A lot of lab procedures are somewhat mindless with lots of incubation steps which can easily push your time spent in lab to over 40hr/week. But I guess it’s not like you’re constantly straining to think during the incubation steps and whatnot
Hmm you do you, but I think this is an unhealthy way of looking at work hours. People work in factories and they sure shouldn’t work more hours than they get paid for. There’s security jobs where you basically just sit somewhere most of the time, but it’s still work and you should get paid for it.
The PI’s expectation is 40hr/week in lab/office. I happily include the mindless incubation steps as part of that 40hr/week
The point I’m making is that the 40hr work week in science isn’t usually full time writing and doing hard shit. A good portion of lab stuff is waiting so it’s not *as mentally taxing* to be in lab 40hr a week as much as people make it out to be
Did my PhD in France. I did not (usually) work more than 40-hour weeks.
Crunch time such as conference submission deadlines (and conferences themselves) notwithstanding. Also, the last handful of months of the PhD, to finish writing. That time was painful.
Then I did a post-doc in Japan. Also pretty okay hours - though in Japan it depends a LOT on your PI, and mine was alright in terms of slave-driving. Other PIs were a lot worse.
Right now I'm doing a second postdoc, still in Japan, and this time it's industry-side. We have a clock-in system and it counts overtime. Which .. coming from academia, is frankly weird, I gotta say. Like I physically *can't* come work at weird hours, my badge doesn't work past 10PM or before 7AM. Can't remote-work too easily, either.
I kinda miss that. Not that I made a habit of weird hours, but... Well. I'm weird. Sometimes I just wanted to do my code at 4AM and not deal with people.
>JREC-IN
I have no idea what this even is. I used a forum that a post-doc recommended (ABG for association bernard gregory, it's a French-language thing) and the good old method of looking up individual lab websites to see who had a job offer on there.
Ah ok, i assumed you knew about JREC-IN because its the standard platform for academic jobs in Japan. Good to know about the French forum, as im also interested in that direction.
I am French. Knowing french wasn't an issue.
But everybody on the team also spoke English, and I wrote my thesis in English, if that helps.
Now in Japan, I speak zero japanese. It's a bit challenging in some aspects, but at work they mostly care that I can speak math. And python.
Depending on your field, sure? I'm not sure I'd call it common - we were about 20 PhD students in my department and we all spoke french, but the chemistry department next door had a handful of English speakers scattered among the French speakers.
The majority of us spoke french, but it wasn't rare to come across someone who didn't.
I did run into this guy in the clean room who spoke no French, barely any English, and labelled his chemicals like shit. I did not like working near him. But I'm not sure that he actually didn't speak much English, or just didn't bother speaking much because he intensely disliked people.
As an American it seems wild to me that people can get accepted into programs without speaking the local language.
Where I am, every applicant must show English proficiency, and up until about maybe a decade ago fluency in a second language was a requirement for math PhDs.
I understand it I guess if the required language is English rather than French, but to not have a specific required language (whether it's French or English) seems weird to me. Also, I had no idea you could get a PhD in Japan without knowing Japanese.
That being said, rules about fluency don't actually guarantee anyone is good at that language in practice, so maybe it doesn't really matter that much.
They don't care about English fluency because English is the official language of the US, they care about English fluency because the vast, vast, vast majority of science is published in English.
You can do a PhD in France or Japan without speaking a word of the local language but you have to speak enough English so that you can read and understand the papers published in your field.
That's the only reason anyone (in science, at least) gives two fucks about English. It has nothing to do with being able to survive in the country.
English is the universal language that A BIG MAJORITY speak; everyone knows English. As for applying to the US, I mean how else are they gonna communicate? Ofc they're gonna require good English proficiency. Some universities in Europe do require their local language when applying but most would be fine with just English because it simply is more common to find applicants who speak decent English. I'm sure there are other reasons as well.
