ProFellow Founder Dr. Vicki Johnson recently held a live panel event with 3 mid-career success stories from ProFellow’s Fully Funded Course and Mentorship Program to share their experience applying to graduate school after age 40 and their insights on the application process.
The panelists include Brent Horning (age 41), an incoming PhD student at the University of California, Davis, in the Religious Studies program; Summer Tate (age 44), who will attend Howard University for a PhD in English; and Mikala Hope-Franklyn (age 45), who enrolled in the PhD in Transdisciplinary Sustainability at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada).
Read the transcript below or watch the video replay to learn how you too can pursue a PhD at mid-career!
[This transcript has been truncated for readability].
Dr. Vicki Johnson: I’m really pleased to welcome our panelists today. We have Brent Horning who’s here, we have Mikala Hope-Franklyn, and we have Summer Tate. And we’re really excited to share with you their journey to the PhD at midcareer since all of them are either entering or within a PhD right now.
So we’re going to be spilling the tea about what it’s really like to apply to a PhD at midcareer.
I’m really pleased to welcome this incredible group of PhD candidates all of whom, by the way, are fully funded, so we’re going to talk about that as well and a little bit about the journey.
My name is Dr. Vicki Johnson. I’m the Founder and Director at ProFellow and the creator of the Fully Funded Course and Mentorship Program. I’m really pleased to introduce our panelists today. My first question for each panelist is to please introduce yourself if you don’t mind, share your age and tell us a little bit about the PhD that you’re in or about to enter. And we’d like to know a little bit about the career track leading up to your PhD that you’re about to go in.
Summer Tate: Hi everybody! I’m Summer Tate, so happy to be here, thank you so much Vicki for inviting me. So my career up to this point… I’ve been a public school educator for 15 years and I have two master’s. My first master’s is in English education and my second master’s is an MFA in creative writing and publishing. So I really wanted to venture into getting the English PhD. It was a different road how I got there. It took a little bit of time to decide that it was the English PhD that I wanted, versus perhaps going for Africana Studies and Anthropology, which are other interests, but that is kind of where I sit now. And I will be entering into my PhD program in the fall.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Fantastic! And do you mind sharing your age and the university that accepted you?
Summer Tate: Yes! So I am 44, I will be 45 when I enter- and my birthday is in July- and I will be going to Howard University, fully funded.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thanks so much Summer! Brent, do you want to share a little bit about your background, age program, and journey?
Brent Horning: Thanks for having me here, Dr. Johnson. Summer and Mikala, really happy to be here in conversation with you as well. I’m 41 years old, I got a fully funded PhD [acceptance] in Religious Studies from the University of California, Davis, which is in northern California near Sacramento. I have a background in entertainment industry as well as in holistic wellness. So I worked in various roles within the entertainment industry when I lived in Los Angeles and I also worked in holistic health as a certified massage therapist, certified yoga instructor, and certified drug and alcohol addiction counselor. So working as a counselor at various treatment centers was my most recent career track prior to reentering higher education.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Fantastic! And maybe Brent too share a little bit more because you were also a non-traditional undergraduate student having graduated more recently. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Brent Horning: So instead of completing my bachelor’s at a younger age and then taking a break before going into my PhD, I never actually did a bachelor’s. After high school, I just came straight to California from Michigan and did all sorts of other vocational training. So I started going back to school through the Los Angeles City College when I was 36. And I took a nice gradual pace at completing my lower division courses. So I took four years to do the first two years of the undergraduate degree basically and then I transferred over to the University of California in Santa Cruz to complete my final two years, because of course, you can’t finish a four year degree at a community college. So that worked out well for me and I just took a gap year before starting the PhD.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you for sharing that Brent, because even for some of you that maybe had a non-traditional education path, leading up into this point, I think Brent is an example of someone who did things in a different timeline than your traditional applicant and he’s still entering his PhD fully funded. And, really, pursuing the interest in discipline areas that you’ve kind of grown into, so it’s neat!
Mikala, last but not least, please share your journey, age and PhD.
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: No problem! Hi good afternoon everyone. My name is Mikala Franklin. I’m 45 years old. I’m currently enrolled [in a PhD program] at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Grenfell Campus. My journey is an interesting one, I started working with the Ministry of Health in Barbados. I was there for 11 years working in public health, specifically working in the HIV program. And then I segwayed into doing some consulting.
I worked with the private sector and I also worked with the CSO [Civil Society Organization] sector for quite some time. I’ve been working a lot in poverty reduction but my keen interest has always been sustainable development and specifically sustainability and how we’re able to achieve sustainability. So my last position professionally was with a civil society organization in Barbados where we’re working to empower other civil society groups.
It was an absolute pleasure getting to work with those groups but I recognized that I wanted something else for myself and here I am. I got to come to this organization, I got to work with Vicky and coach Rachel for a while, and I get to share the panel with Summmer and Brent. So I’m really happy to be here today.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you, and thank you everyone for being, you know, open about your age and your pathway into the PhD. And it’s so interesting because each of you have pretty unique career tracks and interests. But, here you find yourself in your 40s going into your PhD for the next stage of your career.
So I want to ask next, how did you go about finding a PhD program or series of programs that were the best fit for you, including your career goals and the background that you had? And if you don’t mind sharing how many schools you applied to and your actual acceptance rate, that would be helpful.
