Hello all.

I'm a late bloomer, having completed my Master's in my late 40s. Admittedly, by this time I have already made Director in my career so the entire endeavor was purely for the pursuit of self-satisfaction (my dad & wife have PhDs, mom & younger brother both have Master's degrees). In my line of work, a graduate degree means jack shit... especially at my level. It isn't going to make me Executive Director, not by a long shot.

I found the entire experience to be fun, despite the hard work, because after over 2 decades in advertising, USM's Integrated Marketing Communication actually made sense and I had my professional experience to add to the lectures. Basically grad school was easier and more enjoyable than my undergrad, coz in the 90s I was just a gormless git fresh out of high school with zero understanding of anything.

The most rewarding part was the thesis as it was inspired by an experimental olfactory communication exercise that we did for a client overseas some years ago. My supervisor told me after Raya Haji I should consider working towards getting it published, but to cut a long story short there's a possibility of continuing the work at the doctorate level. I found the work exciting and revealing as it added to my work-related experience on the same topic.

Quitting my job at my age to pursue postgraduate studies that will do me no favors in my career is a no-no (mortgage to pay, retirement plans & my kids themselves will enter uni in 2 years' time). So it has to be part-time. I understand it will stretch for 6 years and there's a saying that a part-time PhD is a slippery slope to no PhD at all coz the attrition rate among part-timers is very high.

Nobody I know has ever attempted a PhD part-time.

Has anyone here attempted such a thing? Is doing PhD part-time for self-satisfaction nothing more than a pie-in-the-sky bullshit that should be buried in the deepest orifice of my mind?

That's one of my concerns.

I'm in advertising, which is an industry for ex-bartenders, washed-up lawyers and journalism hacks who could no longer hack it at their line of work. Here, a PhD is sometimes a liability not an asset and some clients even view it with contempt as it challenges their authority (some client-side senior brand/marketing directors view this area as their own personal medieval fiefdom, where they micromanage and actively snuff out any form of dissent in the ranks).

Never mind a postgraduate degree, even a graduate degree isn't really appreciated. So by this time I'm already accustomed to the thought of furthering my education out of my own personal interest.

It doesn't serve my long-term goal either, because once I hit 55 I'm going to end my pressure-cooker deadline-driven career before it ends me. At the most, it might open up the possibility of teaching but my wife and I are already planning to get the hell out of town and go into agriculture post retirement.

The smart move right now is to look into training or certificate courses related to agriculture, not a PhD... but that would be a shame because my grad thesis really revealed a substantial gap in the literature pertaining to my area of research.

I'm going to let it sink in for the next few months, then see how lah.

Thanks for your input.

Doctorate candidates like you inspire me. Part of the reason why I even entertained the lofty idea of extending my graduate research into postgraduate.

I spent 3 semesters fumbling with my thesis. I knew what I wanted to study as it was a phenomenon I had encountered in my day job before. But at that point, I learned the hard way the difference between academia and my professional work. In my professional work, you identify the problem, learn more about the background and find creative ways to solve it... all in a matter of weeks. That does not fly in academia, where you have to spend months just rationalizing like hell why the problem is even worth giving a shit about in the first place. Solving a marketing and branding problem isn't something that scholars care about -- they only care about adding to the existing body of knowledge. To do that you have to be a hell lot more rigorous in the work, which deadline-driven advertising professionals cannot afford to do in their industry as we simply do not have the luxury of having 2 semesters just to figure shit out based on all the existing scholarly work done in the area.

So after that bout of crazy town, I think I have some idea what my PhD journey would entail. And I could finally relate to what my lecturer once told me back during my undergrad years in the early 90s:

Undergraduate = you learn to read & write
Graduate = you read, write & learn how to think
Postgraduate = you read, write & think to create new knowledge

BTW... how did you skip grad school and go straight to postgrad?

Ahhh... I think I hv heard about this at one point & met one young girl in the student lounge doing the same thing. At USM they call it 'fast-tracked PhD', I think you hv to score something like 3.8 CGPA when you finish your undergrad.

I totally sucked back then during my undergrad. It was difficult as I could not relate the stuff I learned to anything, coz I was too young and naive.

I did my grad school after like 20 years of working (you tend to do stupid things when midlife crisis hits in your 40s), and it was surprisingly fun and enjoyable. A lot of hard work reading, digesting, doing the assignments + papers during coursework and of course the thesis.... but none of it was rocket science at all since I had been neck-deep in that stuff for 20 years already.

And I really enjoyed having classmates once again after 20 years... the only difference is now I couldn't date them anymore.

Good luck with your PhD.

Some updates:

Since October last year, I've been exploring my options while sending my daughter off to start her own journey in uni.

I spoke with my supervisor in USM as we started the work to get my thesis published, I told her since now I'm in senior management involved at the strategic level in the company I work for I feel the need to go back and do my MBA after completing my Master's Degree in Communication. She pointed out that since I already have a graduate degree, why not skip MBA and grow a pair of testicles to push straight to Doctorate which, in this case, is the DBA.

That really piqued my interest.

After doing my own digging and talking to several representatives of various DBA programmes including the head of USM's Graduate School of Business, I learned that while a PhD would focus more on the theoretical a DBA focuses instead on the practical applications of knowledge in business. Both are terminal degrees, both are doctorate level but the focus is different. A DBA programme still involves coursework and seminars (which is what I want from an MBA) in addition to a doctorate dissertation. Because of the focus on practical business applications, most DBA students are working professionals of my age and level which means the majority of them are part timers. As such DBA programmes tend to be structured to cater to part time candidacy, which addresses the biggest concern I discussed in this thread. Bloody hell, I thought... that's perfect!