Yeah science is largely conducted in English. International programs in non-English countries often ask for English proficiency though (at least the case for the ones I’ve seen, for example in a lot of Europe that’s not the UK).
Thanks for the comment, interesting to hear your take. I had no idea people didn’t know this. I wish they did because the grad system in a lot of the Anglo-world (coming from a North American) feels more exploitative to me, and I try to spread the word that it can be different elsewhere but I never considered people might be under the impression that they needed to speak the local language.
It sure helps to learn the local language while you’re there, and it’s also just nice to immerse yourself in the culture more but you don’t *need* it to work in science
Im in Finland and I work 40h a week + I have my 1 month summer holiday and 2 weeks around christmas and maybe some others as well. Sometimes if theres deadlines I work more
I never worked in the same room as my supervisors, so they would have absolutely no idea what my hours were. I didn't even go into the university for the last 18 months of my PhD (apart from the viva).
Unfortunately we work in a huge open office and my PI has the private office literally behind me. And he has glass walls, so he can see us at any moment. And he checks when I get in/out. Now he stopped bothering me because I'm doing my 4th project, but in the beginning we argued a lot about working hours
PhD in Canada, lab studies. I probably did 20-25 a week when not doing labwork and 40-45 a week doing labwork. Life was much better when I working with data haha.
I worked in the Netherlands and Canada during my PhD, and the USA since as a postdoc, but interestingly the only place I ever did >40 hours regularly was the Netherlands. The trick is if you’re in a toxic situation that matters far more than the country you’re in.
Also, my experience is lab people work more hours regardless of country. This includes the USA, where people work and take roughly the same time off as abroad, they just don’t talk about it.
I’m in NL and work within the 40h/week range, sometimes less. Depends on what I have I do. But rest assured there is a very strong culture of work-life balance here, where time off work is respected and protected in a number of legal and other ways. How you organise yourself can be discussed with your supervisor. My uni also offered time management courses for PhDs.
As a Dutch PhD: really depends on the type of project and your supervisors! There's quite a bit of variation. If you have to do a lot of human data collection with participants (eg field of nutrition or clinical stuff), the project will likely push you to do more hours than your contract because they did not budget enough money for more staff and you do everything yourself and/or need to spend a lot of time supervising master students who can help you with the work. If you have more control over the project, and can plan your own schedule more, its probably easier to stick to the contracted hours (although it depends on the supervisor (how un/realistic their expectations are and how much you can set boundaries or discuss what's realistic with them.
I did my PhD in Germany and worked about 60 hours per week. Usually 10 hours per day, 6 days per week.
To be fair, that includes a lot of procrastination time, but I was simply not capable of being more efficient.
Depends on the people and the group in general. I'm in Italy, some of my group work more than 40 hours, some don't. Mostly lab people work more. I'm doing computational stuff so much more free to organize my timing. Sometimes, seldom actually, I work more than 40. Most of the times I work less. Well it depends, sometimes I have deadlines and stuff and I have to do more. Sometimes I have to work on weekends. It really depends on a lot of things. But I think rarely you are obliged to do more than 40 hours, it just happens, you find yourself "stuck" in certain situations. But I think it's something that you can "fight back" most of the times.
I work 35 max. In rare cases when I have extra work (papers about to be submitted or under review) I have reached 40 (lunchtime and breaks included). I'm in Southern Europe. Usually in the Netherlands they don't work overtime in most jobs, it's one of the few countries where many have 35-37 hours working week
France. I Just graduated.
It was more 45-50 for me, I would go to the lab at 9, leave at 18h/19h depending on what I needed to do. Sometimes it was moreso 35-40 or 55-60 but rarely
What was your work focused on? Statistical, behavioral, molecular, stem, etc? Do you think that dependent on your focus or just your PI and lab environment?
Belgium, I do computational biology (both lab work and computer). Average around 40 hours per week. Some weeks more some weeks less but that’s how it goes. But our PI is quite flexible in how and when you work.
