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How Long Does it Take to Get a PhD?: A Go-Getter’s Guide to Graduation

Featured Expert: Dr. Charlene Hoi, PhD

How long does it take to get a PhD? On average, PhD programs are 4 or 5 years long. The time it takes to get a PhD is slightly longer in the US, between 4-6 years, because these programs tend to be more structured. If you want to know how to get a PhD in Canada or Europe, you can expect it to take 3-5 years. However, there are PhD programs that take longer, such as part-time programs, or are extremely short, like online accelerated PhD programs. Ultimately, how long it takes to get a PhD is up to you. In this article, we’ll look at the average PhD program lengths, the typical PhD timeline, and tips on how to get your PhD finished faster.

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Article Contents 13 min read

How long does it take to get a phd.

On average, it takes 4-5 years to complete a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program. In the US, most PhD programs are between 4-6 years, while in Canada they are typically shorter, around 3-4 years.

Some students take longer than 6 years to complete their PhD, but in general the longest time it takes to get a PhD is capped at 8 years. If you’re enrolling in a part-time PhD program, for instance, your timeline will probably be extended to 6-8 years.

The shortest PhD programs out there are accelerated or sometimes online PhD programs. Some of these are only 1-2 years long, but there are comparatively fewer programs available, and they are only suitable for certain fields and careers which require less intensive research which defines most PhD programs.

One of the main reasons why it takes many years to get a PhD is because these programs are comprehensive and the requirements to graduate are extensive. Most have a set number of credit hours you need to complete, examinations to write, plus you’ll need to write your PhD thesis or dissertation, unless you pursue a PhD without dissertation .

There are certainly ways to shorten the PhD application timeline and time to graduate, which includes enrolling in a shorter program if possible, increasing your course load or the number of research hours you can dedicate per week, but generally a PhD will still take some time.

Even if you want to do a PhD without a master’s degree first, such as by applying to a direct entry PhD program, the program is still usually 4-5 years long.

We’ll take a look at the typical PhD timeline and how long it takes to get a PhD normally. After, we’ll cover some tips on how to get your PhD done faster or how you can avoid dragging things out.

In North America, the typical PhD program is divided into two stages. The first stage is where you complete all the required coursework, comprehensive exams and other academic requirements, depending on the program. The second stage is when you submit a proposal for original, independent research, get it approved and start working on your thesis or dissertation. Your PhD culminates with your thesis defense. Once your thesis has been approved, you’ll be eligible to graduate.

This timeline is somewhat flexible, as you might complete the first stage in 1 or 2 years but take longer to complete your dissertation. For the purpose of this general PhD schedule, we’ll assume your PhD program is a typical length of 4-6 years.

Application Stage

We’ve included the application stage of getting your PhD here first because the grad school application timeline can take several months to put together your application package and hear back about acceptance to a program. Secondly, because the application stage involves some critical steps you’ll need to complete in order to get your PhD.

1. Research proposal

To apply to a PhD program, you’ll most likely be required to submit a research proposal and be prepared to answer any research proposal questions your advisor will have. This is your “proposal” of what research question you will explore during your studies at a program, or an outline of what research topic you want to pursue. If you’re not sure how to write a research proposal, check out these Oxford PhD proposal samples or a Cambridge PhD proposal sample.

2. Application materials

The admission requirements for a PhD can vary from program to program, but here are the general components of a PhD application:

• Required prerequisite coursework
• Official transcripts (and minimum GPA)
• Graduate school statement of purpose
• CV for graduate school or research resume
• PhD motivation letter

Some programs may also ask you to submit additional essays, such as a letter of intent, research interest statement or grad school career goals statement .

Many PhD programs also invite you to a grad school interview to get to know you better. Be ready for common graduate school interview questions such as “ tell me about yourself ” and “ why do you want to do a PhD ?”

PhD Years 1-3: Coursework Stage

1. orientation.

Your PhD program will usually begin with your orientation, where you’ll learn about the program’s individual structure, requirements and expectations. You’ll also either choose or be assigned an academic advisor and schedule an initial meeting with them. Your advisor will be a member of the university faculty who will act as your support while you complete your research and write your thesis.

2. Coursework

The first year or two of your PhD will involve completing required advanced coursework in your field. You’ll attend lectures and seminars and you may participate in research projects with department faculty or fellow graduate students or even lab work, depending on your field.

3. Electives

Along with required coursework, you’ll have the chance to take elective courses that interest you or relate to your field. It’s important to choose electives that will enrich your program. Choose ones that really interest you, that might help inform your PhD research or that will help you fulfill your credit requirements.

4. Extracurriculars

PhD programs sometimes have extracurricular activities or additional requirements outside the classroom. This can include internships or a practicum you need to complete for credit, or you might be interested in attending academic conferences or relevant events to socialize and network you’re your colleagues in the field.

5. Comprehensive exams

The coursework stage of your PhD program will end with comprehensive exams , sometimes called qualifying or preliminary exams. These are your “final exams” to make sure that you completed the necessary PhD coursework and that you’re ready and qualified to take on your own independent research in the next phase.

1. Thesis proposal

You may recall that you submitted a research proposal as part of your PhD application, and this step of the process is similar. Your thesis proposal is just like your research proposal, but it’s a more refined and developed version. Throughout your coursework, your research question might have changed or you might have changed course a little bit. If you’re still thinking about your PhD topic , take the time to solidify it before you reach the thesis proposal stage.

Your research proposal might have been a first draft, while your thesis proposal is your official announcement of: this is what I propose to research in this PhD program.

Depending on your field and the program, you thesis research might involve a great deal of lab work, or data collection or fieldwork. Whatever the case, your thesis proposal is a complete outline of what you intend to do for this independent research project and the steps you’ll take.

2. Thesis approval

Once your proposal is written, you’ll submit it for approval. Your academic advisor, PhD supervisor or the PhD committee overseeing your program will review it and either approve it or make suggestions for changes. Once it’s been polished and finalized, you’ll be given the go ahead to start conducting your research.

3. PhD research

Your research alone will probably take you several semesters to complete. On top of the fieldwork, lab work or data collection and analysis you’ll be completing, you’ll be using this time to write and review. Writing your thesis or dissertation takes a fair number of hours to outline, draft, edit and complete. It also means hitting the books to complete a literature review of your research topic so you have a complete background understanding of your chosen topic and how it will inform your research.

Your research and the preparation of your thesis is really the biggest part of this second stage, and is probably the longest part of your PhD altogether.

4. Extra requirements

When you’re not deep in your research, you’ll be completing other requirements of your PhD program or additional duties that enrich your education. Some programs require you to dedicate some hours to teaching, whether it be leading seminars for undergraduate students or acting as a teaching assistant for university faculty.

You’ll also be strongly encouraged to publish as a graduate student , so you may be involved in the research projects of faculty members or other grad students when you’re not working on your dissertation.

5. Thesis submission and preparation for thesis defense

When you’re finished writing your thesis and you’re ready to submit it, it’s critical to know how to prepare for thesis defense . Because not only do you have to complete this original, new body of research work, you have to get the approval of your PhD committee to put it out into the world.

Your thesis defense is essentially the final presentation of your PhD.

6. Thesis defense

Your thesis defense is an oral presentation of your research project, but it also involves submitting your written document to be reviewed. Essentially, you’ll present the entirety of your thesis to the PhD supervising committee, including your findings and conclusions. From there, the committee will ask thesis defense questions . Your answers will defend your methodology and results to the committee, basically proving the value and validity of your work. While this is an evaluation of sorts, it is also your opportunity to share your original ideas and invite further research into your topic.

After your defense, the PhD committee will either approve your thesis or send it back to you with edits or changes to be made before it can be formally approved.

Graduation and Postdoc

Once your thesis has been approved, congratulations! You’ll be eligible for graduation and be awarded your degree. Now that you’ve finished this marathon, you can choose to pursue further studies or start looking for a job after grad school .

With a PhD, you have many different options for positions in your field. You might want to know how to find a job in academia or how to get a tenure track position at a university if you’re interested in teaching others. PhD graduates who decide to transition from academia to industry or who would rather work outside the realm of academia can find industry jobs after PhD that suit their skills and experiences.

Either way, you’ll need to prepare for how to find a postdoc position, explore what the career options are for you, decide what your career goals are and start sending out applications. Remember to prep your postdoc resume and get read for postdoc interview questions , since the job hunt will begin soon after you finish your PhD!

Is it possible to get your PhD done faster? What are some ways you can speed up the process and avoid taking 8 years to complete your graduate studies? Luckily, there are many key ways you can make your journey through grad school easier and speed things up a little, from the type of PhD program you choose to the habits and skills you cultivate during your program.

#1 Enroll in an accelerated program

The first way to guarantee it will take less time to get your PhD is to, of course, enroll in a shorter PhD program. Direct entry PhD programs allow you to enroll once you’ve completed your bachelor’s degree in exceptional circumstances. Note that these are not the easiest PhD programs to get into , as your academic record needs to be excellent, and you’ll likely need prior research experience and you may even need to have publications already. However, a direct entry PhD program is around 4-5 years, but it allows you to skip the 1-2 years it would take to earn a master’s degree.

You can also choose to enroll in an online or accelerated PhD program that is designed to be much shorter than the traditional PhD. Once again, though, these programs are not available to students in every field, so you may need to research whether there are any options for you.

#2 Choose the right mentor

One of the first things you can do to ensure your PhD is smooth sailing is to choose the right mentor or academic advisor. Many programs allow you to choose your advisor, while some assign one to you. Whatever the case, it’s important to establish a strong working relationship and clear expectations early on.

One of the first things you’ll do as a PhD student is meet with your advisor. Take the time to discuss with them what your expectations for the program are, ask questions and ask them what their expectations are of you. Your advisor is there to help you and advise you, and they have resources and connections you can use to your advantage. But they are also working with a busy schedule and might be advising more than one PhD student, too. A mutually respectful relationship with open communication will ensure fewer interpersonal hurdles down the road.

#3 Earn credit hours faster

One way you can shave some time off your PhD is by earning your credit hours faster and getting to the research and thesis-writing stage faster. This might mean you take on a full-time course load or ask your advisor for ways to earn extra credit, such as participating in research projects. Some PhD programs will give you course credit for previous graduate level coursework you might have completed during your master’s degree, or for certifications and professional education you completed outside of school.

#4 Keep your thesis focused

When you get started on your research, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with the amount of work you need to complete, with the writing of your thesis on top of it all. One way to keep your research hyper-focused and on point is to keep your thesis topic narrow. If your subject is too broad, you’ll be spending way too much time in your research. Give yourself clear objectives and scope, and don’t deviate from your PhD proposal if you don’t have to.

There may be a million questions you want to explore within your PhD topic, but there will be other opportunities to explore them. Keep your focus narrow so you don’t spend years and years asking and answering research questions!

One of the best things you can do to get your PhD done faster and adjust to the experience of graduate school is to change your thinking. Adopt a growth mindset so that you’re open to new learning, willing to listen to constructive feedback on your proposal or thesis and willing to grow your skills. A PhD is an advanced program, and you’ll already be very skilled, but it is also an opportunity to learn and grow. There will be challenges for you, so be ready to meet and overcome them instead of letting them draw you back or slow you down.

#5 Develop your professional skills fast

A PhD is an opportunity to grow your professional skillset as much as it is an opportunity for you to contribute meaningfully to your field. If you haven’t already been working on skills such as communication, presenting or lecturing and writing, now is the time to start.

Strong writing skills will help you get your thesis finished and edited faster, as you’ll be more familiar with the process and understand what makes a strong document. It’s also a useful skill to learn how to write effective funding proposals or grant proposals. You may need to do so to secure funding for your research, but it’s a highly valuable skill in the workforce, too.

Good presentation skills will help you during your thesis defense or if you’re asked to present during a conference. They will also help you build confidence in your voice and ideas and make you a better communicator when you’re networking or job searching.

#6 Keep to your schedule

This is maybe the most important skill if you want to finish your PhD faster: make a detailed schedule and hold yourself accountable to it. If you like, you can plan out your entire PhD week by week from Day 1. Write down what your course schedule is, when you’ll do research and how many hours, when you’ll write and how many hours, what extracurriculars or personal activities will take up your time and so on.

A detailed schedule gives you an overview of your PhD and a timeline of when you’ll finish. It will keep you organized and accountable, so you can avoid procrastinating or avoidable speed bumps that might slow you down. It also helps you compartmentalize the many items on your to-do list so you don’t stress out about how much you need to accomplish.

When creating your schedule, especially during the research stage when there is no formal class schedule for you to adhere to, focus on deliverables. Set a date when you will submit a section of your thesis to your advisor, or when you will complete your literature review. Setting goals and clear outcomes will keep you on track and focused.

#7 Take initiative and be independent

The last tip to help you get your PhD done faster is to take initiative. Remember that a PhD is a largely independent endeavor. You’ll have the support of a committee or advisor, but you can’t rely on them to do the work for you or put everything on hold if they aren’t available when you need them. Be flexible and adaptable so you can keep working and moving forward, even if your schedule gets interrupted or needs to change to suit your situation.

It's also important to take the initiative in your learning. Take advantage of opportunities for growth, networking, and gaining experience where you can. Get the most out of your PhD program and use your experiences to fuel your end goal of completing your thesis.

On average, it takes 4-5 years to get a PhD. There are a few factors that can influence the time it takes to complete your PhD, from program length and structure to what country you are earning your PhD in, to your own personal work ethic and schedule.

PhD programs in the US are on average 4-6 years. In Canada and the UK, they are usually 3-5 years long. Part-time PhD programs may take up to 7-8 years to complete. Direct-entry PhD programs and dual master’s and PhD programs are typically 5 years long. If you’re enrolling in an online, hybrid or accelerated PhD program, the timeline is usually 2-3 years, but there are some extremely short 1-year PhD programs offered online for specific disciplines.

Yes, you can finish your PhD before the “normal” timeline. For example, if you complete your coursework early, if you finish writing your thesis faster than average and get it approved, or if you otherwise complete all your PhD program requirements before the anticipated finish date. 

Yes, there are online PhDs available for certain fields and disciplines. These typically range from 2-3 years, although there are some traditional 4-year PhD programs offered online. There are also some “accelerated” online PhDs which last 12-18 months.

A PhD program is not necessarily shorter if you first complete a master’s degree, but having gone through a master’s program can better prepare you to finish your PhD faster. Some PhD programs accept credit hours from your master’s degree towards the coursework requirements for a PhD, and if you’ve previously written a master’s thesis or completed some research during your graduate studies, this will be an advantage. Since you’ll already be familiar with the process of writing a thesis and conducting your own research, you can avoid some stumbling blocks in your PhD program that might otherwise slow down your progress.

Yes, it is possible to get a PhD without first completing a master’s degree. There are direct entry PhD programs that allow students with a bachelor’s degree to enroll, so long as they meet the admission requirements and have exceptional academic records. Some online PhDs also waive the master’s degree requirement.

Yes, it is possible to complete a traditional PhD program in a shorter amount of time than anticipate. This usually means dedicating yourself to full-time study or taking on a larger course load and increased research hours. It takes significant work, but it can be done with the right schedule and commitment.

The fastest PhD programs are the short, 1-year accelerated programs. These programs have fewer credit hours to complete, and some have no dissertation requirement, only qualifying exams to finish. However, there are not many programs out there, and they are not available for every field of interest.

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Ph.d. requirements.

• Academics & Research
• Programs & Requirements

Brown University awards more than 200 doctor of philosophy degrees annually.

The Brown Ph.D. is primarily a research degree. Teaching is an important part of many doctoral programs, and many departments require candidates for the Ph.D. to have teaching experience.

Brown University offers substantial financial support to doctoral students. All incoming doctoral students are guaranteed five years of support, which includes a stipend, full tuition remission, health-services fee, and a health-insurance subsidy. Doctoral students in the Humanities and Social Sciences are guaranteed six years of support. All promises of student support are subject to students making satisfactory academic progress, as determined by their programs of study. Please see related links for additional details regarding the University's commitment to doctoral education.

Ph.D. Funding

Funding guarantee, four general requirements for the doctor of philosophy.

The candidate must be formally admitted to his or her degree program.

The normal residency requirement is the equivalent of three Academic Years of full-time study beyond the bachelor's degree. Students who enter a PhD program at Brown already holding a master’s degree in a related field have a residency requirement equivalent to two Academic Years of full-time study upon entering the PhD program at Brown. Use of a previously earned master’s degree to reduce PhD residency requirements is contingent upon approval of the program Director of Graduate Study. Graduate work done at other institutions and not used in fulfillment of the requirements for any doctoral degree elsewhere may, on the approval of the program Director of Graduate Study, be counted in fulfillment of up to, but not exceeding, one year of the residency requirement. A student who desires credit for work done elsewhere should file a timely application with the program Director of Graduate Study; transfer credit forms are available through the  Office of the Registrar .

