it is definitely doable even if it may not be ideal... several of my fellow phd students at upenn have very young children, although they are all in dissertation status and not taking any courses... with a 5 year old it would probably be easier since they will be in school... i'm typically only on campus 2-3 days a week... for example, this semester i'm there all day on wednesdays and for a few hours on thursday and friday... when i'm not in class i'm reading and that can be done as easily at home as it can be in the library as long as you're diligent.

ditto what architphil said.

i have 2 children. one was born same year i started phd, the other was about 4 years old. i should point out my wife was stay at home mother for most of that period so it was easier than your situation.

but i am actively involved with my children and their lives and as architphil says, i spent lots of time working from home, especially after i had gotten required courses out of the way. it is definitely do-able.

Thank you so much for the insight on your experience. I've been considering doing this for a while (pre-lay off). So now seems like the perfect time for me. My main concern is, of course, making sure that my daughter isn't making any sacrifices at the expense of my desire. I am glad to hear from other folks in similar situations, knowing that you have been able to do it.

This thread title sounds like the makings of a Dr. Seuss book.

Do you have financial resources to support yourself and your daughter while you pursue the PhD? For four or more years?

Have you considered depth of job-market for "PhD Arch" professor candidates? These jobs are usually scarce, and salaries aren't competitive with architectural firm salaries. Many architectural professors both teach and work. A PhD may neither guarantee a university job or a higher income.

Would your school schedule accommodate daycare/school hours, or will you need to hire a babysitter to navigate before-school and after-school hours when your child is not in school. This can get very expensive (at least in Chicago), yet with such a long commute you need to cover all traffic contingencies.

I have several women friends who are both practicing architects and mothers. Most have made compromises to maintain both a professional career and satisfy childrearing needs. They're middle-aged women, who had children in their late thirties. They had established careers but still experienced residual career drag due to motherhood. Sleep is sometimes scarce.

SOM doesn't have any female partners in Chicago.

I certainly don't want to discourage you, but also don't want to diminish how hard it may be to pursue a PhD with a long commute.

Those points are all things that I have considered. It has taken me a while to come to a point where I see that it could be feasible. I am lucky to have both sets of grandparents, her dad, my brother and my neice and nephew who could potentially pick her up on days when I need them to. Even with that back up, I'm sure there will be some disruption to my plan/schedule.
As far as the finances, I'm not sure. I am still in the discovery phase on that issue. If I really want to make it happen, I can.
As for the job opportunities/financial reward. there are no guarantees in life. But inaction guarantees nothing will happen.

My PhD was paid for by govt of Japan. Most people I know who did PhD did not pay most of the cost and earned some kind of living stipend at the least. It is not like M.Arch.

I find it harder to manage time since i finished PhD. I am the father of 2 and wife works in company. since i have own firm my hours are most flexible so I pick up and take daughters to daycare swimming classes, etc. It is not easy, but what ever is?

PhD requires commitment and organisation skills anyway, so if you are doing it I think the rest of your life will be pretty easy to deal with, just because research and all the rest are very complicated too. Not sure if that makes sense or not, but doing phd was great lesson in time management for me. if you can do phd then life is almost a breeze ;-)


wages as teacher in school are low to start. they get better. they get much better than an architect makes, after about 10 years and when you have tenure. the only thing i wonder about as teacher vs architect is that universities have pretty low ceilings while architects can make more if become principals. If the latter is not an ambition then i don't think being teacher is a bad deal by any means at all. it is more secure and offers possibility of continuing practice. The opposite is not true.

which is to say, if you are really interested, you should not let anything get in the way and just go for it.

You can do it but try to get your license now. Many universities expect tenure track candidates to be licensed. If you are working towards a PhD you don't want that to limit your job possibilities.

Who says that you're only qualified to teach in a 2-year CC if you have two master's degrees? One very smart path is to get a second master's related to your architecture degree. Urban design, planning, business, real estate, landscape architecture, architectural history, preservation --these are what you should consider, not literature or philosophy. The idea is to marry the two degrees (along with your professional experience) into a greater whole that makes sense to hiring committees.

Of course, you can do this with the doctorate as well, but a second master's is much, much quicker. Getting a PhD and having a PhD are different things, as you've already figured out. It's a slog, a great slog, as Jump points out. But it is definitely much more involved than people often think. (Heed his caveat that his kids have a parent at home.)