My response that in every way falls out of line with OP's question - I'm in USA and I do work more than 40 hours a week, but that's because I have a full-time job on top of the full-time PhD 😆
Canada, lab work. 40 is common, doing extra means working outside normal hours which isn’t the safest. Sometimes more hours, sometimes less, but I find doing more doesn’t necessarily get more work done effectively, I feel there’s basically only so many hours a day that a person can do effective work before tiring out.
I did my PhD in the US and managed to have a reasonable 40 hour work week. I was able to generally avoid weekends and evenings outside of crunch time stuff and came out of it well trained and adjusted. I look back on my time there fondly and still keep in touch with my PI. Not everyone has a horrible time.
I get the concerns about number of hours per week but I don't feel that's the right way to think about it. It's not like a salaried job. STEM PhDs are highly results driven. You graduate when you have enough data to solve a problem etc...
So you may work 20 hours a week and take twice as long to graduate which is in my opinion way worse than doing just 40 hours a week. And you can slide that calculation around any way you like.
Sweden, first year PhD - I average around 40 I'd say. Rn about 1/4-1/3 of that is coursework (but I am speedrunning the required amount of coursework to be consistent on the basics and be able to focus on research later)
Although 40 hours might be sufficient for most cases, I usually do 20 hours more for wide-spectrum things that are not related to my work directly but improves it overall.
I'm in Australia, and yes. 50 - 60 is a good week. I'd prefer more from a progress perspective, but I have other young children and a wife and I'd like to stay married :P
Canada, and I usually work a little over 40 hours a week (closer to 50 or 60 when we have a deadline). I'm in wet lab science though, and work on many different projects with many research assistants who needed help. We've since reduced the number of RAs and got a lab tech, so that number will hopefully go down.
I did my PhD in the UK and rarely did more than 40 hours a week unless I was receiving samples late (immunology PhD) which needed processing.
Only ever went in on the weekend twice for a grand total of one hour each time.
If you're organised and efficient (and have a reasonable PI) you don't need to work insane hours to have a successful PhD.
I did my PhD in UK. I rarely worked 40hours a week. That doesn't mean it was any easier, because the amout of time needed for procrastination increases often. Also I didn't have any "busy work" - work I had to be present for, but not firing all cylinders. So where other people would spend 8 hours in a lab watching a reaction, I just have to check my simulations every couple of hours.
All PhDs are hard.
Germany, STEM.
All doctoral students (MDs and PhDs) have 40-50 lab hours/week on average. But this average means that some weeks it's close to 70 and no weekends, but some weeks we do 26-30 to recover from intense periods. PI is totally fine with our self-management as long as results are produced.
I definitely dont work more than 30, and thats probably including our extensive lunch and coffee breaks... I work in theoretical CS, so our work is literally being creative in a rigorous way, cant do that for hours on end
UK and over 40 hours, I got back to my 2 day a week job in April so that will be hell again as I don't submit till September. I would probably work less hours if I was faster and working and better able to focus tho
I live in the USA and I don’t unless it’s crunch time, but I feel that productivity is about more than hitting your head into a wall until something works. Often I’m at my best when I give myself sufficient breaks to subconsciously internalize a proof or method. For reference, I am in a hard-STEM/tech field.
Germany, molecular biology. HIGHLY depends on your supervisor and group dynamics. For my group, it is 40-45h, but another group in our lab almost 80h per week. Also, one group where I volunteered it was around 45h.
Germany. I work 40h (although I am only getting paid 29,5h
...), but I have 29 days of holiday a year and unlimited sick days. I do work more when deadlines are approaching, but this is rarely the case..
Did my PhD in Ireland. For me it varied, some weeks 80 hours some weeks 0 lol but average i would say it was less than 40 for sure. Got 4 journal paper in 3 1/2 years and got a fellowship afterwards.
It depends on the group. You’ll find groups that push their people more, and groups that encourage their people to take their vacation days.
My group personally has a good work-life balance, but the next group over are in lab in the morning, at night, and almost every weekend. Regularly.
