AMA - I'm a lecturer in social sciences - business

[NChange10]

Been working for 30 years. Ask me anything.
I'm in a Russell group. I'll try to answer.

How do you think AI will impact your work in the next academic year

Students are using it to complete assignments already. Have done for a few years now. We ask them to declare if they have used it. I haven't used it to create content or to write papers. But I suspect staff have used it.
There's a lot of discussion that we need to prepare students to use it for work later on. That's it's essential. It's good for finding references for example. But I personally think you can tell it's AI and it's not as creative.

What has been your greatest professional achievement to date?

Why do you think European & UK businesses are so much less innovative than the US?

Do you teach UG or PG? How are student numbers for next year?

Posters on mumsnet often seem to think RG status is an important quality indicator. Do you think it makes a difference to the quality of teaching and the student experience, and if so what (positive or negative).

Much larger Venture Capital environment in the US and less regulation.

Teaching students. Phd supervision. Being on the board of governors.

And your biggest regret?

What’s your experience of running a business?

Parent!?!

How secure do you feel your job is at the moment? Have you or any of your colleagues faced redundancy or voluntary severance?

What's the worst parent you've had to deal with?

Not the OP but...as all my students have been 18 or older, they are legally adults and we do not deal with parents because they are expected to manage their own attendance/workload/behaviour/relationships as any adult in the workplace would. An accountant wouldn't call mummy to come and talk to their boss. It's no different at university. I've never had any cause to liase with parents other than polite chats at graduation. Other than that I'd only engage with a concern for welfare. Open Days are the only other time we'd chat with a parent (even that is rare as our students tend to visit alone) and it just tends to be answering any questions from the parents of prospective students.

The worst "deal with a parent" issue I had was one showing up to a student's (private) assessment as she wanted to watch her presentation. I had to explain that she couldn't attend as only myself and the second marker were allowed to be there and she shouldn't really be in the building at all for security purposes as she couldn't scan in and wasn't registered as a student, staff member or visitor. She was an alcoholic whose student daughter was having to care for and it was snowing on a huge campus and I couldn't turf her out in those conditions - I found her a nice, warm, empty, room to wait in, tried to make her comfortable as her daughter was clearly anxious and I was concerned it would affect her presentation. I referred her to Student Wellbeing for support after I saw the extent of the situation. It was very awkward and thankfully a one off.

Sorry to hijack OP!

You have one of my dream jobs. I fell by the wayside after a promised job at the university I had attended (was told it was mine upon University M.A graduation but then everyone just went quiet and told me to apply elsewhere)and have never managed to find anything else in the social sciences.
Could you give me any tips as to how I might get back into it? I did a longitudinal study following 12 years of participant observation that I am almost finished with.

Ah I see! So many members of the public seem to think we DO deal with parents that I got the wrong end of the stick, sorry.

The Teams call sounds similar to colleagues experiences...they're all delightfully "grumpy old men" so they just go, "I'm afraid the only person I'm prepared to talk to about Lucy is Lucy herself. Goodbye." click them off and go for a stroll and ignore the next 15 calls until the parent gives up. There's usually some swearing from the parent but they just ignore it and give no headspace in a way I probably couldn't!

Are you in my department @NChange10? I'm a prof in a RG Business School

@Afternoonteavirgin accessing academic jobs varies depending on which part of the social sciences you are. There;s a lot fewer jobs in Sociology, for example, than there are in Business Schools.

In general you would need a PhD, though this isn't the case in the newer universities (again particularly Business Schools). But it is publications that are particularly vital, because these are assessed every 7 years or so in the REF so high quality publications could be your ticket in. Your 12 year project sounds amazing - and it sounds like you are academic adjacent. Will you be involved in publishing? Will your name be on the publications? Will it lead to further research projects and publications?

If it will your key moment will be after the publication is accepted/nearly accepted but before it is published. The reason for this is that practice has changed for the 2029 ref and publications are no longer portable so you effectively have to start anew in each institution.

If you do want to be an academic the other aspect of the work is teaching. Some departments farm bits of this out so you might get odd bits of work here and there doing that, but be warned Oxford and Cambridge are particularly awful for this and some places keep people hanging on and doing odd bits of work in the hope of better things for decades. Please don't do that. Happy for you to DM me if you want more advice - good luck.

Greater links between business and universities.
They also are willing to put a lot of money behind any idea. And they prototype much faster.
They collaborate much better. Here our biggest collaborations are on international deals out of the country. There are tax differences too and also our finance sector prefers to invest abroad.

Taught both for 28 years. Now just pg.

Teaching can be very research led which means it's high quality. However non Russell group emphasise teaching more, they employ more staff on teaching only contracts. If your child needs more directed learning then a non Russell group can provide better teaching for them.

It's horses for courses.
A top grade 3 A's student studying sciences or traditional arts subjects is better off in a Russell group they will get stretched more and their peers will be of a higher academic level.

It's like sets at school. Top set needs different teaching at a different pace. They get the teaching they need.

Non Russell group can actually spend more time explaining things in more context and will tackle the subject differently with a more applied focus for example or just with more teaching hours in smaller groups.

The grades needed for the course ls reflect the teaching style. Lower grades achieved mean those students need a more applied and slower delivery. They can then over the three years develop fast and catch up their Russell group peers. Some just prefer more applied to real life and less theory.

It's also very dependent on subject and university.

But generally big Russell group have less smaller group teaching.

Your child will find the right uni for them. The grades they achieve will point them in a direction for the type of teaching they will need to thrive.

We can't teach a class of 3A's in the same way as a class with lots of 3C's.

So Russell group will go faster and be more theoretical in approach and also expect more independent learning.

Non Russell group will spend more time with students going over key concepts.

It's just different approaches to fit the student.

They all cover similar content in the end.

Russell is more academic. For most jobs though that doesn't necessarily matter.

Positive is for RG is research and phd tracks and opens doors to certain jobs.
Negative is it can be stressful if you can't keep up. Less handholding for students.

Not doing my phd sooner. Not going part time when my dd was young.