And I think this time, I’ll go backwards. I’ll start with Mikala. How did you really find programs in this field of sustainability, and coming from a government/nonprofit career track?
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: Sure! I was looking at interdisciplinary programs. So I was looking at programs that were really looking at a blend of disciplines and how you would be able to work across different sectors. That was where my experience had me really working with different sectors for policy outcomes. So I focused a lot on interdisciplinary programs. I looked at the area where I wanted to go in and actually it was Canada. So I focused on Canada period, but Atlantic Canada made a lot of sense. So I did a lot of work in terms of trying to streamline those universities.
It took me probably two years of researching universities, looking at universities and then looking at at professors who had worked in similar areas that I was interested in. I want to focus a lot on decolonization and I want to look at the experience of not just Caribbean countries that were former colonies, but also the colonial experience in other spaces. So I was able to look at the universities, refine that, look at the specific programs that were being offered, look at the professors who were offering, those who were who could have been supervisors, and the work that they had done. So I spent a lot of time on Google Scholar. I spent a lot of time on social media.
I will say that I had focused on about five universities in Canada. I’m very, very fortunate. I applied to one University. I got into the university that I wanted to get into. It took a lot of meetings. I met with multiple schools, I met with a lot of different potential advisors, excellent people who were really interested in giving me time.
I will tell you that my process was very loaded but at the end of the day I was able to find a university that was very much aligned with my own goals and a supervisor, who from our first few meetings, I recognized that we were very much alike.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you Mikala, and for any of you that are not familiar with the PhD process that Mikala is talking about, this is faculty outreach, and I think Summer and Brent are going to touch on this too. Unlike what you do at the master’s and undergraduate level [application], you’re often trying to find a faculty match more so than even a [PhD] program match. So I’ll move it next to Brent, maybe you could talk a little bit about your research and how you found the right programs for you, how many schools you applied to, and how you ended up in your program.
Brent Horning: Absolutely! I applied to five and I got accepted into three, so it’s a pretty good acceptance rate. The two that I didn’t get accepted to were the most competitive of the of five. And this the the preparation was really one of the areas where the Fully Funded Course and Mentorship Program helped clarify the importance of faculty outreach and I was able to contrast this with some of my graduating class from my bachelor’s degree in Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz who were also applying to various master’s programs and didn’t have any concept of doing faculty outreach beforehand.
And I just was kind of amazed, because I had been doing the fully funded program research and it seemed like such a vital element, sort of a non-negotiable if you’re going to pursue it, you have to do the outreach – you can’t not do the outreach and apply. So I really spent a lot of time seeking out professors who had complementary research interests. And not only that, but who had grad students that had complimentary research interests because my advisor at UC Davis, our research interests aren’t actually extremely close. It’s in the same region and there are some similarities, but she has a grad student who she’s done an excellent job of advising and his work is very similar to what I want to do. So really great sign. And that that was one angle that I pursued that worked out really well.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: That’s great- and finding that alignment. So digging in too, it’s sort of like you might not find a perfect match with your research interest in the faculty, but they may still be able to advise you, if the methods are similar and there’s other graduate students that they’re advising. So that’s a really good tip, thank you.
Let’s go to Summer! Can you talk a little bit about your journey, your application rounds, and how you shifted. We’d love to hear more about that.
Summer Tate: So, it took me two years. The first year I applied to, I want to say, almost nine schools, but the first round when I applied, I applied with a different major. I was going into Africana Studies and Anthropology, which is not my background. I have a background in English, but I wanted to branch off, so that first year I did not get any acceptance to programs.
The second round I did seven schools and I got the one from Howard University. And the outreach, you know, in both cases I did a lot of outreach. I took a lot of recommendations from other people who said, oh you should check out this professor, you know, check out this university. So, that was some of, you know, just talking to my colleagues and talking to like-minded people about some of the things that they were doing, and the people that they knew is one way that I did some outreach to look at schools.
But also, because I have a family being an older student, I had to think about where in the region I wanted to remain. So I did look at a lot of schools in my area. So I first started looking at some of those schools, and then the professors that were there that aligned with the things that I wanted to do. And then that’s when I started doing some in-depth research on what it was that they were doing. I sent specialized emails to each one of the professors talking to them about what they do, and how it aligns with what I would like to do in my studies.
I did a coupleface to face, where I sat and talked with some, but [for] some that were so far away or just for scheduling, I did a lot of Zoom calls, to be able to connect with professors to talk about what it is that I would like to do, and how they could possibly help me get there.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Fantastic! So I think the theme across this is you’ve got to talk to a lot of potential faculty advisers to really find a good fit. So often, it’s not about finding the perfect university program, it’s more about finding the right faculty mentor.
Summer Tate: I think too, Vicki, it also when you start really looking at some of the research, it really kind of helps to hone in on what it is that you want to do as well, because you start to see what is popular, what is out there, and how you really– because a lot of times, we go into the PhD with an idea, but we haven’t necessarily found the focus. So when you start to see what other people are doing, at least for me, I felt like it started to help clarify exactly the route in which I wanted to go. Which I think helped when I was writing up my applications to be able to speak on those things in particular.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Yes, thank you for adding that too! And for anyone who’s new to the PhD process, in your PhD, you’re spending two years typically doing coursework on research methods and then you spend two to three years writing an independent dissertation. And often you need to have a pretty good idea what it is you want to do for your dissertation even before you apply. That helps find the right faculty alignment, but you don’t have to have it fully baked. And in fact, we often say, don’t be too specific because you really also need to mold it around what the faculty are interested in and where their funding sources are, where are they coming from because that’s how you get funding. So these are really good tips.