A student is advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. when he or she has completed satisfactorily all the requirements, departmental and general, requisite to beginning work on the dissertation. Candidacy is determined by the department or program of study and certified by the Registrar. Most departments require a preliminary examination before advancing any student to candidacy. Most departments also require a final examination or defense. The examination is conducted by professors in the department and by such other members of the faculty as may be appointed.

The candidate must present a dissertation on a topic related to his or her area of specialization that presents the results of original research and gives evidence of excellent scholarship. The dissertation must be approved by the professor or committee under whose direction it is written and by the Graduate Council. All requirements for the Ph.D. must be completed within five years after advancement to candidacy.

Faculty Member Leaves Brown

If a faculty member working with a doctoral student leaves Brown for any reason before that student has completed his or her degree requirements, it may not always be possible for that faculty member to continue working with the student as an advisor. In such cases, departments will work with students to help them locate a new advisor.

Additional Requirements

Individual departments and programs may have additional requirements regarding the number of courses to be taken, proficiency in foreign languages, special examinations, and theses. The department should be consulted for specific information.

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Studying a PhD in The USA - The Complete Guide

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The USA is a favourable postgraduate study destination for international students due to the high standard of academic study and the wide variety of subjects. By undertaking a PhD in the USA, you will find yourself becoming an internationally recognised expert in your chosen field.

A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the USA is considered the highest awarded degree in many US universities and institutes for most fields of study. For many international students, it's a dream course that offers an exciting new life chapter.

Attending Grad School for a PhD in the USA is not the same as undertaking a PhD in Europe or the UK , it can often be a different experience. However, studying abroad will improve your global cultural understanding in addition to your network of contacts for your future career. A PhD degree is often required when you apply for high-level management jobs, government expert positions, and careers like a university professor, researcher, or scientist in many fields.

There are a multitude of reasons why the United States is a fantastic choice for your PhD studies. Here’s everything you need to know about studying a PhD in the USA.

1. PhD course length

The total length of a PhD in the USA is between 4-8 years for full-time students and 8-10 years for part-time students, depending on your field of study. PhDs can be completed in 4-5 years for students with a masters degree in an appropriate subject. Students typically dedicate 1-4 years on coursework, followed by 2-4 years of dissertation work. In the USA, the academic year is divided into two teaching semesters: August to December and January to May. 

Having a longer duration for your PhD allows for greater opportunities to adjust to your course and find your footing. This enables you to concentrate on developing a more comprehensive understanding of your chosen subject at a more relaxed pace.

2. World-class universities

The US repeatedly tops the charts of worldwide ranking universities , so what better place to do your PhD studies? Although rankings shouldn’t be the main deciding factor when making your PhD choice, they're a great indicator of educational expertise.

There are many factors to consider when choosing the location for your PhD. Does the university have a high employability rate after graduation? Are you wanting to go public or private university? What kind of research facilities do they have? 

Be sure to do some research before making a decision on your perfect place of study.

3. International community

The United States is a popular choice for international students from all over the world – making it an inspirational and cosmopolitan choice for your PhD studies. No matter what your choice of academic study is, you are guaranteed to find a diverse community that welcomes students from all backgrounds. 

4. Affordable tuition fees 

There are various tuition fee options available for PhD students regardless of your budget. The American higher education system is often associated with high fees and substantial student debt, but in fact, studying at an American university isn't always expensive, and many institutions offer affordable courses. For instance, PhD costs range from $28,000 to $55,000 annually, which shows that finding a PhD course that’s more affordable is possible. 

5. Student experience

American universities typically have vibrant campus communities with a wide range of extracurricular activities, clubs and organisations. As a student, you will have the opportunity to engage in various social, cultural and recreational activities alongside your academic studies.

6. Student support

American universities typically provide comprehensive support services to assist you on your PhD journey. These services may include academic advising, counselling, career services, libraries, writing centres and various student organisations aimed at fostering your personal and professional development.

7. Land of opportunity

It's fair to say that student life in the USA offers something for everyone, regardless of what you're looking for from a PhD. With 50 states, six time zones, and thousands of higher-education providers, there's an opportunity waiting for every individual across the globe.

So let’s take a look at some of the key factors to consider when studying for a PhD in the USA.

Studying a PhD in the USA: top tips

Who is eligible for a phd in the usa.

To be eligible for PhD in the USA, generally students should have completed a graduate degree with a minimum GPA of 3.0, provide proof of English language proficiency, GRE scores and other supporting documents.  The eligibility criteria for a PhD in the USA can vary depending on the specific university and program. 

Can I get a PhD without a masters degree?

Yes, you can pursue a PhD without having a masters. Universities in the USA do not require a masters for you to apply. Because of the graduate programs in the US, you will receive your masters degree once you have completed your coursework stage. This practice combines the masters and PhD into one.

The eligibility criteria and requirements for direct entry PhD programs vary among institutions and fields of study, so it is advisable to check the entry requirements of the specific university or course you are interested in.

How to apply for a PhD in the USA

When applying for your chosen subject in the USA, you should expect to provide relevant information and statements to the university. This will include:

Completed application form – provided by your preferred university.

A personal statement – on why you want to study the subject, your research interests and career goals. Be sure to include any extracurricular activities and achievements within the body of your statement.

References – universities will expect that your referees will recommend you for the chosen course.

Test scores and grades – you will generally need to submit scores from standardised tests like the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). 

English language proficiency – international applicants whose native language is not English usually need to provide proof of English language proficiency through tests like the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). It varies from institution to institution, but international students in the USA are required to have a TOEFL score of about 90.

Samples of work – it is recommended that you provide some work you have done that is relevant to your chosen subject. You may even be asked to complete a small task during the application process.

The application fee. 

Method of study

Compared to the UK and Europe , studying a PhD in the USA involves several key differences. Students in the USA are usually in direct contact with their professor, compared with those in the UK where students might find that their PhD program is headed by a professor who gives them a little less flexibility to change their research and study areas. There can be several cultural differences between UK, Europe, and USA university lifestyles. US students are expected to undertake a great deal of teaching and marking, as opposed to PhD students in Europe. 

As a result, you may have less free time outside of the university when pursuing a PhD in the USA.

Application for PhD In USA

When applying for your chosen subject, you should expect to provide relevant information and statements to the university. This might include:

A personal statement on why you want to study the subject. Be sure to include any extra-curricular activities and achievements within the body of your statement.

References. Universities will expect that your referees will recommend you for the chosen course.

Test scores and grades. It is important that you provide a list of your awarded grades from previous courses you have studied.

Samples of work. It is recommended that you provide some work you have done that is relevant to your chosen subject. You may even be asked to complete a small task during the application process.

UK and Europe students decide on their PhD thesis subject area before they apply . While taking classes at a graduate level, prospective PhD students in the USA spend up to a year or two deciding on their specific research subject. It is normal to apply for up to six institutions for a PhD in the USA, and students apply to each institution separately as there is no central organisation. 

Students in the UK and Europe are expected to apply with an understanding of the subject already, usually in the form of a masters degree, and be ready to start studying at the PhD level straight away. In the USA it is expected that students do not have an in-depth understanding of their subject as they usually only have an undergraduate degree when they apply. 

When should I start applying for a PhD in the USA?

Deadlines for applications to PhD programs in the USA tend to be between December and February, and institutions should let you know about your application by April. Most US institutions recommend that you apply as far in advance as you possibly can to give them, and you, plenty of time to make arrangements. 

Universities in the USA do not require a masters for you to apply as well. Because of the graduate programs in the US, you will receive your masters degree once you have completed your coursework stage. This practice combines the masters and PhD into one.

It varies from institution to institution, but international students in the USA are required to have a TOEFL score of about 90.

Funding your PhD in USA

PhD students are very likely to receive financial support in the form of PhD scholarships ; some USA PhD students also receive PhD studentships .

Making your PhD application in plenty of time allows you more time to apply for and arrange your PhD funding. Many students find that funding can cover much, or all, of the cost of their PhD studies in the USA, which ranges between $28,000 and $40,000. Deadlines for funding applications can be as early as December before starting your studies in the Autumn/Fall. 

There are two types of PhD funding: fully funded, which pays for the student's graduate school tuition fees, accommodation, and living expenses, or partially funded, which pays for the student's tuition only partially or fully.

Can a PhD be fully funded?

Yes, many top universities in the USA offer fully funded PhD programs for eligible students. This funding pays for the student's graduate school tuition fees, accommodation and living expenses. Partially funded PhDs only cover the student's tuition in part or in full.

Some PhD students will receive a stipend from their institution with an assistantship position, but this varies between institutions and between departments within institutions. Other students can find funding from both their own and the American government, and there are plenty of American government schemes like The Fulbright Program that offer funds.

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How long does it take to study a PhD in the USA?

For part-time students in the USA, a PhD can take eight to ten years, but it usually takes five to six years for full-time students. PhDs can be completed in four to five years rather than five or six for students with a masters degree in an appropriate subject.

Top 10 ranked American universities

Based on 2024 Times Higher Education's World University Rankings data, the following table shows which US universities rank the highest.

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Study PHD in USA | Eligibility, Application Process (2022 Guide)

Accessibility

  PhD student in USA does not require  to focus immediately on dissertation proposal but will  have the time to first develop a more detailed understanding of your subject as the basis for your own research. That is why PHD in USA are longer as compared to UK.

World-leading universities and research

Rankings aren’t everything, but the upper reaches of global league tables continue to be dominated by US institutions. As there is a substantial investment in research output and expertise.

International community

  Whatever and wherever you study you’ll be welcomed as part of a diverse academic community .

Innovation :

America was the second country (after Germany) to adopt the modern PhD degree and its own structured approach to doctoral training is now influencing PhD study in the UK and Europe.

Breadth of opportunity :

With 50 states, six time zones and thousands of higher education providers you will find a huge opportunity after your PHD

NOTE : The fact that matters is, one needs to look for the quality and the number of research paper’s that are being published in the top journals in the industry country wise. 

In most cases the US is the best place to do your PHD. But do your research and find which country produces the best research work and go there for better learning and growing experience.

1.2) 5 Reasons Why one should pursue a PHD in the USA rather than a Master's/ Bachelors?

PHD is free/Cheap:

When it comes to Bachelors and Master’s, there are quite some options for us to get funding from or get scholarships. But the problem is that not a lot of students get full scholarships and they would be forced to pay the remaining tuition fees and alot of other costs that comes along while living in the USA.

We are all aware that education in the US is more on the expensive side and a lot of students find a way to pull it off with as many part time jobs as possible. But this affects their schedule and routine and drains their mental energy and consumes alot of their study time

Whereas PHD in the USA is a different story. The programs are fully funded and you even get paid to study there and there is no need to pay the tuition fee.

Fee waivers, assistantships and stipends are guaranteed in a PHD program and the stipends are quite high for PHD students in the US when compared to any other country. So for doing PHD, US can be considered the best place!

PHD saves us from the worst possible outcome:

When it comes to pursuing a degree abroad, what is the worst possible outcome that could come out of it?

We finish the degree there and yet we get shipped back to our home country with a bunch of huge educational loans and we have to find a job here with a currency that much lower in value and work hard to pay back all the educational loans

Whereas a PHD student wouldn’t have to be too scared about this fact since their educational expenses are usually taken care of via stipends and assistantships and other funding sources. And even if one doesn’t secure a job there, they could always get well paying great jobs back in India or any developing country which has so many universities.

Networking:

“ You are the average of 5 people that you hang around with the most”

Imagine getting enrolled into a good university in the US for PHD. What would be the quality of people there? 

While doing your bachelor’s degree, one would be surrounded by all kinds of people from all around the world with different lifestyles and mindsets and there you could find alot of people who tend to fool around and be less focused or live by ideologies that you might totally disagree with. 

Whereas when it comes to master’s degree, the quality of the crowd increases tremendously and with PHD, only the most motivated, interested and focused people get here. So you could learn and grow as a community while doing your PHD. Another important fact is, everyone doing a PHD is there by their own choice which makes them a group of highly interested and talented people with whom you would be spending most of your time with.

Friendships with Mentors:

“ PHD students are like 10 year projects”

• University Mentors

In research based universities, most of the professors tend to spend a huge amount of time with the PHD students than the ones in bachelors and master’s degree programs. Bachelors students are more focused on learning the basic concepts and master’s students are usually busy with course work and won’t stay for too long in the campus.

So, one of the biggest advantages of being a PHD student in the US is that you get to spend 4-6 years researching and further continue the work for years to come and hence the mentors and the professors would be more open to building a good relationship with you and that would make way for so much of learning and growth.

Come out of it matured and better:

One of the things that a PHD student would experience is this : They start earning money a lot later than the general population. Some would even take over 30 years to get their first paycheck and when you spend your 20s learning and researching and focusing while managing the possible financial hardships that come your way, makes you financially mature.

Pros and Cons of Studying in USA

Pros of studying in the usa .

• Education in the USA is something that many of us look out for. The quality of education in the USA is recognized worldwide as the best. They give practical learning experiences. International student enrollment for higher education is always higher in this country.
• The Association to Advance Collegiate School of business recognition is given to the best business schools in the world. Globally 531 business schools were given AACSB, and 400 schools belong to the USA.
• The USA is the home to some of the best universities globally, the top-ranked universities.
• There is a wide variety of subjects to choose from, such as marine education, nursing, ecology, etc.
• The Universities in the USA are recognized globally for their world-class education and good facilities.
• There is exposure to multiple cultures in the USA. There are also student exchange programs to diversify the learning objectives.
• They provide an all-rounder education by enabling the students to participate in sports and other extracurricular activities.
• The job opportunities are ample when you get a degree from one of the Universities in the USA. These degrees are recognized worldwide, and you can be assured of getting good employment opportunities.
• You can specialize in subjects and study according to your interests.
• The labs and libraries in the USA are excellent, and students have a significant amount of exposure to writers from different backgrounds.
• Some scholarships are designed for students. These scholarships vary from University to University and according to the type of degree you choose. Grabbing these scholarships will make it easier to manage your financial expenses

Cons of studying in the USA

• To be a student in the USA, one of the primary requirements is to write a TOEFL exam. This ensures that you have a good command of the English language.
• For other engineering and business studies, you will be required to write GRE, TOEFL, GMAT, SAT, etc. To be a doctor, you will be required to write a different set of entrance examinations.
• The cost of education and accommodation in the USA is higher when compared to your home country. Due to this, you may have to get a student loan.
• It is not that you will get a job if you study in any university in the USA. More of your knowledge and skills matter the most. But studying in the prestigious universities in the USA will be a feather on your cap!
• The standard of education will be initially hard to manage as you need to get used to the different curricula.
• The climatic conditions in the USA are very different and hence you should be able to adjust to them.
• The living expenses can also be higher. To manage this, you need to take up a part-time job.
• The testing in these universities can be rigorous and challenging, especially if you are a student of the most prestigious universities in the USA.

1.3) Is PHD the right choice for you?

Some students might be wondering if pursuing a PHD is a right thing for them.

It depends on the career you are in and if you are interested in research. For instance if you have a master’s in biology or in any of the languages or history, the jobs available for you would be scarce. So doing a PHD in such instances can open up a whole new alot of opportunities.

Now when it comes to research it can be categorized into two things : Discovering phenomenons in nature and inventing new stuff.

If research, discovery and inventions are something you desire, then PHD is the right choice for you.

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Top ph.d. programs in the usa :, ph.d. in management.

To become a scholar in business and management, you can do a Ph.D. in this field. This is a globally sought-after course. Doing a Ph.D. creates an avenue for several research work in this field 

• The University of Arizona
• Walden University
• Auburn University
• Campbellsville University

Ph.D. in psychology

To conduct research in psychology, you can do a Ph.D. in this field. To complete this course may take three years or even more than that. The eligibility for this course is the completion of a master’s in psychology.

Stanford University

Yale university, university of california.

• University of Arizona

Ph.D. in Computer science

Completing a Ph.D. in this field can take up to three years or more, but it would be beneficial in your career when you’re interested in research in this field. You’ll also be a master in your particular area of research.

Harvard University

• Massachusetts University of Technology
• Carnegie Mellon University 

Ph.D. in Marketing

Marketing is a broad field, and currently, it is the trending area of study as most of us use smartphones, and marketing here is unbeatable.

• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Michigan 

Ph.D. in Biotechnology

This is a doctorate course in the field of Biotechnology. You get to study Scientific communication, trends in Biotechnology, and so much more. This takes three to five years to complete.

Maschasuettes institute of technology

John hopkins university, ph.d. in microbiology.

Doing a doctorate in this course means you get to research microbiology. You get to research microorganisms and other things. 

This course can take around four to six years to complete.

