{"id":812,"date":"2010-12-20T17:34:43","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T16:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=812"},"modified":"2010-12-20T17:47:09","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T16:47:09","slug":"why-doing-a-phd-is-often-a-waste-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=812","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/academic-roundabout.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-813\" title=\"academic roundabout\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/academic-roundabout-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>The OU has longed claimed that it supports its learners. In an article subtitled &#8216;Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time&#8217; the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/node\/17723223?story_id=17723223\" onclick=\"javascript:urchinTracker ('\/outbound\/article\/www.economist.com');\">Economist<\/a><\/em> argued that nowadays\u00a0doctoral students and postdoc contract staff in general and across many countries, are treated as cheap, highly motivated and disposable labour and that this is in part due to the mismatch bwetween the aims of the institutions and those of the students.\u00a0There is no evidence presented as to whether this can reasonably be applied to the\u00a0OU. \u00a0If you have postgrad\u00a0or postdoc experiences of the OU which might be in a debate about how far the OU serves\u00a0the wider society and the extent to which it is\u00a0customer-focused, do let us know.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/academic-roundabout2.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-814\" title=\"academic roundabout2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/academic-roundabout2-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The OU has longed claimed that it supports its learners. In an article subtitled &#8216;Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time&#8217; the Economist argued that nowadays\u00a0doctoral students and postdoc contract staff in general and across many countries, are treated as cheap, highly motivated and disposable labour and that this is in part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":816,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions\/816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}