Let me go into the next thing. Now, I get a lot of people who comment or ask questions to me about age discrimination in graduate school, who say I can’t get in because I’m probably too old or there’s no way they’d pick me over a younger candidate. And I was curious if any of you felt that you faced age discrimination or any kind of underlying bias because of your age? Brent, I’ll start with you, did you feel that your age was an issue or concern?
Brent Horning: No, no, not at all. In fact I actually felt it was an asset and that could be part of the part of the benefit of the diversity initiatives in the University of California system. It could be different in other states, but UC systems really, really value diversity and that’s part of their their admissions process from the ground up, and they they encourage it in all forms. And so, as an older student, even though I’m a white male, I am more diverse in the area of age in context of the younger college students. So I actually felt it was an asset and I’m comfortable in my own skin, so it wasn’t a problem for me. Personally, I didn’t feel like I needed to be part of young friend groups and I sought out other older students in my undergraduate career, and I had a good time.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you for sharing that! Let me me hop over to Mikala, did you feel any issues with your age?
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: Only internally but from my first meeting with you guys, I think one of the first questions that I had when I started the [Fully Funded Course] was will it be an issue and that was the first thing you guys said, no it’s not. And I felt I didn’t have that issue at all at any step along the application process. And my program specifically welcomes people with diverse backgrounds, so they welcome, in many cases, older students who have experience in the professional sphere. So I never felt it. The biggest issue was fighting that within myself, which was – this is a young area for youth, and will I have to stamina for it? And it’s amazing because you’ve learned so many things about yourself along the way that you’re able to understand yourself better. As you’ve gotten older understand processes better, strategies better. So it was for me to overcome that internal doubt within myself to say: no, it is not a situation where I’m too old for this. And that was one of the first things that was dispelled when I had a conversation with you and Coach Rachel.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Fantastic! And Summer, how about your experience?
Summer Tate: I would say the same, like having to battle that internal [doubt]. I did go and visit a school and I was kind of amongst a young cohort and I was the oldest, the most mature person in that cohort. So I think, for me, and I’m a teacher! So for me, I immediately kind of felt like I was jumping into a role of mentor-teacher just because that’s kind of what I already do with that kind of age group when I adjunct and things as such. So I think for me, it was kind of like your role is a little different here, having to kind of tell myself that.
The only other thing I would say, and I don’t know if it would be considered necessarily like a discrimination, but of an expectation. When you’re away from school for a little while you might have lost some contact with your professors, you’re not as close to your original program sometimes. So the expectation that you’re able to come get your three recommendations or sometimes even supply syllabi, to be able to back some of the transferred classes, you’re a little more far removed. So sometimes it’s that expectation that you’re closer to your bachelor’s or a master’s degree, to be able to get some of the material that would be easier for younger students to get because they just left that program.So maybe not discrimination, but an expectation in a sense.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Definitely. More challenging because this is a concern a lot of people have: how am I going to get recommendation letters from a program I did 20 years ago?
And actually, I wanted to ask you each about the challenges that you individually faced. But, can anyone speak a little bit on the recommendation letters issue? I mean Brent you came right out of undergrad so maybe that wasn’t as much of a challenge for you, but Mikala and Summer, how did you go about getting your recommendation letters?
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: I didn’t have any challenges really, I had a fairly good relationship with my undergrad professors from years ago. I always used to go back to the school and live on a small island and school was on the island and [mantained] relationship with them.They were actually the ones who kept encouraging me to pursue to continue on. I had a great relationship as well with the graduate officers there and I really didn’t have any challenges. Again it was overcoming my own personal fears and demons and thinking, “Will anybody really take me on?” But there were really people who were happy to see you try. But, I would say you need to do it in a timely way. Don’t wait until the application deadline is a few weeks away. You need to have that. You need to approach that very early in your process.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: That is a really good tip! Like start talking now, reconnecting with these professors now in the spring, far in advance.
And Summer, how about you? Did you have to reach far back?
Summer Tate: Not really. I probably could have reached further for my first Masters. I didn’t get, I think it really was that I took recommendations or asked for recommendations from my last master’s degree and, granted, I mean because I had been in few programs, it wasn’t so far removed. But I did not show necessarily as much variety. I didn’t go back to my my bachelor’s, or even my first master’s to get those professors to give recommendations. They all came from my last graduate program.
But even in that, try to keep up with something with them. Something that Mikala mentioned, it especially because of the encouragement that your professors gave, it might be a really good tip to even reach back and kind of reconnect with those professors. Let them know that this is something you’re thinking about and they might actually give you recommendations for other people to reach out to, or universities that you can go to. So that might be a way to just kind of be able to make those connections, and then those professors can assist you.
And I just see if people are– I have a professor that is actually retired and he no longer even holds the email from the university any longer. So I found him on social media to be able to reach out to him. And that was a way to be able to do it in his recommendation because sometimes universities, if they even see that it’s not a university email from your recommender they might say [or] think something, so he made it a point to put it in the recommendation that he’s in his 70 and he’s retired, and that he would even [have his unversity email], you know which I think gave it even bigger kudos to me that he would even reach back to be able to help pull me forward even though he is no longer with the university.