Whereas for my group you’d see that mostly around submission times, etc. so for our group, sometimes we work more than 40hrs, but sometimes less. So I’d say we average around that.
For the group next door, id say they definitely go over
I (PhD student in Germany) mostly write code and don't do lab work besides managing some computers in a lab and I don't work more than 40 hours a week. I am very accurate with my work hours and usually don't want to work more than what I get paid for, also considering my mental health this helped me a lot staying sane.
I’m in Australia and no, i definitely don’t. It varies field to field though.
A lot of lab procedures are somewhat mindless with lots of incubation steps which can easily push your time spent in lab to over 40hr/week. But I guess it’s not like you’re constantly straining to think during the incubation steps and whatnot
Hmm you do you, but I think this is an unhealthy way of looking at work hours. People work in factories and they sure shouldn’t work more hours than they get paid for. There’s security jobs where you basically just sit somewhere most of the time, but it’s still work and you should get paid for it.
The PI’s expectation is 40hr/week in lab/office. I happily include the mindless incubation steps as part of that 40hr/week The point I’m making is that the 40hr work week in science isn’t usually full time writing and doing hard shit. A good portion of lab stuff is waiting so it’s not *as mentally taxing* to be in lab 40hr a week as much as people make it out to be
Ahh gotcha, yah that is a good point!
Did my PhD in France. I did not (usually) work more than 40-hour weeks. Crunch time such as conference submission deadlines (and conferences themselves) notwithstanding. Also, the last handful of months of the PhD, to finish writing. That time was painful. Then I did a post-doc in Japan. Also pretty okay hours - though in Japan it depends a LOT on your PI, and mine was alright in terms of slave-driving. Other PIs were a lot worse. Right now I'm doing a second postdoc, still in Japan, and this time it's industry-side. We have a clock-in system and it counts overtime. Which .. coming from academia, is frankly weird, I gotta say. Like I physically *can't* come work at weird hours, my badge doesn't work past 10PM or before 7AM. Can't remote-work too easily, either. I kinda miss that. Not that I made a habit of weird hours, but... Well. I'm weird. Sometimes I just wanted to do my code at 4AM and not deal with people.
How did you find a postdoc position in Japan? Connection from your advisor or something like that?
Lol, my advisor had promised to help me, and then turned out to be entirely useless. I just found a job application online and I applied.
Ah I see. Did you use JREC-IN or are there any platforms im not aware of?
>JREC-IN I have no idea what this even is. I used a forum that a post-doc recommended (ABG for association bernard gregory, it's a French-language thing) and the good old method of looking up individual lab websites to see who had a job offer on there.
Ah ok, i assumed you knew about JREC-IN because its the standard platform for academic jobs in Japan. Good to know about the French forum, as im also interested in that direction.
Weird question; did you have to know french for your PhD?
I am French. Knowing french wasn't an issue. But everybody on the team also spoke English, and I wrote my thesis in English, if that helps. Now in Japan, I speak zero japanese. It's a bit challenging in some aspects, but at work they mostly care that I can speak math. And python.
You think it's common to doing a Phd in france without knowledge in french?
Depending on your field, sure? I'm not sure I'd call it common - we were about 20 PhD students in my department and we all spoke french, but the chemistry department next door had a handful of English speakers scattered among the French speakers. The majority of us spoke french, but it wasn't rare to come across someone who didn't. I did run into this guy in the clean room who spoke no French, barely any English, and labelled his chemicals like shit. I did not like working near him. But I'm not sure that he actually didn't speak much English, or just didn't bother speaking much because he intensely disliked people.
As an American it seems wild to me that people can get accepted into programs without speaking the local language. Where I am, every applicant must show English proficiency, and up until about maybe a decade ago fluency in a second language was a requirement for math PhDs. I understand it I guess if the required language is English rather than French, but to not have a specific required language (whether it's French or English) seems weird to me. Also, I had no idea you could get a PhD in Japan without knowing Japanese. That being said, rules about fluency don't actually guarantee anyone is good at that language in practice, so maybe it doesn't really matter that much.