Ph.D. in Physics

Ph.D. in Physics will get you a lot of good job opportunities. You will deal with theory, research, and experiment in this field. This will be a three-year doctorate course.

Princeton University

• University of Chicago

Ph.D. in Public Health

If you want to be an administrative head and want to have extensive knowledge in the field of medicine, you can do this doctorate course.

• Ohio State University

Ph.D. in Pharmacology

This course deals with medical drugs and their usage. You can work in clinics, hospitals, and medical centers.

• University of Washington

Ph.D. in Design

This is a creative course and can be pretty challenging. This is a practical degree program, and you have a wide range of streams to diverge in, such as animation, design, and much more.

• University of Buffalo
• Cornell University
• Kansas State University

PHD FAQ’s: Eligibility and More

2.1) intake seasons for phd programs, two teaching semester’s:.

The academic year in the USA consists of two teaching semesters: 

• August-December 
•  January-May.  

These will be when your classes and assessments take place. 

Most graduate programmes admit students in the autumn (or ‘fall’) semester because of the following reasons:

•  The scholarships and financial aids are aimed at this semester.
• There are not many financial aid opportunities as well as job opportunities available for the Spring semester

2.2) Duration of the PHD Program

The length of a PhD program in the USA is usually 4-6 years (full time ). 

Students spend 2 years on the coursework stage of their programme and 2-4 years working on their dissertation.

The minimum and the maximum durations would vary depending on the university and the field of study but traditionally a PHD program is for 5 years and there will be a year limit within which one should potentially finish their research to get their PHD.

There are students who find a way to get their PHD in 3 years as well. So expect anywhere between 4-6 years to get your PHD

Coursework : 

• Core classes (Essential )
• Elective classes (Optional )

Dissertation : 

  It’s the research proposal submitted as part of a PhD application.

2.3) AGE A FACTOR FOR PHD?

Is there any age limit for pursuing PHD or is it a good choice to start doing PHD after the age of 30? Would the age be a factor in getting jobs after?

Age is not any issue and there are people who start their PHDs even after the age of 40. So there are no age limits and in the United States they value the background and the profile and will not discriminate based on their age. So go for it if you really want to.

2.4) PHD AFTER BTECH?

Can we do a PHD right after bachelors or B.Tech Degree?

If one has decent research experience in Bachelors level itself and if it’s good quality research and if you have published papers and have some achievements to show, then yes, your chances of getting admissions into PHD would increase.

But it is generally recommended that we spend a little more time exploring the topic of interest in our master’s before jumping into a PHD program. Doing a master’s also strengthens your knowledge on the field which would be needed to be able to successfully complete your PHD.

But yes, it is totally possible to do your PHD right after bachelors. Even if the background of your profile doesn’t match with the PHD course you want to pursue, you can still get admissions if you can impress the professor you want to work with and these scenarios have happened in the past.

2.5) INTERNSHIPS DURING PHD:

Internships during PHD, Recommended or not?

The answer to this question would depend on the field you are in. 

Here’s the logic you need to look for. PHD is a degree where you are trying to become a researcher. Internships are jobs where you “work for the company and find ways to make them money”. Sometimes these two do not add up.

For instance, if you are in the Computer and software field, it’s completely alright to work in google or facebook or in some booming startups because it would help you become better in the particular field which would help with the research.

In most fields it is generally not recommended to do internships while being a PHD student since it would take your focus away from research.

What are the requirements to do a PhD in the USA?

3.1) phd in usa - requirements:.

Universities and graduate schools will set their own admissions procedures, but for most of the universities have following requirements :

• Academic transcripts  
• Research Statement
• Writing Samples
• Test Scores: General GRE And GRE Subject.

PS :   Some PhD subjects may use other graduate entry tests in place of (or in addition to) the GRE. The most common tests are:

GMAT – for DBA degrees and other programmes in Business and Management

LSAT – for JD programmes

MCAT – for MD programmes

DAT – for dental programmes

  You won’t necessarily need a Masters to apply for a PhD in the USA.  

This is because American graduate programmes effectively combine Masters and PhD study –some students actually receive a Masters at the end of their coursework stage.

If you do already have a Masters you may be able to receive credit for it and spend less time on the coursework stage of your program. This decision is made by your graduate school , who will decide how relevant your existing degree is.

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Started your gre prep, ready to see where you stand in the gre, 3.2) how do i apply for a phd and what will be the application fee.

Application Process :

 The Application process for the USA is easy and these are the following stages for same :

Step 1 : Be accepted for a PhD at an SEVP-approved institution

Step 2 : Pay the SEVIS I-901 fee of $200 

Step 3 : Begin your application online

Step 4 : Schedule a visa interview 

Step 5 : Receive your visa 

Application and Visa Fee details :

• Typical application fees for PhD study in the USA are between $50 and $100.

You will also need to budget for the cost of any graduate entry tests and for your visa.

• In most cases you will need to pay fees of at least $360 during your visa application. This is made up of a $200 SEVIS fee and a $160 application fee. Some students may also need to pay an issuance fee.)

3.3) How to shortlist Universities for your PHD in the USA?

Which universities should one apply to for the best learning experience for the particular field and have the most chances of getting admissions into for a particular profile and work experience and research experience?

While it is hard to list out the top universities for every field out there, here’s a procedure one can follow to make sure they are in the right place:

• Select the field : Decide on which field you want to get PHD in
• List of universities : Make a list of universities in the US that is offering the particular PHD course.
• Get your CV Ready : It is very important to create a professional and detailed CV with your Work and research experience 
• Now compare your profile with theirs and get a good idea of what kind of profile one would need to be a PHD student in that particular university and the level of expertise present there

Additional Information

Phd types :.

Most universities in the USA simply award the standard PhD (or Ph.D.) as an academic doctorate. However they some different categories are DBA (Doctor of Business Administration), EdD (Doctor of Education) JD (Doctor of Laws) and MD (Doctor of Medicine).

Fees and funding :

Public institutions charge an average of $12,737 per year. Private institutions charge an average of $43,300 per year. 

PS .Figures are based on data published by the US National Center for Education Statistics.

Common types of assistantship include :

• Graduate teaching assistantships
• Research assistantships 
• Administrative assistantships 
• Fellowships

Top Universities for pursuing PHD in USA

This University was founded in 1636 and was named Harvard College. This is a highly prestigious and the oldest University in the United States. This University is located in Cambridge, Maschasuettes, a private ivy league University. It is ranked as no.5 by the QS World university rankings.

Acceptance rate: 5%

Average fee: $75,000

List of the Ph.D. courses : Math, Physics, biotechnology, and so much more.

Website : https://gsas.harvard.edu/programs-study/degree-programs

• Is it hard to get into the Harvard Ph.D. program?

The acceptance rate for a Ph.D. student is much higher in this University when compared to other degrees. With Good grades, you can get into this University.

• How long does it take to complete a Ph.D. at Harvard?

A minimum of two years is required to complete a Ph.D. Although it sometimes takes up to six years.

This is a private university that is located in Cambridge, Maschasuettes. This University has been essential in research that deals with modern technology and sciences. It is one of the top universities globally and is ranked as no 1 by the QS world rankings.

Acceptance rate: 7%

Average fee: $75,462

List of the Ph.D. courses :  https://gradadmissions.mit.edu/programs/degrees/doctoral-degrees

• How long does it take to complete a Ph.D. in MIT?

It takes around five years to complete a Ph.D. at MIT.

• Is GRE required for Ph.D. in MIT?

Yes, the GRE general test is required for Ph.D. in MIT.

This is a private university that is highly prestigious and is ranked as no 3 by the QS World university rankings. This University is located in Stanford, California, and it is the largest University with a large enrollment of students.

Average fee: $78,218

List of the Ph.D. courses

https://gradadmissions.stanford.edu/applying/frequently-asked-questions

A Ph.D. in MIT takes around five to seven years to complete.

• What GPA do you need to get for a Ph.D. in MIT?

A GPA of 3.6 on a scale of 4 is required.

California Institute of Technology

This is a private university located in Pasadena, California. This University is known for its science and engineering courses and is ranked as the best academic institution in the USA. This University is ranked as no.9 in the world’s best universities.

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-graduate-schools/california-institute-of-technology-110404

• How hard is it to get a Ph.D. here?

The acceptance rate here is only 6.4%; hence it can be pretty competitive.

• How long does it take to complete a Ph.D. here?

It takes around four to six years to complete a Ph.D. here.

This is one of the oldest private research universities in the USA. It was named after the philanthropist John Hopkins. This was one of the few universities to include both teaching and research. This University has produced more than 38 Nobel laureates.

Acceptance rate: 11%

Average fee: $67,667

https://www.jhu.edu/research/

• Does John Hopkins University require GRE for Ph.D.?

GRE scores are optional; however, you will require that to do a master’s degree.

• Does John Hopkins offer Ph.D. programs?

Yes, they offer Ph.D. programs.

This is a public land grant university that has over ten campuses. It is located in the state of California. This University is known for its best research activities and its numerous research centers. This University is more than a century old and was established in 1868.

Acceptance rate: 14%

Average fee: $52,000

https://graduate.universityofcalifornia.edu/

• Is it hard to get into the University of California?

Compared to the other universities, this University is not that hard to get into as they have reasonable acceptance rates.

• Does the University of California offer Ph.D. programs?
• Yes, they do offer Ph.D. programs.

This is a private ivy league research university in Princeton, New Jersey. This University was established in 1746, and it is the fourth oldest University in the USA. They also offer a lot of scholarships for international students.

Acceptance rate: 6%

Average fee: $68,044

List of the Ph.D. courses: 

https://gradschool.princeton.edu/degree-options/phd

• How long does it take to complete a Ph.D. at Princeton University?

 It takes around five years to complete a Ph.D. at Princeton University.

• Can I apply to two Ph.D. programs at Princeton?

No, you cannot apply to two Ph.D. programs at Princeton. You can do only one at a time.

This is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. It is an ivy league research university as well. It is one of the most prestigious and third oldest institutes in the USA. This University is ranked as the 17th best University globally by the QS world ranking.

Average fee: $45,700

https://www.yale.edu/academics/graduate-professional-study

It takes around four years to complete a Ph.D. here.

• Can you get a Ph.D. at Yale?

Yes, you can apply for Ph.D. programs at Yale.

Columbia University

This is a private ivy league research university in New York and is the oldest University in New York. This University was established in 1754. This University is ranked as the sixth-best university in the world.

https://gsas.columbia.edu/content/phd-programs

• How hard is it to study here?

It is highly competitive, and your GRE scores should be around 154 to 167.

Duke University

This is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. It was established in 1838 by methodists and Quakers. This University is ranked as the 23rd best global University.

Acceptance rate: 8%

Average fee: $40,000

https://gradschool.duke.edu/academics/programs-degrees

• Is Duke a top university?

Yes, it is a top university, ranked as the 9th best national University.

• How hard is it to get into Duke?

It is competitive here, and the acceptance rates are also lower.

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For the first two years one would be required to take courses and will have to maintain a GPA over 3 -3.3.

Now remember there are various types of PHD programs available and what you experience might be a bit different from what’s described here but one can get a rough picture of what they will be up against.

The courses that you take in the first two years will mould you to become a better researcher and many of these courses would have projects which could potentially turn into a journal publication.

Selecting Dissertation Advisors:

Within the first year or the first two years, the student would have to analyze the professors, their areas of interest and expertise and their character to better select their own dissertation advisors.

In most cases we might have to select and come up with our own projects and research ideas whereas in some cases your dissertation advisor might already be working on the topic of your interest and in such cases you could join the research and contribute

Comprehensive/Qualifier Exam:

After completing the required set of courses in the first two years, the phd students are then required to take a comprehensive exam or a qualifier exam. Now the way in which this exam is conducted varies a lot based on the field and the university that’s conducting it.

In some cases, the students who fail this comprehensive exam would have to quit the PHD program. We do get to attempt this exam more than once and the number of re-attempts would also depend on the university conducting it. So this is an important step.

This exam most probably won’t be like the written 3 hour exams that we are used to writing. This exam would test your ability to be a successful researcher and the students might be given tough time intervals to complete research based tasks and even oral tasks.

Anyways reach out to the students in the university you are planning to take to get accurate details about what you would be facing in this comprehensive/Qualifier exam

Committee of professors and Proposal Defense:

In a proposal defense, the students have to be ready with the complete dissertation plans stating the papers and the projects that one has planned to work on. What kind of data one needs to collect, the kinds of analysis that one needs to do.

We also need to select a committee of professors and one of the professors in the committee should be outside your own department or university and schedule a meeting where you propose to them your project details

After the proposal defence, the professors would have to analyse if the research project is worthy for a PHD degree and if it is realistic and achievable

Once your proposal defence is approved, you would be working full time on your dissertation and would be expected to complete the research project proposed.

In many universities the PHD students are required and expected to teach subjects to B.Tech and Master’s students for a few semesters.

NOTE : Even within the same industry, different universities would have very different PHD programs where some universities would completely focus on quantitative research and some would focus more on a case study approach. So to get a clear idea, reach out to the PHD students in the university you are hoping to get admissions into.

PHD Experience FAQs

How many papers should we publish in our dissertation and is there a minimum requirement of any sort.

The number of papers that one can publish completely depends on the area of study and research since in certain areas one can publish over 10 papers easily whereas in other areas publishing 2 or 3 would be a great achievement.

There are students who just publish one paper in their dissertation and there are other who publish over 10. So it depends on your field of study and your dissertation advisors expectations and your capabilities.

How much stipend can one expect during their PHD in USA?

The stipends could vary from $10,000 or lower to over $50,000 depending on the university, the city and the cost of living in that area, the university and the area of study. Again to know exactly what to expect, reach out to PHD students in the university that you want to get into.

What kind of research assistantships and teaching assistantships can we expect to get during PHD for funding?

Research and teaching assistantships are for masters programs and by default traditional PHD programs in the US are fully funded. 

The point to note here is that in many universities, the PHD student has to teach and if one doesn’t do so, their stipend would not be given. So the fact is you are already working and researching for a stipend which should be enough to live through your PHD days in the US.

LIFE AFTER PHD:

Employment opportunities after phd in usa.

Here’s what could potentially happen after you finish your PHD:

Note : This is a generic question and the answer’s vary vastly based on the area of study, area of specialization and the country you live in. Anyways here’s all the possibilities that one could face after a PHD.

POST DOC POSITION :

Post doc basically means that after getting the doctorate degree one would continue do their research potentially in a university or research setting

Basically once you go from being a PHD student to a PHD graduate, you would still get to continue the journey you started during your PHD days and having a post doc position would mean it would be fully research oriented.

Usually you could get the Post doc position in the same university that you got your PHD from. There are three types of people who use a research center in an university

• Professors 
• PHD students

RESEARCH ORIENTED WORK IN THE INDUSTRY IN THE SAME AREA:

This is the dream job for any PHD student who has a love for research and publishing papers. In this job you would be researching and innovating full time publishing papers and journals and will have the funds and the space to explore and work on deeper research for the company.

JOB IN A ACADEMIC RESEARCH SETTING IN THE SAME FIELD:

With an impressive profile and a recognizable PHD from the US, there is a good chance that one could land a job in the same field that they did their PHD in. This way the work they do is directly aligned with their training 

PROFESSOR JOB IN A TEACHING FOCUSED UNIVERSITY:

Becoming a professor who could also be a researcher is a hard position to get and so many PHD graduates do take professor jobs that primarily or entirely focuses on teaching

PROFESSOR JOB IN A RESEARCH UNIVERSITY:

Only 5% of PHD graduates become assistant professors in research based universities right after graduation.

The research expectations in these colleges are way higher than the smaller universities or community colleges that are focused on teaching. Here in these universities there will be less number of classes to teach so the professor could have enough time for research.

CONTRACT BASED TEACHING POSITIONS IN UNIVERSITIES:

These are positions where you would be called a visiting professor/asst.professor. These would mostly consist of teaching work and there won’t be too much expectations or needs for research.

JOB IN A NON-ACADEMIC RESEARCH SETTING IN A DIFFERENT FIELD:

It has been seen that people who have PHD’s in mathematics, statistics and so on get jobs as data scientist and similar roles where they partly use the skills they have learnt in PHD

OPPORTUNITY IN AN UNRELATED FIELD:

There are cases where people get PHD in a certain field and yet work in a completely unrelated field where there are more job opportunities

UNEMPLOYED:

It would not be true if anyone said that after PHD there is no chance of being unemployed. This does happen in some cases.

ENTREPRENEUR:

The last and yet the best option for anyone is entrepreneurship. PHD students in general are smart and work on innovation and research and invention and sometimes they start a company based on the research work they started during the PHD journey. 

For instance, the tech giant google itself is a company that was started by a PHD student who dropped out of a university to eventually become a billionaire.

