Hi everyone,
I currently work at a biotech company as a temporary scientific associate (with potential to go fulltime). I’ve wanted to get my PhD sometime now but I also like where I am at my company. I remember hearing a coworker of mine saying that our company does this program where you can work in the industry and your work/research could count towards forming your thesis. Is this a normal thing companies/institutions to do? Has anyone ever done this? If so how does it work?
Yes, it can be done. The PhD program you enter will have to agree to have that work become your dissertation and it probably should be publishable too. My experience with this kind if situation is that it is a part-time program and will take significantly longer to complete than if you were full time.
This is actually relatively common in biotechnology. But I’ve rarely heard of it happening part-time, primarily because most PhD programs won’t allow you to attend part-time. Usually, the way I’ve heard of it is that the student attends the PhD program full time for the first 2-3 years, so she can complete coursework and comprehensive exams. (Sometimes they work part-time at the biotech firm as a research assistant during this phase.) Then she goes back to work for the company more or less full-time in the last 2-3 years, using the research at the biotech firm to form the dissertation work.
There’s probably someone at your company that you can talk to about this when the time is right.
@Juillet I want to thank you again for your willingness to inform me. You’re very helpful.
@xraymancs Thank you for your comment. I’ll take it into consideration