He sees value in helping me, so that was something that he made a point to do in the recommendation letter.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Yeah that is a great point, even if they’re retired. And I think a lot of people still have their .edu emails in some cases, even if they’re retired or at not at the school. But, if they can make a point in the letter, “hey I’m retired…”
Some people have also gone back to the department, just to say, “I worked under this person, they passed away, is there a way that the department could give me a recommendation letter based on my academic record and my relationship?”
That’s worked. And then people also sometimes find professional references, but ideally from people who hold PhDs, because they can speak– they know what a PhD involves, and can speak to the right things in your letter about what kind of skills you’re bringing.
So there’s lots of different ways to get around this recommendation letter issue and we teach a lot in the Fully Funded Course how to do this.
Let me go on to the overarching question I have about challenges. And we’ll start with Brent. You mentioned that when you first thought about applying, which was in that last year of your undergraduate year, there was something there that made it hard to get started. So you took the gap year instead. Do you want to talk a little bit about that [and] what you discovered in that?
Brent Horning: Absolutely! I was actually in India doing field work for my thesis at the time when the PhD applications would have been due. And I really wanted to apply in the case that I would have been able to graduate in the spring and then start in the fall in a PhD. But, it was just too much and I realized I wouldn’t have been able to do enough customized outreach prior to applying. And I really believed that it would make a big difference if I could establish some personal connection with faculty through looking at their research and asking for informational interviews, prior to applying. And I just didn’t have the time to do that so, I figured let me take a year, let me really take the time to dig in deep, to actually look at their research, to take time to meet them in person, if possible to have zoom meetings, and I think that really paid off.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you for sharing that because I’m always telling people to get started early because you might not realize how much work it takes to do program research and faculty outreach. It’s a totally different ball game than applying to a master’s or applying to college. So now would not be too early to get started as Brent’s saying, and there was other challenges you mentioned too.
Now Summer, you talked a little bit about funding and how that was the challenge that you needed to think about at mid-career. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Summer Tate: Yeah, the funding was– especially coming from, I have adult children, so still holding a household and having to think about relocating– the funding was a a huge part of it. So fully funded does mean they take care of tuition, but it also you would also need a stipend, right. And that stipend is kind of what carries you if you have responsabilities at home. The stipend is in the mindset that they’re single people able to manage themselves, not thinking about [dependents]. I mean granted I don’t even, I couldn’t imagine if I had young kids and had daycare and things of such, because it wouldn’t, the stipend wouldn’t cover something like that to be able to like take care of some of things.
So being able to- and of course Vicki will tell you about negotiating their first funding offer. It does not need to be their last, so I did I went back in and I did negotiate, I negotiated even before I saw the numbers, which I think is why out of three people I received the fully funded package, and they made sure that I would be able to have as much support as they could afford. It wasn’t you know, I still need a little bit more, but it was still their biggest package. And I think that is when you’re an adult learner, sometimes you still have credit card bills or other things that you’re trying to take care of, that can be seen as a huge challenge. You know, another child in college as well.
So those are things that you have to consider when doing this. And maybe try to lower, as much as you can, your credit, right? Taking care of whatever kind of bills you can, before jumping in on this venture, which is what I did. Which is kind of what’s allowing me to be able to move forward in it.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: I mean we could probably do a whole webinar just on how do you manage financially on a PhD! So just to share some stats, a typical PhD stipend for the year will be somewhere between $15,000 and $45,000 per year if you get on the upper end. Some of the schools, like Chicago, have upped it to $50k. But when you think about it, when it’s covering your accommodation and all sorts of expenses, it’s it’s not a lot of money. So you do have to be financially prepared to answer “how will I live on a stipend?”
Especially [with] children, you may need a partner that’s helping carry the load financially. So, there, it’s that. It’s not for the faint of heart. But this is why, I think too, this is something to think about and consider, how can I fit this in because the beauty of the fully funded degree is at least you’re not paying for it out of pocket. At least you’re not paying for tuition like you would a different type of degree. Some people are doing part-time degrees, online degrees, and you’re paying for that out of pocket. Maybe you still have your income, but you know it’s a balance, it’s a financial balance.
So in our program, in the Fully Funded Course Mentorship Program, our number one goal is to make sure that you find and get into a fully funded program. So that’s why we teach the funding negotiation too and how can you get the biggest award. And Brent, I think you got an extra Fellowship for doing the negotiation. So you got extra money?
Brent Horning: Yea, actually, this was part of the initial offer, even without any negotiation, to give me the first year Fellowship, where I don’t need to do any type of teaching assistant work. The other the following five years are including a TA agreement to help pay for everything. But the first year was basically, “you’re not even allowed to work at all!”
So that was nice as well as an extra Fellowship for doing a summer of research in India in 2026. So that was very well.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: So they really wanted Brent! They really wanted you in that program. And that’s the thing too, when what you learn in the course is, we teach you also there’s other doctoral fellowships that you can apply to. You always want to get funding from the school because there isn’t big doctoral fellowships that cover the full cost of a five-year degree – there’s a very small globally competitive number of those – but if you get into your school, then you can apply for additional research fellowships, summer fellowships, [and] doctoral fellowships. There’s all sorts of things out there, so hopefully each of you will get extra funding as you go through.
Now I did want to segway because actually, Mikala, I wanted to talk about your challenge that you mentioned. You were concerned about a previous GPA before applying. So do you want to share a little bit about that?