So, the outcome that one could expect from a PHD in US could vary vastly from being unemployed to becoming a professor, researcher and an entrepreneur 

OTHER FAQs ON LIFE AFTER PHD IN USA

What is the difference between a phd career and a mba career.

The main difference is that PHD is a research based degree and MBA is a management degree. But oftentimes PHD students do take management roles in companies for their sound experience and knowledge about the subject involved.

What is the main difference between being a professor in a university and being a researcher in a lab?

Being a professor in a university means there will be alot of teaching responsibilities whereas a researcher wouldn’t have to teach. But professors do have this added advantage of having the freedom to pick the topic of interest and work on it

What should students do in their master’s to get better chances of getting into a PHD program and prepare for the transition as well?

The first thing the master’s student should do is to start making friends who are currently doing PHD and try and be a part of their research. This way one can understand if they are interested in the deep level of research that a PHD student would be doing.

Is it better to have an older dissertation professor or a younger one?

First things first, your whole PHD experience relies a lot on your dissertation professor and hence it is an important factor to consider. 

Now generally students would prefer an older dissertation professor since they would have more seniority in the particular field and more experience in publishing. But if there are younger professors who are more energetic, enthusiastic and with many interesting ideas, then go with them.

Just look at that professor’s passion for research and if his personality matches with yours because having a good relationship with your advisor is the most important factor because there are cases where students even quit their university because of the bad relationships they develop with their advisors.

So it is advised that we first take courses and check if you like your professor and if you think you could potentially get along well with them and if they publish quality work.

How to deal with leaving family and mental health during your PHD in USA?

One just cannot afford to be home sick if they have big ambitions and dreams. Right? Not just about studying abroad but just about anything in life has it’s good and bad sides. We cannot avoid the bad aspect of the things in our lives

So what’s the answer? Learn to deal with it. Adapt. Shift your focus towards the mission. Grow. 

Mental Health is becoming a huge issue in today’s world and the best way to deal with it is to be open and honest about everything in your life to yourself. Maintaining a journal, meditation and self help books do come in handy.

Is it okay to take our family with us during our PHD program and will the stipend be enough to get by?

In most cases the students are either already married or they get married during the course of the PHD. The stipend itself can be enough to run a family but it is recommended that you stay in an affordable neighborhood with your partner working as well so there will be less financial burden on you.

Getting admissions for MS and PHD. What are the differences in the admissions process?

When it comes to PHD, the student would have to explain why they are interested in research and where they wish to work on and for what reason and with which professor. In addition to that the aspiring student would have to sit for either multiple interviews with the professors from the particular university or a panel interview.

Whereas getting admissions for a master’s degree generally won’t require any interviews and would be as simple as stating why you wish to pursue a MS course offered by the university.

This is because master’s programs take 1-2 years whereas when it comes to PHD the professors would have to invest a lot of time in you (Around 10 years) and hence they would access what kind of person you are and if your interests and personalities match.

How do we approach professors? And is it necessary to approach professors even before getting admissions and how do we find the professors?

Any student can find the profiles of the faculty of a university on their website and they can examine their profiles for their current topics of interests and research. It is recommended that we approach professors even before admissions to look for guidance and form a bond with them if possible and the best way to approach is to reach them via email.

Written by Sai Subramaniam

Guided by Pavitra Srinivasan and the Galvanize In-house Experts

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One comment.

Quite informative. I will like to know of any University in the USA that can take me o PhD student I research intrest of Infrastructure and development. I have two masters in Project Development and Implementation 2011 and Economics 2022 ( Public Private Partnership) respectively.

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Application requirements for all doctoral programs (phd).

All of our doctoral programs are designed to develop outstanding educational researchers who have a deep understanding of the scientific, practical and policy issues they study. All require full-time study, and we promise five years of full-time financial support for every student we admit. Our doctoral programs are small, typically ranging from about 25 to 35 new students a year. The small size of our doctoral cohorts creates big educational advantages for students: the classes are almost always small, students receive individualized attention from their advisors, and they have many opportunities to develop close collegial relationships with fellow students.

It is extremely important to demonstrate in your statement of purpose that your interests converge closely with the current research of faculty who work in the program to which you are applying. Other doctoral applicants will certainly do this, and if you don't, you will forfeit an important competitive advantage to them. 

If you wish to contact faculty, please read our Which Degree Which Program article, by Professor Eamonn Callan, which outlines the appropriate process for contacting faculty with whom you share research interests. 

• Program website:  Degrees and Programs/PhD
• Length of Program:  5 years (average length)
• Tuition: fellowship/assistantship salary and tuition guaranteed for first five years of the program (autumn, winter and spring quarters) for all students, including international students. Funding includes two summers.

Application Requirements:

Application form.

Complete and submit Stanford's graduate online application .

Application Fee

The application fee is $125 , is non-refundable, and must be received by the application deadline.

Application Fee Waivers

Stanford offers three types of application fee waivers for which GSE applicants may apply and be considered:

• GRE Fee Reduction Certificate-Based Waiver
• Diversity Program Participation-Based Waiver
• School-Based Waiver

Please visit the Stanford Graduate Diversity website for instructions, deadlines, and the fee waiver application form.

Statement of Purpose

A Statement of Purpose is required. Your statement should be typed, single-spaced and should be between one to two pages . Describe succinctly your reasons for applying to the proposed program, your preparation for this field of study, and why our program is a good fit for you, your future career plans, and other aspects of your background as well as interests which may aid the admissions committee in evaluating your aptitude and motivation for graduate study. You may indicate potential faculty mentors as part of your study and research interests. Be sure to keep a copy for your records. What's a Good Statement of Purpose?

A resume or CV  is required of all applicants, depending on which document is most appropriate for your background. There is no page limit for resumes or CVs, though we typically see resumes of one page in length. Please upload your resume or CV in the online application.

Three (3) Letters of Recommendation

Applicants are required to submit three letters of recommendation . In the online application, you will be asked to identify your recommenders and their email addresses. Please notify your recommenders that they will receive an email prompt to submit their recommendation online. You can submit your request for letters of recommendation through the system without submitting the entire online application.  Stanford GSE only accepts online recommendations through the application system ; Stanford GSE cannot accept mailed, emailed or faxed recommendations.

Recommendations should be written by people who have supervised you in an academic, employment, or community service setting. We very strongly recommend that at least one of these letters be from a university professor familiar with your academic work. Your recommendations should directly address your suitability for admission to a graduate program at Stanford GSE.

It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that all three letters of recommendation are submitted through the system by the application deadline , so please work closely with your recommenders to remind them of the deadline.

College and University Transcripts

Transcripts are required from every college and university you have attended for at least one academic year as a full-time student. When submitting your online application, transcripts should be uploaded to the application as a scanned copy or PDF ; this is sufficient for the application review process. Please refrain from sending a secured PDF/transcript with a digital signature as our system cannot upload these properly. The best way to ensure we receive an upload-able document is for you to print out the secured transcript, scan it, and upload the scanned copy (not to exceed 10MB) as a PDF. 

If you earned a degree at the institution from which you are submitting a transcript, please ensure that the degree conferral date and the degree conferred is clearly visible on the document. If you are currently enrolled in a degree program and will not have earned the respective degree by the time of submitting your GSE application, you should submit your most recent in-progress transcript from your institution.

Only if admitted will we contact you with instructions on sending two copies of your official transcripts to our office. We cannot accept mailed, emailed or faxed copies of your transcripts during the application process. Please note: the instructions for sending transcripts on the online application and on the general Stanford Graduate Admissions Office website differ from this Stanford GSE requirement.

Concerning course work completed in a study abroad program

If the coursework and grades are reflected on the transcript of your home institution, you do not need to submit original transcripts from the study abroad institution.

Concerning foreign institutions

If your institution provides a transcript in a language other than English, we require that you submit a translation of the transcript that is either provided by the institution or a certified translator. Translations must be literal and complete versions of the original records.

If your transcript does not include your degree conferral date and the degree conferred , please submit a scanned copy of your diploma, a conferral statement, or a conferral document in addition to your transcript . If you are currently enrolled in a degree program and will not have earned the respective degree by the time of submitting your GSE application, you should submit your most recent in-progress transcript from your institution.

Stanford University requires the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) from all applicants whose native language is not English. The GSE requires a minimum TOEFL score of 250 for the computer-based test, 600 for the paper-based test or 100 for the internet-based test in order to be considered for admission. The Test of Written English (TWE) portion of the TOEFL is not required. Applicants who have completed a four-year bachelor's degree or a two-year master's program (or its equivalent) in the U.S. or at an institution where English is the main language of instruction are not required to take the TOEFL. For more information on TOEFL requirements, please refer to the Required Exams  page on the main Stanford Graduate Admissions website. You may register for the TOEFL test directly at the ETS website .

TOEFL Dates and Deadlines

PhD applicants who are required to take the TOEFL should plan to take the internet-based TOEFL test and have official TOEFL scores sent electronically to Stanford at institution code 4704 (department code does not matter) no later than November 1 . This will give your official TOEFL scores time to be sent from ETS and be received by our system in time for the December 1 deadline. PhD applicants to Knight-Hennessy Scholars should plan to take the internet-based TOEFL test no later than October 16 so your scores can be received by our system in time for the November 16 KHS GSE deadline. Please note that the TOEFL may be taken no earlier than 18 months prior to the application deadline.

Does Stanford accept tests other than TOEFL?

No. We accept only TOEFL scores; we do not accept IELTS or other test scores.

Contact Information

Admissions:  [email protected]  

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How the PhD Program Works

Program Overview

Completing your doctorate at Wharton requires 5 years of full-time study. The first 2 years in the program prepare you for admission to candidacy by taking courses, qualifying exams, and starting research projects. In the last few years, you are primarily conducting research full-time including writing and defending your doctoral dissertation.

Admission to candidacy.

You begin by taking courses required for your program of study. All programs requires a preliminary exam, which may be either oral or written.

Some programs may have further requirements, such as an additional exam or research paper. If you enter with a master’s degree or other transfer credit, you may satisfy the formal course requirements more quickly.

Beginning the Wharton PhD Curriculum How the first two years of the Wharton program helped students discover their interests, learn the tools of the profession, and fuel their passion for teaching.

The Doctoral Dissertation

Upon successful completion of coursework and passing a preliminary examination, you are admitted to candidacy for the dissertation phase of your studies.

Your doctoral dissertation should contain original research that meets standards for published scholarship in your field. You are expected to be an expert in the topic you choose to research.

You are admitted to candidacy for the dissertation phase of your studies upon successful completion of coursework and passing a preliminary examination, but you can start thinking about and working on research of relevance at any time.

The dissertation process culminates with a “defense,” in which you defend the proposal orally before your dissertation committee.

While working on your dissertation, you interact extensively with Wharton faculty. Together with interested faculty, you create your own research community that includes your dissertation advisor and dissertation committee.

Policies and Procedures

Get more detailed explanation of course requirements, academic standards, the Teacher Development Program, time limits, and dissertation procedures and requirements.

Sample Program Sequence

Years 1 & 2.

Coursework Examination Research Papers Research Activities Field-Specific Requirements

Directed Reading & Research Admission to Candidacy Formulation of Research Topic

Years 4 & 5

Continued Research Oral Examination Dissertation

Hear From Our Doctoral Community

How this phd student discovered a dynamic research community at wharton, closing the tenure gap for business faculty of color.

The Wharton School

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How Long Does It Take to Get a Ph.D. Degree?

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Earning a Ph.D. from a U.S. grad school typically requires nearly six years, federal statistics show.

(CAIAIMAGE/TOM MERTON/GETTY IMAGES)

A Ph.D. is most appropriate for someone who is a “lifelong learner.” 

Students who have excelled within a specific academic discipline and who have a strong interest in that field may choose to pursue a Ph.D. degree. However, Ph.D. degree-holders urge prospective students to think carefully about whether they truly want or need a doctoral degree, since Ph.D. programs last for multiple years.

According to the Survey of Earned Doctorates, a census of recent research doctorate recipients who earned their degree from U.S. institutions, the median amount of time it took individuals who received their doctorates in 2017 to complete their program was 5.8 years. However, there are many types of programs that typically take longer than six years to complete, such as humanities and arts doctorates, where the median time for individuals to earn their degree was 7.1 years, according to the survey.

Some Ph.D. candidates begin doctoral programs after they have already obtained master’s degrees, which means the time spent in grad school is a combination of the time spent pursuing a master’s and the years invested in a doctorate. In order to receive a Ph.D. degree, a student must produce and successfully defend an original academic dissertation, which must be approved by a dissertation committtee. Writing and defending a dissertation is so difficult that many Ph.D. students drop out of their Ph.D. programs having done most of the work necessary for degree without completing the dissertation component. These Ph.D. program dropouts often use the phrase “ all but dissertation ” or the abbreviation “ABD” on their resumes.

According to a comprehensive study of  Ph.D. completion rates  published by The Council of Graduate Schools in 2008, only 56.6% of people who begin Ph.D. programs earn Ph.D. degrees.

Ian Curtis, a founding partner with H&C Education, an educational and admissions consulting firm, who is pursuing a Ph.D. degree in French at Yale University , says there are several steps involved in the process of obtaining a Ph.D. Students typically need to fulfill course requirements and pass comprehensive exams, Curtis warns. “Once these obligations have been completed, how long it takes you to write your dissertation depends on who you are, how you work, what field you’re in and what other responsibilities you have in life,” he wrote in an email. Though some Ph.D. students can write a dissertation in a single year, that is rare, and the dissertation writing process may last for several years, Curtis says.

[ READ: What Is a Doctorate or a Doctoral Degree?  ]

Curtis adds that the level of support a Ph.D. student receives from an academic advisor or faculty mentor can be a key factor in determining the length of time it takes to complete a Ph.D. program. “Before you decide to enroll at a specific program, you’ll want to meet your future advisor,” Curtis advises. “Also, reach out to his or her current and former students to get a sense of what he or she is like to work with.”

Curtis also notes that if there is a gap between the amount of time it takes to complete a Ph.D. and the amount of time a student’s funding lasts, this can slow down the Ph.D. completion process. “Keep in mind that if you run out of funding at some point during your doctorate, you will need to find paid work, and this will leave you even less time to focus on writing your dissertation,” he says. “If one of the programs you’re looking at has a record of significantly longer – or shorter – times to competition, this is good information to take into consideration.”

Pierre Huguet, the CEO and co-founder of H&C Education, says prospective Ph.D. students should be aware that a Ph.D. is designed to prepare a person for a career as a scholar. “Most of the jobs available to Ph.D. students upon graduation are academic in nature and directly related to their fields of study: professor, researcher, etc.,” Huguet wrote in an email. “The truth is that more specialization can mean fewer job opportunities. Before starting a Ph.D., students should be sure that they want to pursue a career in academia, or in research. If not, they should make time during the Ph.D. to show recruiters that they’ve traveled beyond their labs and libraries to gain some professional hands-on experience.”

Jack Appleman, a business writing instructor, published author and Ph.D. candidate focusing on organizational communication with the  University at Albany—SUNY , says Ph.D. programs require a level of commitment and focus that goes beyond what is necessary for a typical corporate job. A program with flexible course requirements that allow a student to customize his or her curriculum based on academic interests and personal obligations is ideal, he says.

[ READ: Ph.D. Programs Get a Lot More Practical.  ]

Joan Kee, a professor at the University of Michigan  with the university’s history of art department, says that the length of time required for a Ph.D. varies widely depending on what subject the Ph.D. focuses on. “Ph.D. program length is very discipline and even field-specific; for example, you can and are expected to finish a Ph.D, in economics in under five years, but that would be impossible in art history (or most of the humanities),” she wrote in an email.

Jean Marie Carey, who earned her Ph.D. degree in art history and German from the  University of Otago  in New Zealand, encourages prospective Ph.D. students to check whether their potential Ph.D. program has published a timeline of how long it takes a Ph.D. student to complete their program. She says it is also prudent to speak with Ph.D. graduates of the school and ask about their experience.

Bennett urges prospective Ph.D. students to visit the campuses of their target graduate programs since a Ph.D. program takes so much time that it is important to find a school that feels comfortable. She adds that aspiring Ph.D. students who prefer a collaborative learning environment should be wary of graduate programs that have a cut-throat and competitive atmosphere, since such students may not thrive in that type of setting.

[ READ: 4 Fields Where Doctorates Lead to Jobs.  ]

Alumni of Ph.D. programs note that the process of obtaining a Ph.D. is arduous, regardless of the type of Ph.D. program. “A Ph.D. is a long commitment of your time, energy and financial resources, so it’ll be easier on you if you are passionate about research,” says Grace Lee, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and is the founder and CEO of Mastery Insights, an education and career coaching company, and the host of the Career Revisionist podcast.

