Is it really possible to do something part time besides full time job?

With very limited academic positions, most of us are giving up on our dream of becoming a researcher by not going to PhD. Meanwhile some of us are trying to pursue PhD part-time besides our full time job and personal life.

When you google it, there are hundreds of successful part-time PhD stories. If we want something so bad there’s always a way around it. But how possible is it? And at the end of the day is it really worth it?

Yes I have a full time job 8am-6pm. I leave my house at 7:10 and come back at 6:40. That is exactly 11 ½ hours of the day. I minimum sleep 8 hours and with simple math you can see I have 4 ½ hours of the day left for dinner, shower, family and personal things.

After work I come home very exhausted, just take shower, eat something and lay on the couch. I tried being productive but it just doesn’t work out. I don’t prefer to watch a movie or serial more than 1 hour a day either. If there’s a book I like I read a few pages and sleep directly.

On the other side I am deeply passionate in getting PhD (part-time or full-time) even though I know my chances of ending in academia is very low. My solution to this was a little hard to adopt but that’s my only chance. I have been waking up an hour earlier than I am supposed to, to finish my PhD applications, to read journals, to work on my part time research project and to write an article I‘ve been procrastinating for a while now.

Yes an hour doesn’t aloe me to accomplish all that I want, but it helps me get somewhere I always want to be. As I mentioned on my 2018 goals I will start PhD this year, we will see if I can get a full time employment in a research project or I would have to conduct it in my spare time.

If I need to answer the question of if it is worth it, I think I can only see this after a few years. However, until age of 25, I didn’t hear anyone saying “oh no I am too educated what should I do with this???”