year.
Good luck
Cel
1 â It is a âproposalâ for a reason. Its unlikely that whatever you write will actually be exactly what you do. That would suggest you hadnât learned anything during the PhD.
*originally posted on Medium April 28th 2022