“A Ph.D. isn’t about rehashing years of knowledge that is already out there, but rather it is about your ability to generate new knowledge. Your intellectual masterpiece (which is your dissertation) takes a lot of time, intellectual creativity and innovation to put together, so you have to be truly passionate about that,” Lee says.

Erin Skelly, a graduate admissions counselor at the IvyWise admissions consulting firm, says when a Ph.D. students struggles to complete his or her Ph.D. degree, it may have more to do with the student’s academic interests or personal circumstances than his or her program.

“The time to complete a Ph.D. can depend on a number of variables, but the specific discipline or school would only account for a year or two’s difference,” she wrote in an email. “When a student takes significantly longer to complete a Ph.D. (degree), it’s usually related to the student’s coursework and research – they need to take additional coursework to complete their comprehensive exams; they change the focus of their program or dissertation, requiring extra coursework or research; or their research doesn’t yield the results they hoped for, and they need to generate a new theory and conduct more research.”

Skelly warns that the average completion time of a Ph.D. program may be misleading in some cases, if the average is skewed based on one or two outliers. She suggests that instead of focusing on the duration of a particular Ph.D. program, prospective students should investigate the program’s attritition and graduation rates.

“It is worthwhile to look at the program requirements and the school’s proposed timeline for completion, and meet current students to get their input on how realistic these expectations for completion are,” Skelly says. “That can give you an honest idea of how long it will really take to complete the program.”

Searching for a grad school? Access our  complete rankings  of Best Graduate Schools.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to get a phd.

This varies by country. In the United States, PhDs usually take between 5–7 years: 2 years of coursework followed by 3–5 years of independent research work to produce a dissertation.

In the rest of the world, students normally have a master’s degree before beginning the PhD, so they proceed directly to the research stage and complete a PhD in 3–5 years.

Frequently asked questions: Graduate school

In the US, most graduate school applications require you to include:

• Transcripts from previous educational institutions
• Standardized test scores (such as the GRE or MCAT)
• A graduate resume
• 2–3 letters of recommendation
• A statement of purpose

Some programs may ask you to write a personal statement in addition to, or instead of, a statement of purpose. You may also be asked to an interview .

Always carefully read the application instructions for the specific program you’re applying to.

Most medical school programs interview candidates, as do many (though not all) leading law and business schools.

In research programs, it depends—PhDs in business usually do, while those in economics normally do not, for example.

Some schools interview everyone, while others only interview their top candidates. Look at the websites of the schools you’re applying to for more information on whether they conduct interviews.

In addition to thinking about your answers for the most commonly asked grad school interview questions , you should reach out to former and current students to ask their advice on preparing and what sort of questions will be asked.

Look back through your resume and come up with anecdotes that you could use for common questions, particularly those that ask about obstacles that you overcame. If you’re applying for a research program, ensure that you can talk about the previous research experience you’ve had.

You should also read as much research in your field as possible. Research the faculty at the schools you’re applying to and read some of their papers. Come up with a few questions that you could ask them.

Graduate schools often ask questions about why you are interested in this particular program and what you will contribute.

Try to stay away from cliche answers like “this is a good program” or “I got good grades in undergrad” and focus instead on the unique strengths of the program or what you will bring to the table. Understand what the program is looking for and come up with anecdotes that demonstrate why you are a good fit for them.

Different types of programs may also focus on different questions:

• Research programs will often ask what topics you’d like to research and who you would like to work with, as well as specific questions about your research background.
• Medical schools are interested in your personal motivation, qualities such as integrity and empathy, and how you’d respond to common ethical dilemmas.
• Business schools will focus on your past work experience and future career prospects, and may be particularly interested in any experience you have managing or working with others.

Some students apply to graduate school straight from undergrad, but it’s also common to go back to school later in life. The ideal time to do so depends on various financial, personal, and career considerations . Graduate school is a big commitment, so you should apply at a time when you can devote your full attention to it.

Your career path may also determine when you should apply. In some career fields, you can easily progress without a graduate degree, while in others—such as medicine, business, and law—it’s virtually impossible to move up the career ladder without a specific graduate degree.

Most graduate school applications for American graduate programs are due in December or January for a September start.

Some types of programs, especially law school, are rolling applications, meaning that the earlier you apply, the earlier you’ll hear back. In this case, you should aim to apply as early as possible to maximize your chances.

Medical school follows a completely separate timeline with much earlier deadlines. If you’re applying for medical school, you should speak to advisors at your university for more information.

A good starting point to aim for is about 18 months before you would start the program, or 6–9 months before the applications are due.

In the first few months of the process, research programs and study for any standardized exams you might need.

You can then begin writing your personal statements and statements of purpose , as well as contacting people to write your letters of recommendation . Ensure that you give recommenders plenty of time to complete their letters (ideally around 2–4 months).

In the US, the graduate school application process is similar whether you’re applying for a master’s or a PhD . Both require letters of recommendation , a statement of purpose or personal statement , a resume or CV , and transcripts. Programs in the US and Canada usually also require a certain type of standardized test—often the GRE.

Outside the US, PhD programs usually also require applicants to write a research proposal , because students are expected to begin dissertation research in the first year of their PhD.

A master’s degree usually has a higher upfront cost, but it also allows you to start earning a higher salary more quickly. The exact cost depends on the country and the school: private universities usually cost more than public ones, and European degrees usually cost less than North American ones. There are limited possibilities for financial aid.

PhDs often waive tuition fees and offer a living stipend in exchange for a teaching or research assistantship. However, they take many years to complete, during which time you earn very little.

This depends on the country. In the United States, you can generally go directly to a PhD  with only a bachelor’s degree, as a master’s program is included as part of the doctoral program.

Elsewhere, you generally need to graduate from a research-intensive master’s degree before continuing to the PhD.

A PhD, which is short for philosophiae doctor (doctor of philosophy in Latin), is the highest university degree that can be obtained. In a PhD, students spend 3–5 years writing a dissertation , which aims to make a significant, original contribution to current knowledge.

A PhD is intended to prepare students for a career as a researcher, whether that be in academia, the public sector, or the private sector.

A master’s is a 1- or 2-year graduate degree that can prepare you for a variety of careers.

All master’s involve graduate-level coursework. Some are research-intensive and intend to prepare students for further study in a PhD; these usually require their students to write a master’s thesis . Others focus on professional training for a specific career.

It’s best to ask in person if possible, so first reach out and request a meeting to discuss your graduate school plans.

Let the potential recommender know which programs you’re applying to, and ask if they feel they can provide a strong letter of recommendation . A lukewarm recommendation can be the kiss of death for an application, so make sure your letter writers are enthusiastic about recommending you and your work!

Always remember to remain polite. Your recommenders are doing you a favor by taking the time to write a letter in support of your graduate school goals.

This depends on the program that you are applying for. Generally, for professional programs like business and policy school, you should ask managers who can speak to your future leadership potential and ability to succeed in your chosen career path.

However, in other graduate programs, you should mostly ask your former professors or research supervisors to write your recommendation letters , unless you have worked in a job that corresponds closely with your chosen field (e.g., as a full-time research assistant).

Choose people who know your work well and can speak to your ability to succeed in the program that you are applying to.

Remember, it is far more important to choose someone who knows you well than someone well-known. You may have taken classes with more prominent professors, but if they haven’t worked closely with you, they probably can’t write you a strong letter.

The sections in your graduate school resume depend on two things: your experience, and the focus of the program you’re applying to.

Always start with your education. If you have more than one degree, list the most recent one first.

The title and order of the other sections depend on what you want to emphasize. You might include things like:

• Professional experience
• Voluntary and extracurricular activities
• Publications
• Awards and honors
• Skills and certifications

The resume should aim for a balance between two things: giving a snapshot of what you’ve done with your life so far, and showing that you’re a good candidate for graduate study.

A resume is typically shorter than a CV, giving only the most relevant professional and educational highlights.

An academic CV should give full details of your education and career, including lists of publications and presentations, certifications, memberships, grants, and research projects. Because it is more comprehensive, it’s acceptable for an academic CV to be many pages long.

Note that, outside of the US, resume and CV are often used interchangeably.

No, don’t include your high school courses and grades. The education section should only detail your college education.

If you want to discuss aspects of high school in your graduate school application, you can include this in your personal statement .

A resume for a graduate school application is typically no more than 1–2 pages long.

Note, however, that if you are asked to submit a CV (curriculum vitae), you should give comprehensive details of all your academic experience. An academic CV can be much longer than a normal resume.

Always carefully check the instructions and adhere to any length requirements for each application.

If you’re applying to multiple graduate school programs, you should tailor your personal statement to each application.

Some applications provide a prompt or question. In this case, you might have to write a new personal statement from scratch: the most important task is to respond to what you have been asked.

If there’s no prompt or guidelines, you can re-use the same idea for your personal statement – but change the details wherever relevant, making sure to emphasize why you’re applying to this specific program.

If the application also includes other essays, such as a statement of purpose , you might have to revise your personal statement to avoid repeating the same information.

The typical length of a personal statement for graduate school applications is between 500 and 1,000 words.

Different programs have different requirements, so always check if there’s a minimum or maximum length and stick to the guidelines. If there is no recommended word count, aim for no more than 1-2 pages.

A statement of purpose is usually more formal, focusing on your academic or professional goals. It shouldn’t include anything that isn’t directly relevant to the application.

A personal statement can often be more creative. It might tell a story that isn’t directly related to the application, but that shows something about your personality, values, and motivations.

However, both types of document have the same overall goal: to demonstrate your potential as a graduate student and s how why you’re a great match for the program.

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How Long Does It Take to Get a PhD?

If you aspire to rise to the top of your field, then you may have your sights set on a PhD.

Earning a doctoral degree can be a years-long process, but choosing an accelerated doctoral online program may help you complete your program more quickly.

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Whether you’re wanting to earn one of the highest paying doctoral degrees or you have a specific one in mind, this guide can help walk you through how long it takes to complete your PhD program.

For a traditional, campus-based PhD program, the average time to finish a PhD is 8 years. Fulfilling the program’s requirements will often demand a serious investment of your time.

Even still, some people are able to finish their programs in just 3 to 6 years. Multiple factors may influence the overall length of your program.

Required Credit Hours

Many PhD programs require you to earn 120 credit hours before entering the exam and dissertation phases.

Fortunately, there are PhD programs without such high credit-hour demands. For example, at some universities, you may earn a PhD with only 60 credit hours.

Full-Time vs. Part-Time Schedule

Enrolling in a doctoral program part-time may allow you to keep up with your regular job. You’ll have to decide whether you prefer the flexibility of part-time schooling or the faster schedule of full-time studies.

Final Project Requirements

Many PhD programs end with the completion of a dissertation. This assignment may take years to complete, so PhD students often end up in the all-but-dissertation (ABD) phase for quite some time.

University Scheduling

Some schools promote their ability to help you through the PhD process faster than normal. Accelerated class schedules with eight-week online courses may speed your studies along. Focused attention from dissertation advisors may help as well.

PhD Program Components

Before you enroll in a PhD program, it’s important to know some of the basic requirements:

Prerequisites

Most schools require you to already hold a master’s degree, but some offer bachelor’s-to-PhD programs.

Length to Completion

On average, it takes eight years to earn a PhD. Even still, completing doctoral coursework and a dissertation in three to four years is not unheard of.

Topic of Interest

PhD stands for Doctor of Philosophy, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be getting a philosophy degree. Your field of study will depend on your interests and the programs that your university offers. You may tailor your doctoral focus though your choice of a dissertation topic.

Steps to Completion

You’ll take advanced classes before sitting for comprehensive exams. After passing your exams, you’ll likely begin working on a dissertation. You must defend your dissertation before finishing your program.

Doctoral studies begin with a series of classes through which you may increase your knowledge of your field of study and learn about conducting research. These are advanced classes, so they should be more in-depth than the ones you took during your undergraduate and master’s programs.

The number of courses that you need to take can vary significantly. It’s not uncommon for PhD programs to require 120 credit hours of coursework. That amounts to about 40 classes.

At other schools, the requirements are lower. Your university’s program may involve just 60 credit hours or, possibly, even fewer. A less intense course load may significantly slash your time to completion.

Your university may require you to maintain a GPA above a minimum threshold. An unsatisfactory GPA may keep you from moving on to the next step of the PhD process.

Comprehensive Examinations

Universities often require students to demonstrate their readiness for a doctoral project before advancing to the next stage of their studies. Readiness is proven through comprehensive exams , which may also be known as:

• Preliminary examinations
• Major field examinations
• General examinations

Often, comprehensive exams take the form of written or oral tests. In other situations, faculty may assess students’ readiness on the basis of a portfolio evaluation or a written paper.

Dissertation and Defense

A dissertation, also known as a graduate thesis, is a body of work that presents original research in your field. This manuscript focuses on a unique idea and includes evidence to support your thesis. During your doctoral studies, there are classes designed to help prepare you for your dissertation work.

The dissertation process may take several years. Once your manuscript is complete, you must defend it to the doctoral program faculty. After your defense, you may need to do further work on your manuscript, or the committee may decide that your dissertation is complete.

Not all programs require a dissertation. Instead, there may be an alternative doctoral project. Although both dissertations and capstone projects are rigorous, projects can sometimes be completed within a shorter time frame.

Average Time to Complete PhD by Field of Study

Students in some disciplines usually take a lot more time to finish their doctoral work than students in other fields.

If you’re studying in the following scientific fields, you may be more likely to earn your on-campus degree in seven years or less:

• Physics — average of five years
• Psychology — average of five to seven years

On the other hand, if your field of study relates more to the humanities, your on-campus degree program may take longer:

• History — average of eight years
• English — average of eight years
• Education — average of 13 years

These are the traditional figures. There are ways to finish faster.

Why Does It Take So Long to Finish a Traditional PhD?

Some schools require doctoral students to take around 40 classes, which, in a traditional on-campus setting, may take years. After completing the coursework, you must write your dissertation and defend it. The dissertation process alone might take multiple years.

Doctoral programs online may help shorten the PhD process to three or four years. Fewer credit hours may be required, and the classes may be delivered in an accelerated format.

Schools with an emphasis on quick doctoral programs may also offer dissertation advisors to efficiently guide students through that phase. Alternatively, some universities allow students to complete capstone projects that don’t take as long as dissertations.

Getting a PhD Online vs. Campus

Online education has changed students’ options for earning a PhD. These days, aspiring students may choose whether to attend classes on a college campus or online.

Traditional programs may require you to relocate to the university’s campus and attend school full-time. On average, it takes just over eight years to complete those programs. The benefits of choosing an online school instead may include:

Faster Progress

Accelerated eight-week courses may allow you to finish your course load sooner. You may complete your entire program in just three or four years.

Multiple Start Dates

Online programs often let you join throughout the year, so you don’t have to put your studies on hold until the fall semester.

Flexibility

Not being required to move to campus or come to class at set times may allow you to work your studies around your schedule.

Equal Status

Online programs are just as rigorous as on-campus ones. As long as your university is accredited, your degree will be just as valuable as one from a traditional university setting.

Cost-Savings

Finishing your doctoral studies faster may mean that you pay less tuition.

How to Finish Your PhD in Less Time

Although you can’t earn a doctoral degree overnight, you shouldn’t have to spend the majority of your working years striving toward PhD-completion. The following tips for accelerating the PhD process may help you finish your studies more quickly than the average doctoral student.

1. Use What You Already Know

Every school requires a minimum number of credit hours that you must earn in the pursuit of your degree. To help you meet this threshold, some schools will allow you to transfer in credits from other doctoral programs. Universities may also give you credit for your professional experience. Reducing your class load may save you both time and money.

2. Look for Short Classes

Accelerated course schedules are one of the best ways to speed through the degree process. Every eight weeks, you’ll begin a new set of classes. Over the course of a year, there may be five different sessions during which you can take classes.

3. Work on Your Dissertation Throughout the Program

Traditionally, dissertation work begins once the classroom portion of your studies is over. Quick doctoral programs may allow you to begin the dissertation process while you’re still taking other classes. This approach, known as an embedded dissertation, may reduce the likelihood that you’ll drop out before finishing your final project. It might also speed up your doctoral timeline.

4. Ask for Help

A lack of support can lead some doctoral students to drop out. On the other hand, having a good support system can help you push through and finish your program more quickly. Build a team of family, friends, and academic mentors who can encourage you, guide you, and lend practical help when you’re feeling overwhelmed by school.

Why Get a PhD?

You may need to earn a doctoral degree to achieve your career goals . For example, if you want to become a clinical psychologist, this level of study is essential. Many scientific and research positions require doctoral studies. University faculty typically need to hold terminal degrees as well.