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: Yes sure. During my masters, I wasn’t blowing the roof off of anything, I think. I was averaging, I would say the English is I guess a little bit different, but I was around like B+, low B+. And in the PhD programs, sometimes in order to be considered, even for application, you need to have grades which stand out. I wouldn’t say that my grades stood out and it was worsened by the fact that I submitted my [thesis] from my Master’s late. and I did not follow the mitigation process as I ought to have done. I will tell anybody don’t fall on your sword, it’s not a matter of honor. Follow the mitigation process, it’s there for a reason. Universities understand that life happens, and I got ill, and I should have followed the process.
I was very concerned about my comparatively low GPA, and I honestly I owned it. I spoke to the professors that I met with very early. I told them. I let them know exactly what it was I took responsibility for where I had gone wrong, but what that made me do was work extra hard to make sure that I had a very strong proposal, and my application process included having a a proposal prepared to the specifications of the school. And I wanted them to see who I was now. I didn’t want what happened in terms of not following a process correctly or not submitting something in the way that I ought to have done, to be a snapshot of who I was as a student, as an academic, and as a scholar. So I said, the snapshot that you’re going to see, is somebody who after four or five years, you will have a scholar. Someone who will represent the program well.
And to be very frank with you, I never cut corners, but I really went all up with my proposal. I wanted to make sure that my proposal was very strong, it was air tight, and I can say that I put everything into it. I want to make sure that was very strong, but the important thing was not to try to make excuses for being late. It was to take ownership of where it gone wrong, and to also be very open, be very candid, and also when I [received] my letter of recommendation, it was a strong letter of recommendation. So there wasn’t one where I was trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes. I really want to make sure that the snapshot of who they got now was a fair representation of who I would be.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: I love that! And take note everyone; I mean having a lower GPA, and I think a B+ means you were probably somewhere between like a 3.1-3.3 in the US system for a GPA, which is not a bad GPA! But you might think, “what if I don’t have a 3.8 or higher, will I have any chance?”
The the answer is, yes you do have a chance! But like Mikala, you have to really go above and beyond to make sure you have really strong recommendation letters, have a really strong proposal, strong personal statements, to try to overcome it, and like you said, not make excuses.
And I really appreciate that advice, so nothing is impossible. It’s just how much effort are you willing to put in? And Mikala put in the full effort and got into her top fully funded program. So that effort paid off for sure!
I want to, I see there’s lots in the chat, I want to be able to take questions, but I have one last question for all of you before we move over to Q&A.
Now each of you were in ProFellow’s Fully Funded Course and Mentorship Program, which is an online course and group coaching program that helps guide you through the application process. It gives you a course that helps you go through all the steps in the admissions process from finding schools, finding funding, to preparing your applications, interviewing, and negotiation. And then you had group “Office Hours” where you could hang out with other students, like the three of these guys,and get support, get questions [answered].
I was wondering what role did the course play in your success or in your experience applying and how did it help you? I’m just curious what you got that maybe you wouldn’t if you were doing this on your own?
Summer Tate: I think for me that really was the timeline. There’s a great timeline [that] after every meeting, it’s kind of like, these are things that you should be looking ahead for. So really helping the pacing of getting everything done. And not only was it helping with the pacing, but giving you templates, giving you resources, then you’re able to sit in and talk to other people about what you’re doing and how things are going. So it very much was, you know quite a mentoring program to not only just pace it for you, but then give you the different things that you need in order to get everything accomplished the timelines.
But I was just talking about the timeline. I think that was what, for me, the timeline was the huge thing. It kind of really let you know where you needed to be, what was coming up, when you were going to the office hours, being told “okay now you should [be here], this is where we’re at, to be working on this”, you know. So the next time we meet really have these things kind of done. And it really pushed [me] to make sure [of] that. And then if you were struggling with anything during the office hours, you were able to bring those to the table to have that talked about and those questions answered. But you had to really utilize all of the aspects.
And the templates. I love the templates; that they really did help to put everything in perspective.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you for sharing!
Brent Horning: Yeah I definitely agree with Summer, in terms of the timeline, because with such a massive undertaking of putting together graduate school applications, it takes a lot of time and energy to do it to do it well. And it’s far too overwhelming to try to do it quickly or haphazard, so I really agree with Summer on that.
And I would say the attention to detail, you know, the details are incredibly important with a research PhD application because it’s a detail oriented thing you’re getting into. And there’s ways to approach professors, there’s words that are helpful to use, there’s things that are not helpful to say, there’s so many little things that you don’t know, if you don’t know! And I had the chance to compare with some of my peers as I mentioned who weren’t in [the Fully Funded Course], and I could see that they were doing things a lot differently. And so, there were there were a lot of benefits but I would say the timeline and all the details.
Mikala Hope-Frankly: I can echo those sentiments. Definitely the timeline, knowing where you ought to have been, the templates were were very important, the spreadsheets which helped to really refine your search as you went through things, and we know how you were going forward, which schools you were eliminating.
