PhD survey: One out of five PhDs can´t finish on time

12 percent of PhDs enrolled at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) state that they don´t expect to finish their dissertation within the time limit stipulated in their contract.

Eight percent have already applied for an extension to get extra time, and 40 percent are still not sure if they will make their deadline or not.

This is according to the University Post PhD survey 2014, which had nearly 600 PhD student responses.

Social Science tops the list

The survey shows that the PhDs at the Faculty of Social Sciences and at the Faculty of Humanities are the most pressured for time.

At these two faculties, approximately one out of four either expects to break their deadline, or has already applied for more time.

Only around 12 per cent at the Faculty of Law are in time trouble, and 15 per cent at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.

It’s the kids

The survey reveals that gender is not an issue as the difference between the number of male and female PhD students who are late is insignificant.

Being in a relationship is not slowing the PhDs down either, as it does not matter if they are living together with their partner/ spouse or not. Just as many singles are late, so the theory that it is the partner ‘bugging them so they can’t work on their thesis’ doesn’t hold.

However PhD-students who have children are more often late than the ones without kids. More than 25 percent of the PhDs with kids are expecting to finish late or have applied for an extension. This is only the case for 16 percent of the PhDs without kids.

See the survey results on Pdf file below.

clba@adm.ku.dk

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