Even if a doctorate is not a requirement for your desired line of work, it may help you achieve greater success. You might be granted higher levels of responsibility, and you may earn more money. In some fields, those who hold PhDs make around 20% more than those with master’s degrees, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics .

Do You Have to Have a Master’s Degree to Get a PhD?

Many schools consider a master’s degree an essential prerequisite for PhD admission. If you don’t already have a master’s degree, a bachelor’s-to-doctorate program may allow you to earn a master’s and a PhD for less time and money than it would take to pursue them separately.

How Long Does It Take to Get a PhD After a Master’s?

You may be able to complete your doctoral program in three to four years if you opt for an accelerated online program. On average, traditional on-campus PhD programs take around eight years to complete.

How Hard Is It to Finish a PhD?

Doctoral studies are challenging. That shouldn’t come as a surprise; if doctorates were easy to acquire, nearly every college graduate would end up with a PhD behind his or her name.

Approximately 50% of students who begin a PhD program don’t end up finishing. Many quit within two years of starting. Another large portion gives up upon reaching the dissertation phase.

Although all PhD programs are challenging, the flexible nature of online programs may help you find success. Choosing a doctoral track that doesn’t require a dissertation may help as well.

What Is the Easiest PhD to Get?

All PhD programs are demanding, but you might have an easier time if you select a program that aligns with your interests and your career goals. The flexibility of online study may help your doctoral program seem less burdensome. In addition, capstone projects are sometimes easier than writing dissertations.

If earning a doctoral degree in a short time frame is important to you, then consider the many potential benefits that online programs have to offer. Within just a few years, you may be able to place the letters “PhD” at the end of your name.

• How Long Does a PhD Take?

How Long is a PhD?

Written by Kristine Bagdassarian

A full-time PhD in the UK usually takes between three and four years, while a part-time project typically lasts between five and six years.

The the length of a PhD depends on a range of factors, such as your funding arrangements, your country and institution of study, and the nature of your research topic. For example, if you’re doing a funded PhD you’re more likely to face completion deadlines than self-funded PhD students.

Increasingly, the type of programme you’re enrolled in can also affect the duration of your doctorate degree. Some projects or programmes now include additional training, teaching or projects that can extend your overall PhD registration period.

This page explains some of the factors that can affect how many years a PhD degree lasts.

On this page

How long does a full-time phd take in the uk.

Full-time study is the most common approach to PhD research, particularly for funded projects. You’ll normally spend at least three years of full-time PhD study on your topic, beginning with research and data collection before moving on to ‘writing up’ your work.

As with other levels of study, your PhD will be your main focus and you’ll be expected to dedicate a lot of your time on it. Some students do work part-time alongside their studies, but a full-time PhD itself can often be the equivalent of a full-time job.

Why three to four years?

Compared to other qualifications, a PhD takes a considerable amount of time.

When you are just starting, three to four years may seem like a long time to work on a single project, but the volume of work required to obtain a doctorate is substantial and many students find that the time goes by faster than anticipated.

By the end of this period, you’ll be expected to have completed any training required by your funding body and / or institution, gained research skills and conducted original research and, finally, submitted and defended your thesis. Some universities and projects may also expect (or even require) you to present your work at conferences or publish some of it during your doctorate.

In addition to this, it’s advisable to have engaged in extra-curricular activities and projects to boost your professional and academic skillset. Between three and four years is plenty of time to do this, but it’s nowhere near as long as it might seem.

For more information on what you can expect during your project, take a look at our introduction to PhD study .

PhD registration period and writing-up period

The stated length of your PhD normally refers to the ‘registration period’ you set with your university at the start. This is the time period you intend to complete your PhD in and it will normally determine the ‘deadline’ for submitting your final thesis.

In the UK, the PhD registration period for full-time students is normally between three and three and a half years . In some departments and institutions, there is an understanding that students might enter a ‘writing-up’ period towards the end of their PhD. This is usually an extension to your registration, during which you don’t carry out any more research and just work on finalising your thesis and editing it for submission – writing it up, basically.

Can you complete a PhD in fewer than three years?

It’s technically possible to complete some PhDs in two years, if you have a very clear idea of the questions you want your project to answer and you’ve already done a lot of preparatory reading. This is very uncommon, however, and something that you should discuss with your supervisor. Some universities won’t let you submit a thesis before a certain point.

How many hours should I work while doing my PhD?

If you’re doing a full-time PhD, it’s wise to treat it like you would a full-time job, working the equivalent of 35 hours a week. However, you should be prepared to work longer hours during particularly busy stages of your doctorate, such as the writing up period and when you’re preparing for your viva.

Can you extend the length of a PhD?

Yes, it’s usually possible to extend the length of a PhD. You’ll need to apply to your university for an extended thesis submission date and have a valid reason for doing so (for example, a delay caused by something out of your control, COVID-19, a medical emergency or a bereavement). You should bear in mind that an extension isn’t guaranteed – particularly if it’s been caused by poor planning on your part. If your PhD has funding attached, there will usually be stricter deadlines than if you’re self-funding.

How long is an integrated PhD programme?

It’s quite common in STEM subjects to do an integrated PhD that includes a Masters qualification, usually taken after an undergraduate degree and referred to as a 1+3 PhD. These kinds of PhD typically take four years to complete.

PhD length in different countries

If you have your eyes on doing research abroad, there are a few things you need to be aware of in terms of study length. The three to four year PhD model is typical for the UK and most of Europe, with some countries in Asia also adopting a similar system (specific information on PhD studies in various countries can be found in our study abroad section ).

In the USA, a PhD takes four to six years . There are several reasons for this. While in the UK, you tend to apply for a specific project, in the US, your application is aimed at a certain department and your actual proposal takes shape in the first couple of years of PhD study. The US model involves a two-phase programme, wherein the first phase is focused on coursework and training and the second phase (typically from the third year onward) is when the bulk of the research is done. At the end of the second year, a US student would be expected to have developed a research proposal to be defended in front of a research committee and to have passed a ‘qualifying exam’ in order to present their defence.

How long does a part-time PhD take?

Part-time PhDs normally take about twice the time of full-time PhDs (around five to six years in the UK ). You’ll do everything a full-time PhD student does across your doctorate, but your PhD work will be a less intensive part of your weekly routine.

This type of PhD is a good way to accommodate other employment and / or family commitments alongside your research.

In some cases, it may even be possible to start on a part-time PhD and switch to full-time study (or vice versa) if your situation changes.

How long does a distance learning PhD take?

Distance learning is an option if you’re unable to be physically present at your university. Most distance learning PhDs are also studied part-time and take around five to six years .

This option is increasing in availability, but can be trickier to manage in some fields that require regular lab work or access to specialist facilities. As a long-distance PhD student, you can expect to communicate with your supervisor via email, Skype or other electronic means as well as potentially attend the institution of your study for a couple of weeks each year.

The length of PhD funding

However you study your PhD, your funding situation can play a big role in determining how long your registration lasts – and / or how long you can afford to research for. Most scholarships and studentships have set lengths (which won’t necessarily cover writing up).

In some cases, funding can also add extra elements to a PhD, and potentially increase its overall length. Alternatively, limitations set by your department or research group funding could urge you to finish your thesis in the three-year period without additional extensions, while self-funded PhDs could greatly depend on your own resources.

Structured PhDs

In the UK, many PhD programmes funded by the Research Councils are offered as ‘structured’ or ‘new route’ PhDs. These incorporate additional training projects, professional internships and other elements.

Such elements may take place alongside your research, or specific time may be set aside for them. In some cases, students are only matched up with a supervisor at the end of the first year. These sorts of programmes are often offered within Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) or Doctoral Training Centres (DTCs) .

Registration period and funding period

Sometimes your registration period can also be tied to your PhD funding. Most studentships only last for a certain time (even if your doctorate ends up taking longer) and payments for a doctoral student loan will be based on the stated length of your project or programme.

Self-funded PhDs

Self-funding (unsurprisingly) is not restricted by funder deadlines and can be more flexible – particularly if you need to extend for writing up. However, self-funded PhDs require careful planning for tuition and living costs alongside any ‘hidden’ expenses, such as equipment and travel to events / conferences.

Although self-funding can ease the stress surrounding a strict final deadline, it is important to keep in mind that resources for support can place pressure on completion of the project. In addition, universities also still tend to set a maximum registration period.

The best way to find out how long a PhD is in your subject is to have a look around. Check our PhD database or, for more information on PhDs, explore the rest of our advice section !

Our postgrad newsletter shares courses, funding news, stories and advice

You may also like....

What happens during a typical PhD, and when? We've summarised the main milestones of a doctoral research journey.

The PhD thesis is the most important part of a doctoral degree. This page will introduce you to what you need to know about the PhD dissertation.

This page will give you an idea of what to expect from your routine as a PhD student, explaining how your daily life will look at you progress through a doctoral degree.

Our guide tells you everything about the application process for studying a PhD in the USA.

The UK education system is divided into levels. This guide is your one-stop overview into what these levels are and what they mean for postgraduate students.

Is your supervisor moving universities? Or have you discovered another doctoral programme that better suits your goals? In this guide we take a look at how you can transfer a PhD to another university.

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Is there any minimum and maximum allowed time-span for acquiring a PhD degree?

Can someone finish a PhD, say, in 2 years in the USA or in 1.5 years in the UK?

Can someone take, say, 16 years in the USA or 12 years in the UK to finish a PhD?

• 1 I certainly knew some 10+ year PhD students. Not normal though... –  Jon Custer Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 1:40

3 Answers 3

There are no definitive rules. However, some general guidelines apply:

• Usually students must be in residence ("on campus") for at least one or two years.
• Students in the US must often complete coursework as part of the PhD that may require a year or more to finish.
• Some schools may have a time limit beyond which a student is no longer automatically considered "in good standing."

So it is unlikely to be at either of the extremes you mention, and particularly not on the short side.

• Some schools may have a time limit beyond which a student is no longer automatically considered "in good standing." --- for instance? –  user84565 Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 2:56
• Here is an example from Columbia. –  aeismail Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 3:01
• In the UK, a time limit of 7 years used to be quite common. It made sense to have a limit, because students might leave the university for a job in industry before finishing writing up their thesis, and finishing the thesis might then get "delayed indefinitely" by higher priority tasks. –  alephzero Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 9:30

What limitations a given student will face presumably depends on the policy of the institution in question, and in some places possibly national regulation.

At US universities, the graduate program often has mandatory courses, making it hard to finish very fast unless some requirement are waived. On the other end of the spectrum, many institutions limit funding after a certain period to try to push stragglers over the line (of finishing or quitting...), or at least make the PhD candidate jump through some hoops (e.g. petitions). Certain institutions have a limit on how long a student can be registered , but it's not clear to me whether this would block someone from submitting a thesis after finishing it on their own.

However, let's try proof by example. Here are some very short PhD durations (I think it will be much harder to finish this quickly nowadays):

• Stephen Wolfram of Mathematica fame earned his Ph.D. from Caltech in a year
• Robert Wagoner got his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Ohio State University in 1974, 1975, and 1976, respectively.

I'm less willing to list regular people who took a long time getting their PhDs, but I personally know some in the 10+ years range. A couple of more extreme example are

• Theodore Streleski who ended up murdering his advisor during his 19th year. I don't think he ever received a PhD, but he was still pursuing it at the time.
• Ingeborg Rapoport probably holds the record for the technically longest doctorate. She submitted her dissertation in 1938, but was stopped from defending it by the Nazi regime. Eventually, she was awarded her degree in 2015 .

Obviously most people aren't going to be like these examples, so let's turn to statistics. In the US, NSF publish reports on e.g. time to degree of doctorate recipients . In education the median is 11.7 years . Presumably there will be some that took e.g. the 16 years you mention.

• Or push stragglers into an master's degree –  Azor Ahai -him- Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 22:14

Speaking from experience at my UK university: there is no formal minimum time limit, but you would be very hard pressed to do the amount of work required for a thesis in 18 months.

In my university (and I believe the same is true in many others) you have to pass a review at the end of the first year, after which you are upgraded to full PhD candidate status. You can't sit this review any earlier than 1 year after starting, so this makes it basically impossible to finish in 1.5 years. Additionally, why rush? If you have funding for 3-4 years, you might as well use it.

As for an upper time limit, this is often determined by the funding. In my case, I am funded for 3.5 years with a possible 6 month extension, but additionally the University imposes a hard 4 year limit on PhD durations that you are not allowed to exceed.

• In the UK the universities get penalised if their full-time PhD students take more than 4 years, which is why many of them introduced the hard limit at 4 years. At my university there was a minimum time of 2/4 years for full- and part-time respectively, which I assume was to stop students (at least those without funding) enrolling as part-time and then just being full-time in order to pay less fees. –  SPPearce Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 8:31
• @KraZug even the "hard" limit may not be hard if the university has some reason to work with the student on extensions and extenuating circumstances. I did know someone who finished in about 2.5 years, but his previous writing experience and skill meant he could write a thesis in a few weeks while most of us take a few months. This was on top of a lot of hard work and some luck. –  Chris H Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 8:41
• @ChrisH, sure, extenuating circumstances allow for the 'hard' deadline to be extended. –  SPPearce Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 8:58

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• How Long Does A PhD Take?
• Doing a PhD

Sometimes, just knowing how long a PhD takes can be enough to sway your decision on whether a research degree is for you. So with that in mind, exactly how long does a PhD take?

In the UK, a full-time PhD takes 3 to 4 years to finish whilst a part-time PhD takes twice as long at 6 to 7 years. Alongside these average durations, there are time limits on how long you can be enrolled on to a PhD programme. To discover these limits, the factors which most influence doctoral degree durations and how the UK durations compare to international PhDs, continue reading on.

How Long Does It Take to Get a Full-time PhD?

In the UK, a full-time PhD will typically take you 3 to 4 years. You will usually spend the first three years on the technical aspects of your doctorate. This includes undertaking independent research, designing your research methodology and collecting and analysing data. You will then spend an additional academic year on writing up your PhD thesis and sitting your viva.

How Long Does It Take to Get a Part-time PhD?

In the UK, a part-time PhD will typically take you 6 to 7 years; twice as long as doing a full-time PhD. The reason for this is that as a part-time PhD student, you would dedicate around 20 hours per week to your PhD as opposed to the typical 40 hours full-time students would put into their subject.

How Long Does a Distance Learning PhD Take?

Similarly, distance learning PhD’s take an average of 6 to 7 years to complete. This is because the vast majority of students who undertake a distance learning PhD do so because they can’t relocate closer to the university. Although these commitments will differ, they often mean the student isn’t able to dedicate 40 hours per week to their studies.

Students in STEM disciplines will often take longer to finish a distance learning doctorate degree than those in non-STEM disciplines. This because the progress of a STEM PhD student will be limited by how often they can access a laboratory for experiment work.

How Does Funding Impact a PhD’s Duration?

In reality, the actual time it will take you to complete your PhD degree will depend on your funding situation.

If you’re receiving  funding , it will usually only cover you for 3.5 years if you’re studying full-time or for 7 years at half the stipend if you’re studying part-time. Although this could vary slightly, most PhD funding providers, e.g. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), follow this timescale as indicated on their ‘ length of PhD studentships’ page. Because of this, most students who obtain scholarships try to complete their PhD within the timeframe of their funding so they don’t incur additional fees which they need to cover themselves.

It’s also worth noting that some funded PhD positions have additional conditions attached to them as part of their eligibility requirements. For example, they may require teaching undergraduate students, hosting laboratory sessions or attend presentations and conferences. This will be especially true if you’re on a Graduate Teaching Assistantship (GTA). Although these shouldn’t add considerable time to the length of a PhD programme, they have the potential to do so if they aren’t managed properly.

As self-funded students cover their own annual tuition fees and other associated costs, how long they’ll spend to complete their PhD project will largely depend on their own personal financial situation. Because of this, most self-funded PhD students find it best to complete their PhD study in the shortest time-frame they can manage.

Are There Deadlines?

Yes – unfortunately, all good things must come to an end! Within the UK, the deadline for your PhD is defined as the last date which you must submit your final thesis by. This date is set by your university’s overall regulations and varies depending on the arrangements of your PhD, e.g. whether it’s full or part time. In the vast majority of cases, the adopted deadlines are four years for full-time PhDs and seven years for part-time PhDs from the date you were officially registered onto your programme, as shown below from the University of Leicester’s registration guidance page .

This time-frame may vary from university to university. For example, the University of Sheffield adopts an additional year for part-time PhDs as shown below.

Can I Complete It Faster?

Although it’s possible to complete a full-time PhD in under 3 years, it’s a significant feat that’s rarely heard of. When these feats occur, they’re usually where the doctoral student already has extensive knowledge and experience in their field before undertaking their PhD.

Whilst it’s possible to complete a part-time PhD in under 6 years, it largely depends on your commitments outside your studies. For example, if you have a part-time career alongside your PhD, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to commit the additional hours required to complete your doctorate a year faster.