I think also the accountability in the office hours.There were times when you were able to come and you talked about your wins, and you talked about where you could have – where you were planning to be, but where you might have missed. It was as good to have that encouragement along the way with other groups. And the group was so diverse as well. And I think that was one of the things that I really resonated with me. That the group during office hours, it was like first of all, people from all over the world, and then different age groups, but being held accountable. And during the office hours, especially- I was going to ask you how long you have in terms of talking about how the Fully Funded Course helped, but even those very personalized emails, you try never to be generic but the emphasis that was placed on how important that is, making those emails stand out. Researching the professors, really doing a lot of background research on them as well, and looking at their interests and the work that they’ve done. It was those elements especially, but being held accountable for your actions, I think and managing your process, for me those, were very critical.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you so much for sharing your experience in the program! The enrollment for the 2024 program is open! I’m going to stay on a bit longer after this panel to talk about it if any of you [are thinking] “I really want to do this PhD, this has been on my bucket list, it’s time to do it, I need to get fully funded!” If you want to stay on a bit longer with me after the webinar, let’s do that, and we’ll talk a bit more about the course, and how it can help support you.
Now, I wanted to take some Q&A.
Question and Answer
Question 1: Regarding working during the PhD, is it at all possible to work part or full-time while in school if your studies and current career are aligned? Will programs allow students to work even if it requires being in the program longer or reducing your work hours to part-time?
Dr. Vicki Johnson: This is a great question. I get this a lot from mid-career [candidates]. So number one thing to know is that for fully funded programs, they do expect a full-time commitment. It is a full-time, on campus program. And the reason being is that the funding is coming typically through an assistantship, which is actually a part-time job with the university. So when you come into your your program, you’re committing to 10 to 20 hours a week, typically supporting faculty and that job is giving you the salary, which is the stipend, and the tuition waiver, which is like an employment benefit.
Now, Brent mentioned a fellowship, so he has a “no work requirement” funding package for his first year, which is amazing. I think Summer and Mikala, you would be working a bit right? Do you have an assistantship as part of your package? So you want to share a little bit of what that’s like? Or actually, maybe I don’t know if Summer, you would quite know yet? But Mikala, what do you do for your assistantship or your funding?
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: Well there’s a basic amount which you will be provided, period, whether or not you are doing the assistantship. But then you are also provided a package where I work directly with my supervisor who funds me directly. I work on doing teaching assistantships as required [and] doing research through a contract which I have with my supervisor. Along with that, I’m also, through my supervisor who’s also working on other projects, I’m also working along with her as an assistant. I’m so I’m getting funding from another project.
So, I’m actually working with a supervisor who has many projects, so I’m going to work with those projects, but I cannot exceed a certain amount of hours, or I will lose my funding. So it’s not an option to say, “hey give me a whole lot of assistantships, so that I can I can do multiple assistantships!” –I will lose my basic funding.
So I get to support my supervisor on her projects. I can work with other supervisors with other professors as well, but I right now I have a supervisor who’s really really into lot projects! So I honestly got a really good deal!
Dr. Vicki Johnson: That’s so good! Now, the reason they say, no you can’t stack assistantships, is they want to make sure you’re actually doing your schoolwork, right? I mean you’re working [in your Assistantship] and you’re doing your PhD, so they do get worried. So there is typically a “gentleman’s agreement,” as they say, that you are not working [elsewhere] when you’re in a full-time program.
But I will say from my own experience, I did do part-time work and consulting in addition to the funding that I was getting from my program. I worked in public health for about 15 years. I reached out to all my former companies, contacts, and just said … any contract work that I can do? So I worked in little consultancies and added income.
And honestly, the school, I mean my professor kind of knew about it. I mean, it wasn’t something I broadcasted to the school because they can get a little dicey about it, but there’s not any real rule. I think it’s just the amount of money you can get from the university is going to be capped. So yes, you can work part-time.
Question 2: Will I be the only older person and be the odd man out on campus?
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Mikala why don’t you go ahead share your insights.
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: As I said, I’m 46 years old, but I’m not even close to being the oldest person on in my program. In my program, I have one retiree at least, and another
student who was a faculty member at that school who’s returned to do her PhD. I have families, I have people from all over the world, they have brought their kids. So no, you likely won’t be the oldest person there, because there’s somebody else who’s older than you who also had this conversation with themselves, and they came back!
Oviously all universities might not be the same and all programs might not be the same, but I doubt very much that you’d be the oldest person. I thought I was going to be the oldest person by a country mile, and that’s not even the case, so it’s doubtful that you will be.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Maybe Summer you talked a little bit about this. What did you see when you were visiting campuses?
Summer Tate: At Howard I’m definitely not the oldest.There’s other people that have families that are part of the PhD program. Now when I visited Emory, that was a little different. From what I saw when I was invited down, I was the oldest in the group, but that’s not always the case. Because I only met the incoming [students]. There might have been other people on campus that were older. And that would be something that I would ask and and to see if they can connect you with people and just to get those kind of questions answered. How do they manage a household in doing such.
And I think I saw someone ask something like this: how do you drop down from a good salary to living on a stipend? And, I mean, I haven’t quite done it yet, but I know if I can do this PhD, I can budget a little bit better. And I think that’s really what it is. You really think about the long-term goal and it’s not forever.
What I’ve kind of actually been telling myself, and I don’t know Mikala, now that you’re in it– I mean I don’t know if it kind of makes sense– that really the way that semesters are set up, you’re really going to study for five months, right? And then you take a little break, and then you go back for another five, and that’s kind of how I’m kind of wrapping my head around it.
That you’re going into to study for a time before of course you have to go off and start doing your exams and your dissertation, and if you think of it in those chunks, it might not seem as much as you’re letting everything go forever. And that it is something that’s building for your long-term goal.