Lots of architecture schools at the university level hire folks with no doctorate to teach. Granted, full-time tenure-track jobs often require the PhD. But don't make the mistake of thinking you can't teach as an adjunct without one.

None of this should discourage you if a PhD is what really makes sense for the eventual career you want. Just go in with eyes open. I read one study that half of all people who start a PhD program never finish. I know a few such people, and, for some of them, it's a bitter pill.

Following up on jump's comments, another question.

Regarding getting others to pay for school, has anyone ever shopped this sort of thing out via contracts (i.e. If you pay for my school I'll work for you for 5 years or so after at a low(er) salary)?

I'm guessing the answer is no, especially in this economy...

phd can take 5 years so am not sure what company would do that.

i do know one phd fellow in europe who worked for starchitect doing advanced computing things and i have wondered to myself if maybe the expectation is that person will go back or work as consultant later on...very specialised field though and individual in question is exceptional.


very few phds in architecture at university in north america. i don't think i know anyone with both phd and a license in north america. peter eisenman maybe... here in japan license and phd are essentially required to teach but this is country that trusts framed documents that can hang on walls. don't think it is necessary.

not sure if 2 masters degrees really helps...
one of the best students of urban planning, Dolore Hayden, is i think teaching at Yale sans PhD, and is very very good author...could be wrong but looks like she only has masters degree...

like any career the whole educator thing is what you do not what papers you have on the wall...

Licensed and a PhD here. I know of several such folks here in the US, but, you're right, it's not common.

Again, lots of adjunct architecture faculty in the US do not have the PhD. Just look at schools' faculty pages. They teach studio, and are welcomed for their experience in practice. And, yes, two master's degrees help. It's not the same as a doctorate, clearly, but if the degrees are strategically aligned, employers notice.

It's full-time, tenure-track faculty positions that generally require the PhD.

Food for thought...

I plan to apply for a PhD in Urban Planning/ Public Policy. I will have my M.Arch in the Spring and I am planning on becoming the licensed architect. I would like to have a family 3-5 years down the line, so I don't have any kids yet.

Yes in most schools, most teachers have their Master's and that is good enough. But I want to become a published author and teach. Maybe not in a "architecture school". I could see myself teaching something related to architecture like art history or theory. And if I teach, I would like to be on the tenure track like citizen said...

i know lots of tenured profs with no more than a masters degrees in architecture school. for history i think the norm is phd.

i am also with license and phd. am glad to hear it is not so uncommon in norte america, citizen. interesting about the double master's degrees too.

by the time i'm done i will be both licensed and phd too...

thats awesome archiphil.

guess it says more about my education than anything but most of my profs were sans phd and sans license. i think quite a few of them never worked in office too.

this did not affect how good they were as teachers nor as academics.

I definitely agree with the comments on the importance of getting licensed. It's one of those things that has been nagging me for a while. I don't see myself wanting to become a principal or work in a firm as an employee for 10 + years to acheive that rank.
Quite frankly, at this point, I don't know that I'd ever want to work for a firm again. (I mean, I'd like the paycheck and the insurance, but outside of that, I have to ask myself, is it something that I really enjoyed?)
I'd like to do my own small projects, teach, write, travel (when the time is right). The money is not that important to me. Of course I want to be able to pay my bills and treat myself to the occasionaly splurge, but I can do that on a moderate income.
Passion for what I do is much more important.
One comment I have to question is the disconnect between literature/philosophy and architecture. I can see this being true to some extent in practice; however in the academic arena, I think it is completely relevant. From my perspective, there are many close ties between those and design thought.

Isabella,

You're right that there are plenty of ties between the humanities (like literature and philosophy) and architecture. Plenty.

That said, the onus would be on you to do a remarkable job tying them together in a thesis or other project/product to (easily and quickly) convince a hiring committee that the combination is useful to them for their teaching needs at that moment.

That's the key. If you haven't managed to produce a substantial piece of work tying the two together, finished and ready to show to potential employers, they will look elsewhere: say, to someone with dual masters' in architecture and planning, or urban design, or landscape-- the more conventional pairings that, again, speak to their hiring needs. Most architecture schools will typically offer more courses in urbanism, landscape, engineering, technology, etcetera, than in humanities-related classes. So, again, it would be up to you to demonstrate clearly how you're a good hire with that combination.