However, if instead of a steady part-time job you take on occasional work as a freelancer, you’ll be able to set aside many more hours towards your doctoral degree.

Will Having only A Bachelor’s Degree or Being an International Student Limit My Rate of Progression?

Not at all. While there are benefits to having a Master’s degree such as an additional year of learning and greater research experience due to your fourth-year dissertation project, this doesn’t mean not having one would limit you. A PhD is very different to both Bachelor and Master degrees due to being heavily research-based, therefore, both types of students will have just as much to learn on their way to completing their doctorate.

Similarly, whether you’re an international student will bear no influence on the duration of your PhD.

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How Does This Compare to the Duration of EU and US PhDs?

PhD hosted by universities within the EU, such as those in France, Norway and Spain, have the same programme structure as those within the UK. As a result, there are no noticeable differences in the time to complete a doctorate between UK and EU institutions.

However, this is not the case in the US. Compared to PhDs conducted within the UK or EU, PhDs conducted within the US take considerably longer to obtain. According to a  2017 study conducted by the National Science Foundation, a US government agency which supports research and higher education, the average time to get a PhD within the US is 5.8 years. Besides this, the average completion time can further increase depending on the disciplines. For example, they found doctorates within the humanities and arts to take an average of 7.1 years to achieve.

The primary reason for this difference is the way PhD degrees are structured within the United States. As mentioned previously, PhDs conducted within UK and EU universities are essentially broken into two sections – one covering the analytical aspects and the other covering the writing up aspects. However, within the US, doctorate programmes comprise additional sections. PhD students are first required to undertake 2 to 3 years of courses, which cover a broad range of topics related to their schools’ discipline. This is then followed by coursework and several examinations, which only once passed can the PhD candidate then start working on their research project and dissertation.

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11 Secrets of a PhD in Europe vs USA that Matter

A PHD in Europe or USA?

They’re VERY different!

If you are trying to decide between pursuing a PhD in the USA vs a PhD in the UK, you should think more about which fits you best. There are 11 major differences between the two systems and you need to choose the one that fits you best:

Masters Degree

Typically, in Europe, you would join a PhD program after completing your Master’s degree. In the US, you would spend a few years taking courses (alongside research) to get your Master’s degree.

If you already have a Master’s degree, you may get a course waiver, which could reduce the time needed to complete your PhD.

Most of the US universities ask for GRE and TOEFL in your application for PhD program. But this not mandatory for PhD in europe, including UK and German universities. Though TOEFL, preferably above 90, is highly recommended for international students.

Choose your project before starting your PhD

For PhD in the UK (and Europe) , you need to choose a project before starting your PhD program.

This is different from the US , where you typically apply to a department for your PhD first and your thesis and research evolves in a year or two.

There are no class requirements for a PhD in the UK . You begin your research right away. The assumption is PhD students know their research areas. After all, you start by applying to a professor / lecturer with a research area in mind.

Now, that might be true for some students. Others may want to get exposed to new ideas and potential research topics. In addition, they may also want to have a wider peer group that gets formed in classes.

PhD in US vs Europe: Time to completion

PhD programs in the UK (and rest of Europe) take around 3 to 4 years to complete .

After a PhD in the UK, students generally go on to their postdoctoral research.

In the US , a PhD may take up to 5 or 6 years.

After a PhD in the US , students tend to go directly from graduation to academia or research jobs without a postdoc.

In many UK (and European) universities, there are firm guidelines on just how long a PhD takes and those are more important than individual decisions by a student’s advisers. In comparison, in the US, some students can fly through their PhD in 3 years with tremendous amounts of research, while others can take as long as 8 to 10 years to complete their PhD.

There are different systems within Europe.

In Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, a PhD takes 4 to 5 years and includes additional teaching duties. Students in these schools are considered as employees. They receive monthly salaries which are comparable to the salaries earned by graduate students working in various industries and are taxable as well. A PhD student is allowed to either present or attend at least one conference anywhere in the world, expenses for which are taken care of by the research group.

In Germany, a 4-year PhD is considered too long and funding might not be available after the first three years of the PhD program.

Work-life balance

This point is less about the PhD in question, and more about the cultural difference between the UK (and Europe) and the US, but this could be a factor in your decision making if you are particular about the type of culture around you and the kind of lifestyle you wish to have.

The PhD lifestyle is much more relaxed in the UK (and in Europe). You will have more time for yourself as well as your friends and family in the UK, while pursuing your PhD.

In the US, PhD students are often overworked with more teaching and grading responsibilities. They also have a lot of class work.

PhD in UK vs US: Hierarchical Structure

In the US, PhD students report to and directly interact with their professors, but some of the PhD programs in the UK are headed by the Professor but there is also a Reader and a Lecturer. Students sometimes feel this hampers their flexibility to work, while restricting their exposure to the lab as well as the head of the lab.

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Future opportunities.

Some students feel that the US offers more opportunities to PhD students in academia as well as jobs. This can be true as the US has many universities offering teaching positions as well as companies offering jobs to PhD students.

However, irrespective of whether you earn your PhD from Europe or the US, some experts say you may have to hustle to find a great job after your PhD.

Different Stipend (salary)

For most PhD in the UK (and Europe), stipend (or salary) comes centrally from the universities or from Government research organizations. These stipends (or salaries) may be limited to only 3 years.

In the US , stipend (or salary) comes directly from your supervisor without any limitation on the duration of the PhD. Unlike in big US universities, there are fewer TA responsibilities for PhD students in UK universities.

In many cases, you don’t need to pay tax on your income as a graduate student in the UK (and Europe).

In Germany , international PhD students are funded for 3 years by the German government.

Less Publications

In the UK , you have less chances of getting published . Your time is more focused on your thesis document.

Less Chance of Faculty Position Afterwards

In the US , students opt for faculty positions after receiving their PhD .

This isn’t necessarily the case with PhD students in the UK , who opt for postdoc positions to remain in academia.

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More Similarity Than Differences

The UK (and European) universities are being influenced by the US system. Many UK universities’ Computer Science schools have Doctoral Training Programs which are essentially 4-year PhD programs, with the first year focused on teaching. These programs offer more flexibility about what you end up doing and who you end up working with. Also, these programs often are sponsored by industries, which means these have higher stipends and you may get an adviser in industry.

So, which one to choose – UK (or Europe) PhD vs US PhD?

Apart from the factors mentioned above, you should focus on the quality of the research group and reputation of the professor. You should look at the top conferences about your topic of interest and note where the papers come from. That’s your best clue as to which university / school you should choose.

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Doing a PhD in Europe vs. the US

Are you thinking of doing a PhD abroad? There are some considerable differences between European and American PhD programs that you should know about before applying. Read on to determine which program is right for you.

Qualifications

It is often not possible to do a PhD in Europe without first earning a Master’s degree. In the US, many PhD programs accept applicants who only have a Bachelor's degree. Students usually earn a Master’s as part of the PhD program after they have completed a few years of coursework and passed certain exams. This doesn't mean that all doctoral candidates in American PhD programs have entered the program straight from undergrad. Several still choose to do a Master’s first before applying for a PhD. In some programs students who already have a Master's might not be required to take as many courses as students with just a Bachelor’s, but this isn't always the case. 

Time to Degree

European PhD programs are shorter than those in the US. For example, it takes three years to complete a PhD in France, Norway, the UK, and Germany. Across Europe, a three to four year PhD in common. In comparison, six years is the average time to degree in the US with many PhDs in the humanities taking seven or eight years to earn their degree.

Thesis Topic

PhD candidates in Europe must choose their thesis topic and supervisor during the application process. Students apply for specific vacant doctoral projects that are usually tied to a professor’s research. As part of their application, they must create a research proposal for this project. It is also possible (in the UK for example) to apply to a department rather than a specific position, but applicants must still include a research proposal and are advised to contact potential supervisors before applying. In the US, candidates apply to a department’s PhD program, rather than a specific PhD project. While they have to discuss their research interests and identify potential supervisors in their applications, students do not decide on their thesis topic until their second or third year. In fact, many science and engineering programs have students rotate between different labs in their first year before deciding on their supervisor and dissertation project.

Teaching Requirement

PhD candidates occasionally have the opportunity to teach in Europe, although teaching is not a requirement in many countries. In the US, PhD candidates are often required to teach undergraduates, often as teaching assistants for a large lecture class. A teaching assistant leads smaller tutorials for 20-30 students and grades their exams and papers. Most PhD students will TA one class each semester for two to three years. Several American PhD programs also have mandatory pedagogy courses for graduate students.

Many European PhD programs require students to do little to no coursework. Candidates start working on their dissertation projects right away. American PhD programs, regardless of the field, require students to take two to three years of courses and seminars about topics across the discipline before they being working on their dissertation.

Funding and Salary

In several European countries, PhD students are seen as employees and have work contracts. As employees, PhD students pay into health insurance, pension, and unemployment insurance. In countries where PhD students are not employees (such as the UK and Italy) students apply for university scholarships, external fellowships, or research grants for funding. Tuition fees are drastically lower in many European countries compared to the United States. Funding at American universities varies widely, as do tuition fees. Private universities have higher tuition than public state schools (though international students usually higher tuition at state schools). The top schools offer five-year funding packages which cover tuition and fees and provide a monthly stipend. They also often include health insurance and conference travel. At other schools, students must compete for fellowships at the university, state, or national level to fund their PhDs. In some departmnets students will be paid and receive partial tuition credit for take teaching assistantship or research assistantship positions.

Comprehensive Exams

Most European PhD programs do not require students to pass qualifying exams to progress through their PhDs. There are some notable exceptions, like Sweden, where PhD candidates do an oral and written exam at the halfway point of their PhD. In the US, students usually have to pass a series of comprehensive exams before they can start working on their dissertation. The exams test the student’s knowledge of the major fields within their discipline. While every university will have a slightly different exam structure, there is usually an oral and a written component. Sometimes students also have to orally defend their dissertation proposal. After the candidate has completed their coursework and passed all the required exams they are considered ABD (all but dissertation).

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Speaking of Psychology: Why our attention spans are shrinking, with Gloria Mark, PhD

Episode 225.

These days, most of us live our lives tethered to our computers and smartphones, which are unending sources of distraction. Research has shown that over the past couple of decades people’s attention spans have shrunk in measurable ways. Gloria Mark, PhD, of the University of California Irvine, talks about how the internet and digital devices have affected our ability to focus, why multitasking is so stressful, and how understanding the science of attention can help us to regain our focus when we need it.

About the expert: Gloria Mark, PhD

Kim Mills : When was the last time that you had an entire day completely free from digital distractions? No text messages, no email notifications, no social media and no aimless internet browsing. It might be hard to think of the last time you even had a tech free hour. These days, most of us live our lives tethered to our computers and our smartphones, which are unending sources of distraction. Sometimes it can feel impossible to concentrate deeply on anything for any significant length of time.

And indeed researchers have found evidence that over the past couple of decades, people's attention spans have shrunk considerably. So how has the rise of the internet and digital devices affected our ability to focus and pay attention? What does it mean to pay attention to something anyway? When you're being bombarded by different tasks, notifications, and emails, is it possible to multitask and deal with them all effectively? Or is productive multitasking a myth? How can understanding the science of attention help us to regain our focus when we need it to improve both our productivity and our happiness?

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology , the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

My guest today is Dr. Gloria Mark, a psychologist and the chancellor's professor of informatics at the University of California Irvine. Dr. Mark studies how people interact with technology in their everyday lives and how technology affects our attention, multitasking, mood, and stress level. She studies people's behavior in real world settings and she's found that our attention spans have been shrinking over the past two decades. Her new book, published in January, is called Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity . 

Dr. Mark, thank you for joining me today.

Gloria Mark, PhD : Thank you so much for having me.

Mills : Most of us probably think that we know what it means when we say we pay attention to something, but you wrote in your book that there are different kinds of attention. Can you talk about that? What are the different kinds of attentions that we experience in our everyday life?

Mark : Let me actually start out by talking about what William James, the father of psychology, says about attention. So back in the 19th century, he said “Everyone knows what attention is. It's the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.” Of course, everyone knows what attention is. We all believe we know what attention is, but it's a lot more complicated than that.

So when I was studying attention, it occurred to me that you can be very engaged in something and you can put in a lot of mental effort. If I'm reading an article, it be challenging for me. On the other hand, there's a lot of things we do that are not at all challenging, but we're very engaged in. So when we're playing solitaire or playing simple games online, or if a person is gardening, they might be very engaged and not at all challenged. So we set out to study different kinds of attention when people use their devices. And what we did was we probed people throughout the day and we asked them at this point in time, want you to respond very quickly and tell us how engaged were you in what you just did, and how challenged were you in what you just did?

We find that when people are engaged and challenged, there seems to be rhythms in the day when this happens. And people seem to have peaks of times when they do this. We call this focused attention, tends to be late morning and again mid to late afternoon, about two to three. And when people are very engaged in something and not at all challenged, we call that rote activity.

Lots of things that people do are rote activity when they're online. It could be simple games, it could be even reading the news or doing social media. They tend to do that relatively uniformly throughout the day. But we do find that focused attention occurs in rhythms and it seems to correspond to the ebb and flow of our mental resources that we have available.

Mills : Well, I mentioned in the introduction that you have found evidence that our attention spans have shrunk in recent years, at least as measured by how long people spend on tasks and screens at work. Can you talk about that? How much have our attention spans shrunk?

Mark : So we started measuring this back in 2004, and at the time the measures that we used were stopwatches because that was the most precise thing we had at the time. We would shadow people with stopwatches for every single activity they did. We would record the start time and the stop time. So you're on a screen where you're working in a Word doc, as soon as you get to that screen, we clicked start time, soon as they turned away and checked email, we clicked stop time for the Word document, start time for the email. But fortunately, sophisticated computer logging methods were developed, and so of course we switched to those. So back in 2004, we found the average attention span on any screen to be two and a half minutes on average. Throughout the years it became shorter. So around 2012 we found it to be 75 seconds.

This is with logging techniques. This is an average. And then in the last five, six years, we found it to average about 47 seconds, and others have replicated this result within a few seconds. So it seems to be quite robust. Now, another way to think about this result is the median. The median means the midpoint of observations. The median is 40 seconds. And what this means is that half of all the measurements that we found were 40 seconds or less of people's attention spans. Now obviously because we're talking about averages and medians, sometimes people do spend longer, but quite a good bit of the time, their attention spans are much shorter and with an average coming to 47 seconds.

Mills : So why is this a problem? Since it seems to be happening almost universally at this point, is this just the new normal?

Mark : It seems to be the new normal because we seem to have reached a steady state over the last five or six years where these are the measures that we're seeing. Is this a good thing? I would argue it's not a good thing for the following reasons. First of all, we find in our research a correlation between frequency of attention switching and stress. So the faster the attention switching occurs, stress is measured by people wearing heart rate monitors. We show that stress goes up. We know from decades of research in the laboratory that when people multitask, they experience stress, blood pressure rises. There's a physiological marker in the body that indicates people are stressed. And in our studies, we've also simply asked people with well valid instruments to report their stress, their perceived stress, and it's reported to be higher the faster that we measure attention shifting.

So all of these measures seem to be consistent. I'll also measure that when people shift their attention so fast, and this is multitasking, when you keep switching your attention among different activities, people make more errors. And that's been shown in studies in the real world with physicians, nurses, pilots. We also know that performance slows. Why? Because there's something called a switch cost. So every time you switch your attention, you have to reorient to that new activity, that new thing you're paying attention to, and it takes a little bit of time.

So imagine if you're writing, let's say, say you're writing a chapter and you suddenly stop what you're doing and you switch and do something else, and then you come back to it, it's going to take you some time to reconstruct, what was I writing? What was the topic I was thinking about? What were the words I was using? That takes a bit of time. And so we incur these switch costs throughout the day as we're switching our attention, and this creates more effort. It uses more of our very precious mental resources on top of the work that we actually need to do.

Mills : You've also found that some switching is good. It's normal during the course of a day so that you might really concentrate on something for a length of time, and then you take a break and maybe you go online or maybe if you're working from home, you put in a load of laundry or you take a walk. Isn't that something that we actually need to do?

Mark : Absolutely. It's so important that we take breaks because if you work until you get exhausted, then of course you can get burnout. It's so important to take breaks and replenish. And by taking breaks, we have more energy, we have more attentional capacity, and we can actually do more. We can be more productive. The problem is that in our current world, many work environments, people neglect to take meaningful breaks, and we get ourselves into position where our performance suffers as a result.