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: Yeah I agree. And I’ll tell you it’s even more challenging because I left my country where I lived. I left and I came with the cats to a whole new country. So it was working and being in a completely different position. But you’re right, you have to look at it as bite-sized chunks, otherwise you’ll feel overwhelmed by the entirety of it. So I agree those are bite-sized chunks and you find a way to manage it.
And the truth is you’re resourceful. You’re even more resourceful than you give yourself credit for, right. You find ways to do things and you recognize that this is adding overall to where you want to be and who you want to be. So you take those bites, you take those chunks.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: I’m gonna just hop rather than have Brent answer too, because I think Brent you mentioned you’re actually the the sole incoming PhD student in your program. But you’ve met other older students in your program research. And I myself too, I had a lot of older students in my own PhD program. There were students in their 60s in my program! So I definitely was not the oldest. So it’s quite different than what you see at the master’s and undergraduate level.
I saw a few more questions come in.
Question 3: I’m graduating with my masters this May. I want to know if it’s advisable to pursue a PhD degree immediately after?
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Well I just want to mention, timeline wise, you would have needed to apply last Fall into January, to be able to enter this coming Fall. So you would be looking at deadlines this coming Fall, December 1 being a common deadline, to enter in Fall of 2025. We’re talking about the US and Canadian academic year system.
So it depends on what you mean by advisable. If you want to do a PhD, I think the only thing to advise is thinking through the goals of the PhD. And actually this is a good question for the three of you!
What are your goals with the PhD why are you doing a PhD? What kind of career do you hope to have post PhD? And maybe I’ll start with Brent, since I didn’t get you a chance to talk much in last question. Do you want to share what your goals are?
Brent Horning: Absolutely! I hope to do [a PhD] in the area of my study which is South Asian religions. So some pretty niche interests in terms of medieval origins of Buddhism and the intersections with Hinduism and South Asia and Nepal and Tibet. So doing research, as well as getting a professorship at a university.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Great and how about you Mikala?
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: Well my focus is on decolonization, but I’m really looking a lot at sustainable tourism. I’m very interested in doing consultancies and also working with CSOs. I’m very interested in talking a little bit more about this particular issue from a social justice perspective. So honestly, and as much as I have these ideas in my mind, I think I’m still working through the process. And I feel really horrible to think that I’m approaching half of a century, and I still haven’t got it all sorted out yet. But, at the same time I’m looking at the different opportunities that I have available to me, and I don’t want to close the door on anything because I also want to do research and do some teaching as well.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Great! And Summer, how about you?
Summer Tate: So, I’m interested in researching the storytelling methods of the dispossessed. So, being able to read vast literature and the methods of writing. And you know, one of the questions – because I think it connects with what we’re talking about – is I had research prior to going in to do the PhD, but I also collected more. And this is why it’s kind of like a long game. If you know that this is what you want to do, and you might not have as much research under your belt, doing small fellowships, or things that you can do at your job, in the community, even volunteering to do research, are ways to be able to collect that to put on your CV. So that you can show that you have some practice in research.
And believe me, that’s the beginning of the first two years! The first year they’re teaching you methods of research. But coming in with a little bit of that underneath your belt is going to be helpful. But that’s kind of what I would like to do, and I really had to hone in a little bit on, you know, looking specifically at the writing of the dispossessed. So, like I said, seeing what other professors are doing, and they don’t expect you to have it all figured out going in. But having a really clear of what your interests are, is what they’re looking at.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you for sharing that because, I did see another question come through about. “I don’t have research experience, so how can I get into a PhD?”
In our Fully Funded Course, a lot of the students have varying levels of research experience. Some people have done higher level academic research through a master’s thesis, or even an undergraduate research experience, and have more formal research experience. But others, we’ve been able to help them emphasize “research-like” experience, I say. Which happens in all different industries, whether you’re working in business, in nonprofit, in government, evaluation, teaching. There’s all different forms of things that resemble research, whether you’re creating a research question, gathering data, and analyzing data, and producing an analysis. I mean that’s research, even if it doesn’t result in a paper or anything that’s published.
So we do help students figure out how to emphasize the things in their background that that are research-like or properly research. But a lot of people think they don’t actually have research experience, they say, “wait, hold on here, you actually do have a lot of research experience!”
Now Brent, I think you were a good example, because during your undergraduate studies you kind of went out of your way to make sure you got some research experience. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, the mechanisms?
Brent Horning: Absolutely! I applied for the Critical Language Scholarship which is a US Department of State funded initiative to increase little-spoken languages by American undergraduate students. So, they don’t teach languages like French or Spanish, but some of the Indian languages I was interested in were taught in India. So I applied for and got that. So that was a two-month language immersion. And following that, I got the Benjamin Gilman Scholarship, which is also for undergraduate research. So, between the two of those, it sponsored six months in India. During the time when I was also kind of finishing up some of my class work, and was luckily able to do it remotely, for one of those semesters.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: So that’s excellent because someone was asking what could be the benefit of starting this process this year while still finishing school.
If you’re on campus right now as an undergraduate or master’s student, you could take this time right now to find out different ways that you could get research experience, right on campus. You can talk to your professors, talk to different programs on campus, look at summer experiences that your university might offer. Once you’re no longer on campus, those things are harder to access. So, being an enrolled student now is a big benefit to starting this process. But, once you graduate, it’s a little harder to latch into the things like the Gilman Scholarship and these other things.
