Breaking the age barrier: An accidental PhD

“I cleared the State Civil Services Examination after pursuing BA-LLB and got posted as a District Level Officer in UP. I worked for 18 years under the UP Government. During this period, I was transferred on deputation to Gautam Buddha University at Greater Noida. The academic community here who possessed PhD degrees regarded us, the government officials, as non-teaching staff. It hurt me quite a lot and I started contemplating doing a PhD myself. But a BA-LLB degree wasn’t sufficient to get into a PhD. So, I did an MBA through distance mode and then registered myself for a PhD at Shobhit University, Meerut. By then, my tenure of deputation was over and I had to return to my parent department at Lucknow, thereby abandoning my PhD plans.

I was then appointed as the Regional Director in a Central University at Hyderabad. My family lived in that city and I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to be close to them. I also reconsidered doing a PhD here.

My PhD revolved around an empirical study of employee motivation in the IT sector. Initially, the supervisor allotted to me provided very little guidance. I didn’t know what a PhD entailed or how to navigate my PhD journey. I requested a change of my supervisor and was lucky to get the one of my choice. The new supervisor was not just motivating but also gave me weekly targets so that my PhD remained on track and I could finish on time. Additionally, when the pandemic hit and my son came home, he further pushed me to complete my PhD. He also helped me with the statistical analysis of the data I had collected from the IT sector to consolidate my research. Together with the support of my family and supervisor, I was able to finish my PhD in late 2020 and defended it in March 2021.

I had started my academic journey with Law and enforced the law while working in administration. After so many years, I am still passionate about it. I completed my LLM from Osmania University while working in Hyderabad and now I am considering doing another PhD in Law because of my sheer love for the field.”

-Shamsuddin Ansari, PhD in Management, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad

Interviewed and written by Payel Das