Postgraduate options - PGCE

Due to personal reasons I have to commute to and from university and the max I would be able to commute is 1.5 hours each way. I'm currently attending a university that's 50 minutes away from me.

I'm doing an undergraduate degree in Drama, the university I'm attending offers a PhD in drama but there's not many postgraduate options, the only one that's close is creative writing. The only postgraduate course I can find that's in reasonable distance is a pGCE.

Would this be a good option for postgraduate? I would like to get a PhD and work at a university as a lecturer but I just don't know if this is a good option for me.

Original post by dumb01

Due to personal reasons I have to commute to and from university and the max I would be able to commute is 1.5 hours each way. I'm currently attending a university that's 50 minutes away from me.

I'm doing an undergraduate degree in Drama, the university I'm attending offers a PhD in drama but there's not many postgraduate options, the only one that's close is creative writing. The only postgraduate course I can find that's in reasonable distance is a pGCE.

Would this be a good option for postgraduate? I would like to get a PhD and work at a university as a lecturer but I just don't know if this is a good option for me.

PhDs and university jobs don't work like that.

You can really only make the decision to have a career as a University lecturer once you have built up the academic background. So you need a 1st or high 2.1 in your undergrad, then build on that by getting a good Masters degree (not a PGCE) and then build on that by getting a PhD. You can't think about a PhD until you have a research proposal, which means being at least a 3rd year undergrad decently through a dissertation, but more likely a Masters student finding the research process a positive one.

So if you want to teach drama at university, you will need a strong drama undergrad degree, probably a related Masters degree, and a related PhD. Though i suspect for drama, you would also need a decent amount of real-world experience - look at those with Doctorates around you and see what their careers have been. As drama is a fundamentally practical subject, there may well be lecturers without a PhD, but they will have years of professional experience instead.

Reply 2

Lkathryn08

19

A PGCE is only really useful if you want to teach in a school setting. So if you want to work as a lecturer, a PGCE wouldn’t be the best route.

If you want to go down the PhD route, you would need to do a masters degree and then apply for a PhD. This would require a lot of extra study so you should be sure about it committing to it.

I would not base this sort of decision on distance, you need to make the right decision based on your future goals and career path.

Original post by dumb01

Due to personal reasons I have to commute to and from university and the max I would be able to commute is 1.5 hours each way. I'm currently attending a university that's 50 minutes away from me.

I'm doing an undergraduate degree in Drama, the university I'm attending offers a PhD in drama but there's not many postgraduate options, the only one that's close is creative writing. The only postgraduate course I can find that's in reasonable distance is a pGCE.

Would this be a good option for postgraduate? I would like to get a PhD and work at a university as a lecturer but I just don't know if this is a good option for me.

Hi,
A PGCE is usually considered more of the traditional route if you are looking to teach either high school or college level.
Most university lecturers (not all) will have studied their MA or MSc depending on the subject, simply to show their knowledge of the subject before advancing to PHD level.
Don't forget you can always contact a university to ask how much a course may be online learning if this then becomes more convenient for your commute.
Ultimately it sounds like the best fit for you is a MA first.
Hope this helps,
Best of luck,
Meg 🙂
MA Popular Music Student.

Reply 4

Mellyy90

2

Hey,
Would it be worthwhile checking out if the Open University cover what you are looking for it would save you commuting and they have a lot of help online like tutorials so you don’t feel like your doing it alone ☺️.
Hope you manage to find what you’re looking for.
Melissa

Postgraduate options - PGCE

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