And did you find those on campus or through ProFellow? We have a big database too!
Brent Horning: Yeah those are on ProFellow.com, but those were introduced to me by my Bengali language teacher, and I believe, through maybe the study abroad program on my campus directly through the campus. And the school was very supportive, and I don’t know that I would have found them otherwise. I don’t, at that point, I don’t think I had known about ProFellow.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: That’s the other thing; if any of you are undergraduate or master’s students right now, look in the ProFellow.com database. There are different types of fellowships, including shorter term summer fellowships, that could give you research experience.
I want to ask Summer and Mikala, in your applications, was there anything, any kind of research that you di, that wasn’t really from a degree that you couched as research experience when you applied?
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: Actually yes. I had done some research with my previous job. I had done some bio behavioral surveillance service and I was able to utilize that. So it was something which had to go through the ethical processes, institutional review boards, and so on. So I was able to utilize that information. But it came from a professional background, so I was able to utilize that and refer to that showing that I did have an understanding of research.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: And did you have any publications before you applied? Journal articles? You had a few?
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: I did, I had an article, a couple of articles and a poster, as well had done a poster presentation regarding HIV in [the] Caribbean. So, I was able to refer to those and note them and in my master CV. Which was also something which want to say, that you guys mentioned is something very important, to have that master CV, so that you’re able to take the elements out as you needed. So I was able to make reference to those publications as well.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Mikala is talking about a method that we teach in the Fully Funded Course to have a Master Resume/CV with all the things you’ve ever did in your whole life in one running document, you can kind of cherry-pick depending on if you’re applying to a job, a fellowship, graduate school. So that’s what she’s referring to.
And Summer, how about you because you’re in literature, the creative arts field, and history, and anthropology. How about you, what was your research experience?
Summer Tate: So, with education I used a lot of the data collecting that we do as educators, when you know doing our SLO’s, things that you have to submit to your supervisor about how your teaching methods are going, what your plans are, things of such. So I used some of those to be my data collection that I do, but then for my master’s program, I did research on my family history, so I utilized that in my CV as that in-depth research that I did.
Especially with the main museum that I was able to then put in to my CV, as part of my creative process of using that information to write my poetry, and some of the acrostic poems from photographs, and things like that, that I was able to get missionary letters and things of such.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Excellent, excellent! So that was a mix. I think that was really creative to think about the the work that you were doing when you were an educator, your data collection. So, for all of you looking at this, and if you’re mid-career, you probably have done data collection at some time in your career, in some way. So think about that- where did you collect information and analyze it?
For me, I worked in public policy and we did all sorts of policy reports and recommendation documents, and we did surveys with constituents that were not formal research, per se. And they didn’t even go through the ethics process that Mikala talked about, but we did them in a more casual way, and that I couched as research experience. I worked with other PhDs who had a little bit more of the statistical knowledge. So just think, maybe brainstorm each of you, where do I have data collection expertise? Because, there is a way to put that in your application.
Question 4: I don’t have a research background. Do I need to go into a master’s before the PhD?
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Many PhD programs do not require a masters to go in. Brent is an example, someone going direct from undergrad. But, it depends on the field and even the expectations of the individual universities. And programs that are really competitive programs may say no one comes into this program without a master’s first, others can be maybe are a little more flexible because they’re looking for the right students with the right research interest. So it really depends.
So Dale, I would recommend doing a little research on the PhD programs in the discipline, and seeing what they require. Are they mostly expecting people with master’s degrees? This is a good question to ask admissions.
Now Summer’s got two master’s degrees, right? So you’re like, “I’m not gonna go do a third master!”
Mikala, you had a masters, and Brent, you’re going direct from undergrad. So it really depends on the field of the programs that you’re applying to, what their expectations, are so this is where the research aspect comes in. Researching programs and what they want.
Oh! We’re past time, I’ve got to wrap this up! I want to thank my panelists for sharing all of your insights today. I really appreciate it! I’m sure the folks here that came live today really appreciate it.
Any last parting words briefly that you’d like to share?
Summer Tate: I already know if you’re an older student, you can do this! You know, you’ve done life this far, and I think it’s a lot of using our wisdom of being able to know how to plan, know how to budget, know how to set ourselves up for succes. And you can’t really think about in the sense that there might be younger people amongst you. If anything, use that as giving yourself a fresh look at certain things, and being able to know that we have value, years of valued information amongst us, to be able to also add to the program. And a lot of that is what is going to get your foot in the door, because you’re going to bring that in your applications.
Mikala Hope-Franklyn: I say, don’t give up on yourself, believe in yourself, and utilize the support systems you have. ProFellow is a great one to begin with! I had other friends who also who were also going through the PhD experience. Lean on that. Lean on that experience. And sometimes, you are more resourceful than you give yourself credit for. When you’re doing it, you don’t know what you’re doing, so have to step back and take a look. Take your wins, but recognize that you’ve done this, you’ve earned those wins, you have scars because you’ve been in battles, which means you survived them! So believe in yourself and use your support you have.
Brent Horning: If you’re an older student, don’t try to be a younger student. Embody your wisdom that you have, because even though youth is often valued more than age and wisdom in Western culture, embody what you have. You’ve come a long way. You’ve done a lot of things. So just be confident, and be yourself.
Dr. Vicki Johnson: Thank you everyone! Thank you so much! Let’s thank our panelists in the chat.
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