When is it a good time to have a child if you're studying for a PhD? Science writer Julian Nowogrodzki explores this question with several researchers who had children during the PhD process in this Nature article originally published January 25, 2025.
Neuroscientist Ewa Bomba-Warczak knew she wanted to have children, and in the fourth year of her doctoral studies she remembers asking her aunt, “When is a good time?” Her aunt countered with, “When is a bad time?” Others told Bomba-Warczak to wait until she passed her qualifying exams for the PhD or reached another milestone, but she realized there was always going to be a new bar to clear. She became pregnant soon after that conversation with her aunt and defended her thesis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2016 when her daughter was four months old. “My mum was taking her around the hallways so she wouldn’t cry,” she recalls.
Many PhD students find themselves contemplating whether to have a child during their PhD or wait until afterwards.
Read the entire article at nature.com.
No comments :
Post a Comment