Planning your graduate career, or just looking ahead to being on the home stretch and getting that thesis out of the way? Don’t just count on the funding you might get from your program or teaching/research assignment. Writing a thesis is the perfect situation for which you should have a solid emergency fund in place.

Your financial situation will depend, of course, on whether you’re living alone or with a partner and/or dependents, but either way you do not want to be plagued by financial concerns during what will likely be the most challenging time of your degree.

Why You Should Not Underestimate The Extra Money You Will Need While Writing Your Thesis or Dissertation

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Lack of focus and concentration. Real financial hardship can become a serious strain on your intellectual and research abilities and there are reasons to be concerned that there are more opportunities to slip into hardship during a graduate degree, when you are being underpaid to focus on research.  Often times you are also an employee of your own department.  Talk about a conflict of interest!  Instead of being able to hit the books or program first thing in the morning, you might start thinking of ways to make some extra cash.  That’s all fine and good, except when the point is to finish your degree in a timely fashion.

Consequences of taking longer time to degree.  It ain’t your bachelor’s degree anymore, where no one could care less when or if you ever finish.  In a graduate degree there are often stricter rules about how long you can spend on coursework and writing up your final thesis or project.  If administrative laws on paper aren’t enough of a motivator for you, the annoyed supervisor or chair will be.  It’s not a myth. You really don’t want to invite that kind of stress upon your work.  So don’t waste time during the write-up process teaching or working elsewhere if you don’t have to, especially if you’re in a research-oriented degree.

All the reasons for having an emergency fund, crammed into one year.  You probably know that you should have some savings set aside for emergencies.  Well, they become even more important in a period like the final write-up.  Getting sick, or a problem with a family member is horrible anytime, but the potential for it being able to sink your plans at such a crucial period in your career could be devastating.  And Murphy’s law being what it is, there will be something unexpected happen just when you want it to the least.

More books, supplies, or travel needed. Halfway into your research, you might realize you need different materials than what you’ve been working with.  Maybe you need to make another trip to an archive, to the community you’re researching, or maybe you need to order in a rare book.  It might even be a last-minute thing, as in, you don’t have time to wait another whole month to have it delivered to the library – you need it now. In those cases, and others like them – cash is king.  Also into this category go all those little expenses like courier costs, cab rides, long distance calls, and other paper-pushing necessities like faxing scholarship renewal documents and forms that need be-all and end-all signatures.

Food needs. Unless you’re superman or superwoman (or have one as a partner), it can become more difficult to keep up a healthy lifestyle when you’re working under this type of daily stress and inflexible deadlines.  Don’t feel bad about treating yourself to take-out or delivery a bit more than you usually would, especially if it’s going to save you time, energy and most importantly, your focus.  At the same time, you still need to keep eating healthy - take out doesn’t have to mean bad food.  You also want to keep your kitchen stocked with lots of fresh fruit, juices, nuts and other power foods to make sure you don’t wither from a vitamin deficiency at this time.

No more job or the funding ran out.  In some cases it will be summer and your teaching or research assignment came to an end.  Or your scholarship funds ended last term and can’t be renewed.  You will probably be living off your savings.  Worse, you might have been counting on another teaching assignment but the university changes its teaching policies and all of a sudden there are less opportunities.  At this time, you might be tempted to want to take on some more work, but you have to consider the consequences and your priorities.

Delays that aren’t your fault. You’ve probably heard about the supervisor who dies or moves to another university.  But there is also the supervisor or chair who might not respond to your emails or who can’t read your dissertation chapter for another month.  And if you get sick yourself, you might need more time.  What happens if you need to enrol for another term or two?  Do you have the extra savings for an extended duration of research?

Paying extra tuition or fees. If you end up needing and being granted an extension, you might have to pay tuition again for another term.  Now that will take a nice bite out of your arm.  Sure, *you* won’t need an extension, but you should plan for the unforeseen anyway, even if that plan just consists in knowing that there’s a side job you could take up if you had to.  I’d advise you keep some funds aside for the possibility, anyway.

Thesis costs. It costs money to have your final thesis or dissertation bound up and entered into the library system.  You might expect to pay anywhere from $100-$200, depending on its length.  There might also be a processing charge.  You will also need to pay for each copy of your thesis, for example, if you want to order an extra copy for your supervisor, friend, or family member (or yourself).  These fees can add up.  You could easily drop $500 at once submitting your thesis.  And don’t forget about all the paper you’ll need for printing the extra copies on before you give them to the committee members. These might seem small, and they are, in the big picture.  But these are unavoidable costs!  You don’t want to rely on a credit card for these.

Job or Program Research and Interview costs before you’ve officially finished. On top of everything else, once you’ve managed to make it to the end you’ll possibly be starting to look for work or applying to another program before you’re completely done (I’d recommend waiting, if you can, for the periods when your supervisor is reviewing your thesis or after it’s been submitted and you’re waiting for the defense).  You might need new clothing, have to pay for travel, application processing costs, and all of that good stuff.  At this point you might be very tired and it will be tempting to put it all on plastic, if you have any room left on it.  I’m just warning you – it creeps up on you!   Don’t ignore these costs either, they’re part of the whole thesis-writing process.

Thinking about whether grad school is right for you?

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