I'll be continuing my PhD very soon this September. I am just curious whether it is possible for me to finish my PhD in 3 and a half years. What should I do to reach this goal? FYI I don't have experience in Masters and I had a little bit of experience in research but I like to research and read a lot.

I am a fresh graduate who graduated last year. I will do fast track to PhD in Biological Science.

Yes, it is possible. Some people have done it.But my advice is to not to pin your entire hopes on this single target.

Even for my own masters I took bout 3 years plus, but then my case is not the norm. The things that hold or delay you is always the thing that is beyond your control. It's not like in Bachelor's where you study, do a bit of labwork and done.

For example, some chemicals/reagents that you need might be delayed and take 2-3 weeks to arrive instead of 4 days. Or if you work with biological samples, your rats suddenly died or your bacteria clones got contaminated. Then you have to start all over again and wait to get new mice, reinfect them and wait for them to grow etc. In my case I had to travel a lot for sampling into remote places so that took a lot of time as well.

The point is that when it comes to dealing with biological stuff, it's a bit more unpredictable compared to say, social science or engineering where you have more control over the subject of your experiment.

I'd say you can use 3 years as a rough guide or soft target, but don't drive yourself crazy pinning it as the ultimate goal. Besides, it's not really a matter of how fast you can do it (though it's good), but how much you learn and experience from it.

Yes. No problem. Got any title? and the research is basically re-search again and again

3 and a half years is the ideal time to finish. Universities aim to get you graduated in 3.5 years and tend to be unhappy if you take more than 4 years unless you have a very solid reason. Sometimes you run into trouble in your degree eg. equipment breakdown, illness, experiments not working out, running out of funding etc and this will all contribute to you finishing later.

I think, to have the best chance of graduating in 3.5 years, you should ensure your project has decent funding, your supervisor is able to provide you sufficient support, work very hard (like 10 hours a day, and going in on some weekends and during public holidays), be as productive as possible, always plan ahead and set goals, ensure you have the required equipments/reagents/support way before you intend to start your experiment and so forth. Always communicate with your supervisor to get feedback on your progress and to express any uncertainties or concerns and work together to solve the problem.

Yes you can. Even can complete writing thesis in 2.5 years if you know your research topic well and everything sails smoothly (supervisor & examiners very hardworking and examine your work promptly, equipment doesn't break, your samples don't mess around, etc.). But since you do fast track and you're quite new to research, maybe you are required to attend classes first if your supervisor requires you to do so.

And the most important part is you gotta beat your procrastination. It can be very overwhelming you just can't resist procrastinating although you know time is your number one enemy. High self disciplined and motivation are needed.

Oh also the quality and quantity of your research and dissertation count too in my opinion. Some can just do basic research/replicate previous research and/or write 80-100 pages of dissertation to get doctoral degrees. But of course there are some that can produce high quality research with only a decent amount of time.

This post has been edited by seanwc101: May 12 2013, 03:10 AM

My mum spent 6 years to do her PhD and she did that in overseas. I heard it will be more difficult to finish your PhD in Malaysia compared to universities in overseas.

This type of attitude really worries me. I have a lot of this in myself.

I already have a title suggested by my supervisor. I am lucky because the title suggested is interesting to me.

I think whether overseas or local doesn't matter as much as the choice of supervisor, project and not forgetting luck. In general, I would say life sciences phd take longer than say, engineering or computer science due to dealing with biological sciencs.

Well, I do have some procrastination as well. Just try not to indulge it too much.

Some examples, which might not apply to you, but just to give you an idea.
1. It is 4 pm, and your PCR just finish. You want to run a gel to check the results, and running a gel takes bout 1 hour plus. But then you realise if you get good results from the gel, you need to do gel extraction and that would take bout half hour.

So what do you do? You decide to do it tomorrow.

2. It is Friday evening, and you got some bacteria plating to do and put them in the incubator overnight. Then you realise you will have to come tomorrow morning just to take them out and store them in the fridge.

But you don't feel like coming on Saturday morning just spend 10 minutes to take the bacteria out and keep them. So you decide to do the plating on Monday evening instead.


These are small examples, just to point out how procrastination can play out. While I don't suggest working from 8 am to 10 pm everyday, but there will be times you need to soldier on e.g. staying until 8 pm to finish up an experiment or come in on weekends. These little bits of procrastination stuff add up over time.

