• Question: How many hours do you work a day and do you get many days off?

    Asked by PurdiePie to Anne, Arthur, Rose, Ruhina, Thomas on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Anne Canning

      Anne Canning answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Hello,

      Tricky question to answer, as a PhD student, at least in my experience, I’ve found that my hours are very flexible and as long as I get lots of work done, my supervisors don’t mind when I work. I try to have a routine though, so normally 8.30am to 6pm Monday to Friday. depending on the time of year and what deadlines I have approaching, I sometimes work in the evenings and weekends too, but try not too, I like my free time!

      I’m allowed 5 weeks of holidays a year, so similar to a normal job

      Anne.

    • Photo: Rose Simnett

      Rose Simnett answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      I too have a fairly flexible timetable. As long as you get the work done that you need to then my supervisor allows us to organise our own time. I generally stick to 9am to 6 or 7pm but if I have extra work to do then I do stay late or come in early.
      As I’m almost at the end of my PhD, I have a lot of deadlines at the moment so I am working 6 days a week with my weekend day spent reading journals and writing my Thesis.
      The allowed holiday time is 5 weeks and so far this year I have taken 1 week off.

    • Photo: Ruhina Miller

      Ruhina Miller answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      I also try and work 08:30-18:00 but the times rae highly flexible, you’re expected to organise and manage your own time. Some days I have to stay/come late or prepare for meetings on the weekend. As for holidays I also get 5 weeks off a year 🙂

    • Photo: Thomas Farrugia

      Thomas Farrugia answered on 21 Jun 2015:

      Ahoy PurdiePie, killer question!

      I usually work 9 to 18.00ish, but in reality it really depends on how efficient I am – sometimes I have gone in for half days and gotten the same amount of work done, whereas on other days the pace in the lab is a bit slower and I can do other things like read or write-up results. And there’s things like having to train people, troubleshoot instruments or do some teaching which also take up research time (although less so in Summer!).

      Sometimes I do work over the weekend, and I have gone in on quite a few Saturdays to keep experiments ticking over or just work whilst the lab is quiet – same for working late into the evenings – there’s less rush, hsutle and bustle, and it’s just me and the experiments (and someone in the office so I’m not lone working 😉 ) – it’s great to have that focus.

      In terms of days off – the University has around 6 closure days during the year, and then there’s bank holidays. I usually take a week off in August (cycling in France this year!) and another in December. I think my supervisor isn’t hard on people taking days off – provided the work gets done nonetheless.

      One thing I have learnt though is to try and get anything sport/training-wise done in the morning before Uni, simply because I’m not really sure what time I’ll be home in the evening – leaving times tend to be flexible.

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