Now, if you're going to take a break, it's really important to take a break at a point in the task that's called a break point. And a break point is a natural stopping point in a task. So going back to the writing example, if I'm writing something, a breakpoint would be at the end of a section or even at the end of a paragraph, but at a point where when I come back to it, then there's not going to be a lot of effort for me to have to reconstruct what I was doing. I've already finished that part. If you interrupt yourself in the middle of doing something as opposed to a natural stopping point, you use up a lot more mental resources and it's also more stressful.

Mills : Well, for people who want to schedule breaks, who really want to intentionally make the changes that you're talking about, what do you think about programs such as internet blockers that prevent people from going online during certain hours of the day so that you can force yourself to be more focused? Do you think that those are effective?

Mark : We've done a study with internet blockers, and it turns out it very much depends on an individual's personality. So people who have poor self-regulation skills can benefit from these kinds of blockers. Essentially what you're doing is you're offloading the work of self-regulation onto the software, and the software becomes a proxy agent for you. It's doing the work. It turns out people who have good self-regulation skills, so people who score low in impulsivity as a trait, people who score high in conscientious these are people who are actually harmed by these blockers.

Why? Because these are people who are very good at taking breaks and coming right back to work. They can take a break, they can go to social media, they can go to a news site and they can take a break, relax themselves, then they can come back to work. In this study, we took away their opportunity to take a quick online break, and they got burnt out. They worked straight through. They didn't take breaks. On the whole, I prefer that people develop their own agency, their own self-efficacy in controlling their attention. These software blockers can be good at times, but I think it's far more important that people learn to develop their own skills to control their attention.

Mills : A lot has been written about the Pomodoro technique, which is basically you set a timer for every 25 minutes and then you agree you're going to work straight through for 25 minutes, a timer goes off and you get a five minute break. What about that as sort of a low tech blocker?

Mark : Well, that's fine, but there are individual differences and some people would be able to work longer than what the Pomodoro technique dictates. Some people would work less. I think it's much more important that people become self-aware of their own level of energy and the amount of attentional resources they have available and take breaks according to what their own levels are.

So I've learned to do this. I've learned to become more aware of what my own capacity is, and when I start feeling tired, that's the point when I take a break. If I know I've got a really hard task to do, I might schedule a break before I start doing that task so I can replenish myself and then right after so that I can build back up the resources that I expended. The worst thing you can do, the worst thing is to schedule back to back Zoom meetings without breaks that it just gets us exhausted. There's no transition between these meetings. So we need to schedule in transitions between these kinds of hard tasks.

Mills : And when we're talking about attention and attention spans, there's something a little bit different but related, which is the concept of flow. Can you explain what that is? Because that is a kind of attention and it's very, very different from what we've just been talking about.

Mark : That's right. So flow is a type of attention that the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered, and it's what he calls the optimal state of attention. It's when people are so immersed in something that time just doesn't seem to matter. And so it's when we are at our peak creativity, we're using the optimal amount of challenge of our skills. So if we're not challenged enough in whatever your skill happens to be, you won't go into flow. If you're challenged too much in your skill, you won't go into flow. It'll be too hard. So there's that sweet spot that you have to hit to go into flow. So before I went into psychology, I actually had studied fine arts and used to be an artist, and I would get into flow regularly, and it's the nature of the work of being an artist and being creative that I could regularly get into flow.

Now, as a scientist, I rarely get into flow because of the nature of my work where I have to be very analytical and I have to use very careful thought. Is that a bad thing? No, not at all. It's very rewarding. It's just I realize that the nature of my work and the nature of a lot of knowledge work is such that it may not be conducive to flow, but sometimes I get into flow. If I'm in say a brainstorming session with other people, we might get into a kind of group flow where everyone is feeding off of each other's ideas. But in my typical day-to-day life, now, I generally don't get into flow, and it's not a bad thing.

Mills : Let's talk for a minute about the effect of the internet and devices on children's attention span. Most of your research has been with adults, but kids are spending a lot of time on devices as well. Are they going to have even more trouble with attention than those of us who first experience this level of distraction as adults?

Mark : This is something that I think we should be very concerned about as a society. So it turns out children that are as young as two to four years old, they already average two and a half hours of screen time a day. And when they get to be between five and eight, they average about three hours of screen time a day. Now, most of that screen time, it's TV and YouTube viewing, but children also do a lot of gaming. So we know from a lot of laboratory studies that when children are very young, they're a lot more susceptible to distraction than older children. And when they're distracted, it takes them longer to get back and focus again on that thing that they were distracted from. So I worry that when young children are spending so much time on the screen, it acculturates them to think that this is normal behavior to be on a screen.

The problem is that when children are very young, there are certain parts of their brain that are not yet mature. So their ability to self-control and a part of the brain called executive function and executive function, you can think of it as the governor of the mind. So it manages things like decision-making, and setting priorities of what we should be paying attention to. It helps manage interference of peripheral stimuli in the environment, and executive function is not yet well developed and children are sitting in front of screens and they're exposed to all kinds of potential distractions.

So I think this is not a good idea. Children need self-control for learning, and more and more we're seeing schools having a lot of online learning available for kids, and kids need self-control as a skill to be able to search for information, to do math problems online, to read and write without being distracted. I find it problematic that we're putting children into a digital world before some very critical mental functions are fully developed. I don't think kids are really ready for that.

Mills : Can focus be taught? I mean, you seem to be implying that we need to be doing something particularly with children so that they aren't constantly distracted. But how do you teach somebody to focus on something?

Mark : Well, for children, I think the best thing children can do is to do activity off-screen. And I think they would learn to focus, whether it's playing outside, reading books is an excellent way to get children to focus. If we're talking about adults, I think that one of the best things that adults can do is to make sure that your internal tank of mental resources is kept at high capacity. So when you have a full tank of resources, you can focus much better than when you're just spent, when your resources have just drained because you're doing hard work all day, you're switching your attention a lot. It's going to be very, very hard to focus, and there are things we can do to build up those resources. So one of the best things you can do is to get a really good night's sleep. Everyone says, of course we know you should get a good night's sleep, but let me tell you what happens when you don't. When people accumulate what's called sleep debt and sleep debt is the accumulation of loss of sleep.

If you need eight hours of sleep a night—and I need eight hours of sleep a night—but if you're only getting six hours a night, that difference is called a sleep debt. And if you're consistently getting six hours of sleep a night, you're accumulating sleep debt. And we know that the greater the sleep debt, the shorter the attention spans. And what do people do when they have a lot of sleep debt? We found that they tend to do more lightweight activities like social media. They just don't have the resources to be able to focus and do hard work, so they do what's easy based on the amount of resources that they have available.

Mills : Let's switch topics for a minute to something else that you talk about in your book, which is how TV and movies have changed in the past few decades. You're right that the pace of television and movies has sped up and things like the length of each camera shot, they're getting shorter. Why is that? And are those changes affecting our attention or is this happening because the people who are creating these things already know that we have no attention anymore?

Mark : So I was very surprised to learn that TV and film shot lengths have decreased over the years. They started out much longer. They now average about four seconds a shot length. That's on average. If you watch MTV music videos, they're much shorter. They're only a couple of seconds. So we've become accustomed to seeing very fast shot lengths when we look at TV and film. Even commercials have shortened in length. Commercials used to be much longer. Now it's not uncommon to see six-second commercials, even shorter than that. Now it's a chicken and egg question. We don't know if TV and film have affected our attention spans on computers and phones. We don't know if our attention spans have affected the decision-making of film editors and directors. We don't know exactly if there is any causal connection we see these two parallel trends.

It could be the case that directors and editors are influenced by their own short attention spans when they create these film shots or it could be that they're creating short film shots because they think that's what the viewer wants to see. But this has become quite ubiquitous. In fact, on YouTube, there's a particular YouTube aesthetic which uses jump cuts. So when you're watching a YouTube film, the film becomes very jumpy. The natural pauses that people make when they speak it is removed. So the idea is to pack more content into a shorter amount of time. So we're seeing short lengths of content from all directions. It's not just what we're attending to on computers and phones.

Mills : But I think you found that some of this we're doing to ourselves. I know some people who feel like they're so time crunched that when they want to listen to a podcast, they turn up the speed to 1.5 or 2 and then listen to it. Why are we doing this to ourselves and is this helping?

Mark : I myself have sometimes done that?. Why do we do this? There's a number of reasons. I can't say exactly why we do it. It could be because we want to fit more content into a shorter amount of time because there's so much content available, right? We're talking about access to the world's largest candy store, and we want to sample all the wares that are available. So of course, you might want to speed up the podcast so that you can simply take more in and quickly get to your next favorite podcast. So I don't know exactly why we're doing it on ourselves. It could be also out of habit. We're just used to listening to things faster, but we do have all of this content available to us at our fingertips within milliseconds, and so perhaps we just want to sample as much as we possibly can.

Mills : Now, during the pandemic, many people have switched to remote work, which I'm guessing has meant more emails, more messages on Slack, and Teams, and workers have to deal with all of this. How do you think this is affecting people's attention and focus? Do you even know? Is it too soon to say?

Mark : Yeah, so I've worked on a survey with colleagues. So we have people’s self-reports, they've reported that it's hard to focus. I've done other work where we're looking at team interaction in remote work and have picked up some information from that. People do report having a hard time focusing. It's a different kind of distraction than you would have in a workplace. Of course, you're distracted by the pile of dirty laundry that you're looking at. In a workplace, you might be distracted by ambient noise in the workplace. We do know that it makes a difference whether people have a private workspace at home where it can be quiet or whether they have to share a public working space with others, which is more distracting. Some people might go to a cafe to work, and of course, that creates another type of distraction. So a lot of it very much depends on the environment, where the person is working.

We also know that if you're remote from your colleagues, you can't really signal to them when is a good time to interrupt. If you're in a workplace, and especially if you can see your colleagues, you can see when they just hung up the phone, then you know it might be a nice time to walk over and talk to them or you might stand outside their office and wait, and then you can see when it's good to interrupt. When we're remote, we don't have that visual information, and so we can just be sending electronic communications to our colleagues at all time. There's another study that I did with my postdoc, and she found that a lot of people feel that they want to go above and beyond what they ordinarily do to be able to signal to their colleagues, to their supervisors that they're working hard. And so they jump to answer their email, their Slack messages so that they can demonstrate, hey, I'm working—you don't see me, but I want you to know that I'm here and I'm working hard, and that's why I'm going to jump on these messages.

Mills : Now, we've been talking a lot about what individuals can do regarding better attention spans, but are there changes that organizations should be making or even changes at a societal level that could help all of us with boosting our ability to stay focused on important things?

Mark : There are, and I'm a big advocate for changes on a collective level. And the reason is that if any individual decides to just pull out and completely cut themselves off from technology, they might penalize themselves. If you're a knowledge worker of any kind, you're cutting yourself off from important work communications. You can be cutting yourself off from communications from family, friends, loved ones, from important news in the world. So it's not always beneficial for any individual to cut themselves off, but an organization can do things. They can, for example, control times during the day when electronic communications are sent. They can create a window of time when no communications would be sent, and this would be a quiet time when people can work. In our research, we find that people check email on average 77 times a day. And if you have this quiet time, at least you can curtail that checking.

We might be able to reduce the amount of checking because there's no point to check, there won't be email coming. On a societal level, there's starting to be what's called right to disconnect laws, and there's one in France, it's called the El Khomri law. There's also Ireland and Ontario have policies, so other countries are starting to pick up on this, and it's the idea that no worker can be penalized if they do not answer electronic communications before and after work hours. New York City tried to introduce a right to disconnect law in its city council meeting. That got shut down very quickly. And my favorite, I read the transcripts of the meeting, and my favorite response, my favorite argument against it was from the Bureau of Tourism, which said, we're the greatest tourist city in the world, we're the city that never sleeps.

So if we have right to disconnect laws, it enables people to detach from work, and that has so much psychological benefit for individuals. You truly do need a break from work. We can't be on work 24/7, and that's what's happening. The borders between our personal life and work life have just blurred so that in personal time when people are at home after work, they're dealing with work problems, and work communications. People do need time to really relax, to break away from work. It's such a great psychological benefit, and if they can do that, it enables them to better reattach to work the next day because they're fresh, they're replenished. So I'm a big advocate of right to disconnect policy.

Mills : let me ask you a totally different question, which is what's next for you? What are you working on now? What are the important research questions that you want to see answered?

Mark : Yeah, so I would like to continue looking at our attention. I'm interested in a lot of things. I'm interested in how we can get more value from the internet. We have this incredible resource available to us, and so rather than be upset by it because it distracts us, how can we turn that around and instead find value from it? And how can we utilize our time best and optimize our time best when we use the resources that the internet offers without getting exhausted from it?

And I also have been looking at teamwork, remote teamwork and how that can be optimized because more and more companies are starting to have hybrid work and remote work, and what are the repercussions from that? What are the benefits from that? So I'd like to understand that better.

Mills : Well, that all sounds really interesting. I look forward to seeing your subsequent research. Appreciate your joining me today, Dr. Mark. Thank you very much.

Mark : Thank you so much for having me.

Mills : You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at speakingofpsychology.org or on Apple, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at [email protected] . Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lea Winerman. Our sound editor is Chris Condayan. 

Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.

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Episode 225: Why our attention spans are shrinking, with Gloria Mark, PhD

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Speaking of Psychology is an audio podcast series highlighting some of the latest, most important, and relevant psychological research being conducted today.

Produced by the American Psychological Association, these podcasts will help listeners apply the science of psychology to their everyday lives.

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Your host: Kim I. Mills

Kim I. Mills is senior director of strategic external communications and public affairs for the American Psychological Association, where she has worked since 2007. Mills led APA’s foray into social media and envisioned and launched APA’s award-winning podcast series Speaking of Psychology  in 2013. A former reporter and editor for The Associated Press, Mills has also written for publications including The Washington Post , Fast Company , American Journalism Review , Dallas Morning News , MSNBC.com and Harvard Business Review .

In her 30+-year career in communications, Mills has extensive media experience, including being interviewed by The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal , and other top-tier print media. She has appeared on CNN, Good Morning America , Hannity and Colmes , CSPAN, and the BBC, to name a few of her broadcast engagements. Mills holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Barnard College and a master’s in journalism from New York University.

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The Shameful Controversy Over Olympic Boxer Imane Khelif

This story was originally published in WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won her first match of the 2024 Paris Olympics when her opponent, Angela Carini of Italy, quit after taking several blows to the face in the opening seconds of the bout. The victory only fueled the misguided controversy around Khelif, who has been targeted by critics who have misgendered her throughout the Games.

Born in 1999 in Tiaret, Algeria, Khelif has been boxing since she was a child and has always competed in women's categories. In her career, she competed in the Women's World Boxing Championships in New Delhi in 2018 (finishing in 17th place), then competed in Russia the following year. She competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, reaching all the way to the quarterfinals, and she finished second in the 2022 Women's World Championships in Istanbul.

Everything seemed to be running smoothly until the 2023 World Cup, organized by the International Boxing Association. The Russia-led IBA, which is not recognized by the International Olympic Committee, disqualified Khelif after a gender eligibility test allegedly found she has XY chromosomes. IBA president Umar Kremlev has said that both Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting, who allegedly had a similar test result, “were trying to deceive their colleagues and pretend to be women.” Khelif has contested the allegations.

The Olympics Controversy

Both Khelif and Lin were admitted to Olympic boxing competitions. Admission rules in this case are handled by the so-called Boxing Unit, which has ensured that all athletes participating in the Games' boxing tournament comply with the rules of eligibility and registration for the competition as well as all medical regulations, which also includes the appropriate demonstration of medical certificates stamped and verified to at least three months before the start of the competitions.

“These boxers are completely eligible. They are women on their passports, they are women who have competed in the Tokyo Olympics and have been competing for many years, I think we all have a responsibility to tone it down and not turn it into a witch hunt,” said IOC spokesperson Mark Adams, at a news conference on Tuesday.

Still, prominent figures on social media decried Khelif's participation in the Games. X owner Elon Musk amplified a tweet from swimmer Riley Gaines that “men don't belong in women's sports,” while author J.K. Rowling falsely referred to Khelif as “a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head.”

The fact is that Khelif is participating in the Games because she is allowed to by the rules, and has passed the IOC's standards. “The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision,” said the Boxing Unit and IOC in a statement Thursday, referring to the IBA ban. “[It] was taken without any proper procedure—especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years. Such an approach is contrary to good governance.”

The controversies of the past few days took serious issues such as hyperandrogynism—the excessive production of testosterone by female bodies—and intersexuality, in which someone is born with sex characteristics that don't fit neatly into traditional definitions of male and female, and debased them. They then further poisoned an already very sensitive debate around transgender women's participation in the Olympics and sports competitions in general.

Beyond everything, however, the fact remains that Imane Khelif has always defined herself as a woman and the IOC is allowing her participate in the Olympics as such. Even in the face of assaultive public opinion, there is nothing to add.

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