Another good tip (that I'm guilty of ignoring frequently) is to document and keep track of your work. Sometimes you're so into your experiment you just change some parameter /factor on the fly and continue. But few months llater when you want to write out the paper/thesis or repeat the experiment, you will go crazy trying to recall the details. So make sure your lab book is updated daily on what you did (with dates and labels, matching your samples) and what parameters you used/change etc.

That's a good start. While it might save you from cracking your head for a research topic, it is not any indicator whatsoever of how easy/long a project will be.

It's possible. I have a friend doing his PhD finished his PhD in 3 years (UM) and another one in UKM less than 3 years. Both doing science related.

TS, it is possible!

Plan your journey and stick to it.
1st year - read,read,read, understand, read, read, write.
1 1/2 ready your journey for data collection.
2nd year - Do data collection within 5 months!
2 1/2 year - analyse your data within 2 or 3 months.
3rd year - add up, minus, check plagiarism.
3 1/2 year - ready for viva.

BTW, where are you studying? Local? Oversea? Commitment is the key in TS's concern. My aunt completed her PhD in Aussie within 3 years.

You can do it!

I'm also from the field of Bio
Don't mean to brag, but I've managed to publish 2 Q1 papers in 1.5 years but I'm not allowed to graduate because the minimum span is 2 years
I agree with jonoave on this one, it depends on you (of course ), the field, supervisors, facilities, peers and also luck. With the right combination everything will go well~

My advice is don't accumulate too much data only you start writing papers, try to write them as soon as possible. Supervisors tend to underestimate students' data one, and keep on adding more work, and in the end the students got a lot of unused data

a lot of uncertainty in research, especially for phd project. unless ur project is that kind of, no matter how, good or bad result, u still can graduate/obtain ur doctorate with ur great discussion. i have seen 1 case, 3 years she is working on the same thing (cell culture), nobody teach her, she just can't get the cell grow. she ends up changing lab n start all over again in other project.

Yes it is possible.

I completed my PhD in 6 semesters (starting from registration [June 2009] to the submission of the thesis [September 2012]) not including the viva examination.

My viva examination [Dec 2012] is after 3 months of my thesis submission. I did my PhD in USM. Graduated April 2013 and currently as a lecturer in IIUM.

It is certainly not easy but not impossible.

Possible. My friend did his at OUM and complete in 3.5 years. 3 journal paper (ieee transactions standard) and 2 international ieee conference paper.

It is possible. My supervisor did hers when she was working full time. Completed her PhD in 2 years 9 months.

hi..i hope i come in to the right forum. I have a few questions to ask, namely;-

1) What is the minimum duration to finish a Ph D course? Does it depends on the topic that i research on?
2) Which type of thesis is easier to approach, qualitative or quatitative, if i am doing a business topic?
3) Since i will be doing this course on a part-time basis, how many face to face interactions i need with my supervisor?
4) Which university is highly recommended?
5) Since i have lose touch on studies after completing my MBA, what books and links will you recommend me to read to generate a research proposal.?
6) Will any university provides a scholarship without any commtments from students? What is the minimum CGPA requirements for obtaining a scholarship?

Thanks

Hi. Not in business field, so can't help much.

1) 2 years (4 semesters) as far as UM is concern. Not sure about other universities, but I think can find out online from the website or just give them a call to enquire.
2) No idea
3) It depends on you and your supervisor.
4) No idea. Try asking your peers who are in this field. Alternatively, can also look at the rating of the university for your field and not the overall ranking.
5) Try reading recently published articles for your field of interest?
6) What do you mean by commitments? Anyway, different scholarship have different requirements. I would say the average would be CGPA above 3.0?

Hi, commitments as to whether I need to be bonded by them? My MBA CGPA is above 3.5 & whether I do qualify for a scholarship. Thanks

Depends on the scholarships. For example, UM's Fellowship Scheme has no bond while the government's MyPhD and MyBrainSc (only for pure science though) requires you to work in Malaysia or companies that has Malaysia's interest for 5 years. There also some scholarships such as Skim Latihan Akademik IPTA, which requires you to work with the university upon graduation.

As for whether your CGPA qualifies you for the scholarship, no one can really answer on that as it varies according scholarships. But you do qualify for the MyPhd (requires above 3.0 only).

It's best for you find out more on scholarships available to you and look at the requirements as well as terms and conditions. You can visit https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/137439 for more info.

All the best!

Cheers!