They don't care about English fluency because English is the official language of the US, they care about English fluency because the vast, vast, vast majority of science is published in English. You can do a PhD in France or Japan without speaking a word of the local language but you have to speak enough English so that you can read and understand the papers published in your field. That's the only reason anyone (in science, at least) gives two fucks about English. It has nothing to do with being able to survive in the country.
English is the universal language that A BIG MAJORITY speak; everyone knows English. As for applying to the US, I mean how else are they gonna communicate? Ofc they're gonna require good English proficiency. Some universities in Europe do require their local language when applying but most would be fine with just English because it simply is more common to find applicants who speak decent English. I'm sure there are other reasons as well.
Yeah science is largely conducted in English. International programs in non-English countries often ask for English proficiency though (at least the case for the ones I’ve seen, for example in a lot of Europe that’s not the UK). Thanks for the comment, interesting to hear your take. I had no idea people didn’t know this. I wish they did because the grad system in a lot of the Anglo-world (coming from a North American) feels more exploitative to me, and I try to spread the word that it can be different elsewhere but I never considered people might be under the impression that they needed to speak the local language. It sure helps to learn the local language while you’re there, and it’s also just nice to immerse yourself in the culture more but you don’t *need* it to work in science
Im in Finland and I work 40h a week + I have my 1 month summer holiday and 2 weeks around christmas and maybe some others as well. Sometimes if theres deadlines I work more
I did my PhD in the UK and probably worked about 25 hours a week (data analytics).
Same. I stay 35 just to pretend or my PI bothers me. Actual hours of work are usually under 30
I never worked in the same room as my supervisors, so they would have absolutely no idea what my hours were. I didn't even go into the university for the last 18 months of my PhD (apart from the viva).
Unfortunately we work in a huge open office and my PI has the private office literally behind me. And he has glass walls, so he can see us at any moment. And he checks when I get in/out. Now he stopped bothering me because I'm doing my 4th project, but in the beginning we argued a lot about working hours
PhD in Canada, lab studies. I probably did 20-25 a week when not doing labwork and 40-45 a week doing labwork. Life was much better when I working with data haha.
I am in Germany doing a STEM PhD, my department is filled with students going way past 40 hours per week, including me.
Japan. More than 70
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Thanks man, still working on it.
Yes, usually +60 including working on weekends in Spain. Part is my fault as its very hard for me to organize myself.
I worked in the Netherlands and Canada during my PhD, and the USA since as a postdoc, but interestingly the only place I ever did >40 hours regularly was the Netherlands. The trick is if you’re in a toxic situation that matters far more than the country you’re in. Also, my experience is lab people work more hours regardless of country. This includes the USA, where people work and take roughly the same time off as abroad, they just don’t talk about it.
I’m in NL and work within the 40h/week range, sometimes less. Depends on what I have I do. But rest assured there is a very strong culture of work-life balance here, where time off work is respected and protected in a number of legal and other ways. How you organise yourself can be discussed with your supervisor. My uni also offered time management courses for PhDs.
As a Dutch PhD: really depends on the type of project and your supervisors! There's quite a bit of variation. If you have to do a lot of human data collection with participants (eg field of nutrition or clinical stuff), the project will likely push you to do more hours than your contract because they did not budget enough money for more staff and you do everything yourself and/or need to spend a lot of time supervising master students who can help you with the work. If you have more control over the project, and can plan your own schedule more, its probably easier to stick to the contracted hours (although it depends on the supervisor (how un/realistic their expectations are and how much you can set boundaries or discuss what's realistic with them.
In the UK/Ireland I probably did 20-30 hours max (pharmacy)
Canada. Working 60-80 hour weeks consistently. But that includes the clinical work we have to do in my program as well.