Cost is the next concern because I know the going rate for DBA programmes is around RM45k, and I will need to cough it up out of my own pocket. I chanced upon UNITAR's new DBA programme that racks up to only RM29k because it is currently partially accredited until the first cohort of DBA students complete the programme in the next 1-2 years. While full campus facilities are available, the coursework is conducted online 100% and they have an impressive online back-end system to support this. The coursework covers areas I'm excited to learn about and their faculty is bolstered by a raft of adjunct professors from multiple industries and institutions whom I can pick as my supervisor.

So I signed up. And so now I'm back to school as a part-time doctoral student.

My DBA journey so far:

In a nutshell, FUN...!!!

It's all coursework for my first 2 years, before my doctoral dissertation kicks in. So far, 2 semesters in, it has been immensely enjoyable because I'm getting exactly what I've been wanting - the knowledge I need in management now that I am an Executive Director.

Due to work pressure, I'm taking the recommended path as a DBA part timer at UNITAR. First sem, Entrepreneurship & Social Innovation that gave me a glimpse of what it takes to run your own business venture, the pitfalls, the School of Hard Knocks that most entrepreneurs go thru, the global trend towards ESG and the Lean Startup Method.

This sem, Strategic Planning & Performance Evaluation, covering the strategic planning process, the tools + models and how to apply them to conduct a strategic biz audit.

Both are directly relevant to me at my career stage where I need to help steer the agency I work for and, as such, the assignments aren't difficult at all. You just have to manage your time and find a way to put in the hours. Sometimes work deadlines occupy my time and I find myself lagging a bit, so I gotta keep reminding myself to stay disciplined.

The difference between DBA and my Master's is that my classmates are mostly roughly my age (35-50) mid to senior level professionals. None of them are spring chicken anymore, all of them with serious expertise and experience in their respective fields - finance, engineering, education etc. The lecturers and professors have a keen interest in hearing our 2 cents' worth when discussing a topic, because that's where our hands-on real-world work experience kicks in. For me, I find it fascinating to hear from my classmates how different companies adopt different approaches in adopting what are essentially the same models. That's definitely good to know when you're in management, you get to compare notes and develop the idea that there's more than 1 way to skin the cat.

The only downside is that, since the classes are online, I have only met 1 in real life for an assignment that required us to conduct an in-depth interview with a social entrepreneur. He had to abandon his PhD a few years back, now that he runs his own consultancy setup he's back in school with a vengeance.

DBA's focus on real-world business application is apparent - while I was buried eyeball deep in academic literature in grad school, now it's mostly case studies and critical discourse of current business issues.

Next semester, Strategic Operations Management. And I'll have to begin the groundwork for my dissertation proposal to get a head start.

It has been almost 1.5 years since I signed up as a part-time, postgraduate student, so now I'm approaching the tail end of my coursework. It's Doctoral Seminar in Business this sem and Advanced Research Methodology next sem before I need to finalize my doctoral dissertation proposal for defence. My CGPA for my coursework stands at 3.56.

Some of my classmates have the balls to do 2 subjects per semester, speeding up their journey. Like one of them, who is a manager in the healthcare industry, who has ample time during office hours to do his readings and assignments. Me, I don't dare given the crazy amount of work I need to kaotim now that I'm at the Executive Creative Director level. I have warned my CEO that when the time comes, I will start taking leave to prepare for my proposal defence. I will need to prepare my ACD and my dept to be able to run with minimal hiccups in my absence, but this will be a bloody challenge because the agency is totally dependent on me for certain day-to-day jobs.

Based on the background reading I have done so far, I pretty much know the area of research that I want to do. Surprisingly, my CEO took an interest in my published research at the Master's level so I shared with him my proposed dissertation topic since it is relevant to what the agency will face in the coming years. This is based on my experience sitting in the agency's strategic meetings and workshops where we explored the future landscape of the advertising industry. He gave his approval and blessing - this is important to me as, being a part-time student and a full-time employee, I need to manage his expectations and help him realize my proposed research may hold strategic value to the agency's business in the long run.

The preliminary problem statement and rough outline have been done, and have received a thumbs-up by Dr Shaharuddin. My methodology will have to be qualitative, which presents several new challenges at this level even though I already have experience in this area when writing and publishing my Master's thesis and at work. I will tackle this further when I start Advanced Research Methodology next sem. For now, I have to start the herculean task of attempting the rough draft of the first chapter of my dissertation ahead of time, knowing that it will probably need a shit ton of revisions in the months ahead, especially if it gets ripped to shreds during the proposal defence. My job now is to minimize that as much as I can first time out.

So here we go once again...

As strange as it may seem, I really enjoy doing my postgrad now at 50 years of age. It's such an eye-opener, due to the practical nature of the DBA programme as everything I learned during my coursework is relatable to what I do at work at the senior level and my experiences at work have helped me in my critical analyses, papers and coursework in general. My ultimate goal is to retain this symbiotic relationship between work and academia in my doctoral dissertation. To me, that's the whole point of going beyond the undergraduate level in the first place.

My father and wife who had successfully completed their PhDs yonks ago had warned me of the depression that postgraduate students suffer during their journey. I'm happy to say I suffered none of it so far, despite the crazy amount of work I needed to do. Let's see if this holds up when I finally begin the lonely journey of dissertation writing. I'm told this is where much of the head-banging happens.

I have not started the process of selecting my supervisor just yet. To be honest, I have no fucking idea at the moment as I'm not familiar with the raft of adjunct professors that UNITAR has for this purpose. I suppose I'll worry about that once I have moved further along in my proposal.