Should I pursue Ph.D. While working?
By Jayaprakash G
(My personal view and experience)
I am often asked this question how to do Ph.D. while working?
I have tried to put together the steps I followed/learned while I am living the experience. First answer the four questions Why?
Where? How? How long?
Deciding to do...
Question #1 – Why you
want to do Ph.D.?
- Whether you want
to pursue academics
- Want to work for R & D / Technology company
- Want to add Dr. to your
name
Question #2 – How you
want to do, full time or part time?
- Whether you want
to quit/take long leave
- Whether you want to continue working and do it part
time
Question #3 – Where to do?
Whether in India or
Abroad
Question #4 – How long you are prepared to commit?
Whether you can commit
your time for 4-6 years
These are very important questions you will need to
answer before you decide to take the big leap. Based on these answers, you
choices differ
For ex:-
- Let us say you want to pursue academics, then IITs are
preferred. If not IITs then you should pursue either Ph.D. or post-doc
abroad in a good university.
- Let us say you want to continue working and do it part
time, then decide on Indian University
Decided to do: (If
you answer is Part time and Indian University)
1. Pick an area you would
to like to work; it can be broad topic as IoT
Security, Software Engineering, Cloud security, economics, HR, etc
2. Find out which
professors are working in this area. All universities have detailed profile of
their professors. Professors often
provide their contact email Ids
3. Do your homework,
literature survey on this area
4. Approach the professor with your interest to work with them
5. Often professors respond to have a call or ask for
face to face meeting
6. Discuss with professor, talk about your experience and
discuss your research interests
7. More often professors would ask you to do some homework
like reading papers/journals or give you few assignments to test your skills/expertise
8. Once professor is convinced, they would ask you to
apply for the Ph.D. and follow process
9. Each university has
different process for Ph.D. candidate
selection
o Test, Interview, Assignment and final selection
o It requires letter of interest from the
professor
Selected and doing:
1. If you are BTech/BE, than it
requires you to do acquire 32 credits.
2. If Masters, then it is
16 credits
3. This requires you to be present in university. It
takes about 1-2 years
4. During these two years along with acquiring the credits, you are
required to do detailed literature survey
5. By the end of 2nd year,
you should have completed the detailed literature survey of your area
o Academic work - Papers, Journals
o Industry - State of the art, Current products,
existing solutions
o Emerging technology - Work in progress
products/solutions
6. Comprehensive report
should cover
o Literature survey
o Problem statement
o Gaps, Thesis area,
and future work plan
7. Comprehensive exam
o Defend your report. This is an important step in
the Ph.D. life cycle.
Ph.D. in Progress:
Each professor/university has different criteria like
number of conference papers, journals and which conference to target
Finished:
Best wishes to all of you who pursued PhD and completed. I finished my PhD and working as a researcher in a Information security. Do write to me about your experience. I will continue
improving/updating my blog.