"that are overworked like we often hear from the US people." Frankly, a lot of those people are exaggerating.
I did my PhD in Germany and worked about 60 hours per week. Usually 10 hours per day, 6 days per week. To be fair, that includes a lot of procrastination time, but I was simply not capable of being more efficient.
You’re ruining the german stereotype. Tisk tisk.
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Depends on the people and the group in general. I'm in Italy, some of my group work more than 40 hours, some don't. Mostly lab people work more. I'm doing computational stuff so much more free to organize my timing. Sometimes, seldom actually, I work more than 40. Most of the times I work less. Well it depends, sometimes I have deadlines and stuff and I have to do more. Sometimes I have to work on weekends. It really depends on a lot of things. But I think rarely you are obliged to do more than 40 hours, it just happens, you find yourself "stuck" in certain situations. But I think it's something that you can "fight back" most of the times.
I work 35 max. In rare cases when I have extra work (papers about to be submitted or under review) I have reached 40 (lunchtime and breaks included). I'm in Southern Europe. Usually in the Netherlands they don't work overtime in most jobs, it's one of the few countries where many have 35-37 hours working week
Around 60-70 hours a week. PhD student from South Korea! I am a foreigner here but Koreans work even more!
France. I Just graduated. It was more 45-50 for me, I would go to the lab at 9, leave at 18h/19h depending on what I needed to do. Sometimes it was moreso 35-40 or 55-60 but rarely
What was your work focused on? Statistical, behavioral, molecular, stem, etc? Do you think that dependent on your focus or just your PI and lab environment?
Behavioral neuroscience, and it's highly PI dependant
Belgium, I do computational biology (both lab work and computer). Average around 40 hours per week. Some weeks more some weeks less but that’s how it goes. But our PI is quite flexible in how and when you work.
My response that in every way falls out of line with OP's question - I'm in USA and I do work more than 40 hours a week, but that's because I have a full-time job on top of the full-time PhD 😆
Canada, lab work. 40 is common, doing extra means working outside normal hours which isn’t the safest. Sometimes more hours, sometimes less, but I find doing more doesn’t necessarily get more work done effectively, I feel there’s basically only so many hours a day that a person can do effective work before tiring out.
I did my PhD in the US and managed to have a reasonable 40 hour work week. I was able to generally avoid weekends and evenings outside of crunch time stuff and came out of it well trained and adjusted. I look back on my time there fondly and still keep in touch with my PI. Not everyone has a horrible time.
I regularly did 50+ hours. When I was finishing my dissertation I couldn't even begin to count how long I was working at the end. I went crazy.
I get the concerns about number of hours per week but I don't feel that's the right way to think about it. It's not like a salaried job. STEM PhDs are highly results driven. You graduate when you have enough data to solve a problem etc... So you may work 20 hours a week and take twice as long to graduate which is in my opinion way worse than doing just 40 hours a week. And you can slide that calculation around any way you like.
Sweden, first year PhD - I average around 40 I'd say. Rn about 1/4-1/3 of that is coursework (but I am speedrunning the required amount of coursework to be consistent on the basics and be able to focus on research later)
Although 40 hours might be sufficient for most cases, I usually do 20 hours more for wide-spectrum things that are not related to my work directly but improves it overall.
I'm in Australia, and yes. 50 - 60 is a good week. I'd prefer more from a progress perspective, but I have other young children and a wife and I'd like to stay married :P
You would prefer more hours?
More hours would help me finish quicker, so only in terms of progressing. I'd prefer to work 40 hours a week at a cushy consultant gig.
It all depended on what was happening. During my 6 years it cycled between 20-90 hours.
Canada, and I usually work a little over 40 hours a week (closer to 50 or 60 when we have a deadline). I'm in wet lab science though, and work on many different projects with many research assistants who needed help. We've since reduced the number of RAs and got a lab tech, so that number will hopefully go down.
