I worked part time on an M.Phil. to Ph.D. I got four years into it (another 3 left) and my cicumstances changed and I was no longer able to afford the fees that the University was charging. None of my employers would sponsor me :(.
In terms of workload, outside of "work work", the Ph.D. required that I had almost no life whatsoever however I do miss it. Since giving it up I console myself knowing that I was more than capable of getting the Ph.D. and that has to be enough right now. I think that the toughest part of the Ph.D. was actually starting it much like you are finding now. The pressure to find something new and unique that you can bring to the academic table is immense. The trick is, as I think Newton phrased it, to "Stand on the shoulders of giants". That is to say, find some existing papers in an area you enjoy and get to know them intimately, play with them, and finally when you know them better than the authors themselves expand on them just a bit to give yourself that new and unique edge. I started my Ph.D. in 1996 and I was looking at parallel distributed automata running arbitrary code (mainly AI based code for ANNs) for what was then large or unsolvable problems given the current state of the hardware at the time. Pretty much a forerunner to grid computing as it is today. My proofs of concept were all written in Java and I actually developed a parallel execution descriptor language that looking back at it had an uncanny resemblance to XML which at the time, was not a fully drafted specification and SGML was still the main standard in that area. Overall, it was fun. If I had the money, I'd go back to it. I've even considered getting some teaching quals in the past and applying for a junior lecturers post at a local University so that I could double up work with the Ph.D. which would be the best of all worlds from an academic point of view but time and external pressures do not currently allow for such a major sea change in my life :( Whatever subject you choose, good luck and keep us posted! Paul ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:175144 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