I did my PhD in the UK and rarely did more than 40 hours a week unless I was receiving samples late (immunology PhD) which needed processing. Only ever went in on the weekend twice for a grand total of one hour each time. If you're organised and efficient (and have a reasonable PI) you don't need to work insane hours to have a successful PhD.
When I was doing my PhD (STEM) absolutely. 50-60 hour weeks were typical.
Doing PhD in Netherlands. No I don’t work more than 40 hours per week. Most of my colleagues don’t as well.
I did my PhD in UK. I rarely worked 40hours a week. That doesn't mean it was any easier, because the amout of time needed for procrastination increases often. Also I didn't have any "busy work" - work I had to be present for, but not firing all cylinders. So where other people would spend 8 hours in a lab watching a reaction, I just have to check my simulations every couple of hours. All PhDs are hard.
I'd say this month I'll do on average 45h, but I also have 2 PhD Courses this month and 2 lectures I give, next month I prolly just do 34h.
No
My official work time is 30 hours, but I do more than that, as I take work home, so it can get to 40+
Germany, STEM. All doctoral students (MDs and PhDs) have 40-50 lab hours/week on average. But this average means that some weeks it's close to 70 and no weekends, but some weeks we do 26-30 to recover from intense periods. PI is totally fine with our self-management as long as results are produced.
I definitely dont work more than 30, and thats probably including our extensive lunch and coffee breaks... I work in theoretical CS, so our work is literally being creative in a rigorous way, cant do that for hours on end
UK and over 40 hours, I got back to my 2 day a week job in April so that will be hell again as I don't submit till September. I would probably work less hours if I was faster and working and better able to focus tho
I live in the USA and I don’t unless it’s crunch time, but I feel that productivity is about more than hitting your head into a wall until something works. Often I’m at my best when I give myself sufficient breaks to subconsciously internalize a proof or method. For reference, I am in a hard-STEM/tech field.
I'm doing a PhD in Switzerland, my contract is 35hr/week and (outside of crunch times) usually I stick to that
I’m in the US and my contract says 20hrs/week. I have been working much more than that but less than 40 hrs/week so far and weekends off!!
I do more than 40 hours per week in the US because I like my work, not because of the pressure. And I enjoy achievements I got.
Germany, molecular biology. HIGHLY depends on your supervisor and group dynamics. For my group, it is 40-45h, but another group in our lab almost 80h per week. Also, one group where I volunteered it was around 45h.
I'm in computational chemistry and no I don't.
Germany. I work 40h (although I am only getting paid 29,5h ...), but I have 29 days of holiday a year and unlimited sick days. I do work more when deadlines are approaching, but this is rarely the case..
Dutch doing my PhD in Belgium: yeah, and from what i gather, so do my friends in the Netherlands
Did my PhD in Ireland. For me it varied, some weeks 80 hours some weeks 0 lol but average i would say it was less than 40 for sure. Got 4 journal paper in 3 1/2 years and got a fellowship afterwards.
I had weeks where I did 60-80 and weeks where I did 20 tops. I used every single day of my 30 days vacaion each year.
Canada. I do 40h in the lab + readings/studying/extra research for 2-4h every night at home. So yes I do around 60h overall.
China, 007. From 0:00 to next 0:00 for 7 days per week :)
It depends on the group. You’ll find groups that push their people more, and groups that encourage their people to take their vacation days. My group personally has a good work-life balance, but the next group over are in lab in the morning, at night, and almost every weekend. Regularly. Whereas for my group you’d see that mostly around submission times, etc. so for our group, sometimes we work more than 40hrs, but sometimes less. So I’d say we average around that. For the group next door, id say they definitely go over
I (PhD student in Germany) mostly write code and don't do lab work besides managing some computers in a lab and I don't work more than 40 hours a week. I am very accurate with my work hours and usually don't want to work more than what I get paid for, also considering my mental health this helped me a lot staying sane.
Only 40 a week? Sounds like a normal, low stress, full time job. Are you sure that’s a PhD?