Nice new corner! Come and chat!

[NeverEverAnythingEver]

We have our new board! Calling all cademics/aspiring academics/fed-up academics - come and chat!

Their Qs:
"Where do you see yourself in 5 yrs?" standard Q. Also helps you figure out your Qs.
"Explain (bits from your PhD that are easy to ask you about, suggested by the title or abstract)?"
Anything they put in the job advert, what evidence do you need in your head to explain how you suit the job. Think esp. about research methodology.

Your Qs:
Prospects for further funding (contract extension)?
Prospects for CPD?
How many other RAs in the dept, what would your desk be like physically (I hate windowless rooms, so matters to me!)

Does the RA job involve teaching or tutoring? Would you like it to?

Oh, and something about working independently, self-motivation, enthusiasm.

cheers med that's a great help, where do I see myself in five years? Would 'conducting a research project of my own' be a reasonable answer? I don't want to come across as too egotistical or having unrealistic career goals. But on the same hand don't want to be seen as an unambitious plodder.

I am an unambitious plodder. I seem to do well getting job offers .

Nk & Buffy: thanks ever so much. Extremely useful both!

Med: I am by nature a plodder but keen to conceal the fact!

how would your research contribute to generating an impact case study for next ref?

That really would be the most unfair question, for me, anyway. I've never been REFd. I'm not involved (as an RA).

how do you go about applying for funding?

Again, as an RA, I'm not allowed. I know some RAs are PIs, but mostly we are after thoughts. We may spend a lot of time putting the application together, but it's Faculty who must have vision to see it thru.

^where do you see the future of your discipline going?

• research philosophy? ^

I'm curious what a good answer to those questions is supposed to be.
Mine would be "Not a clue! but let me think"... and "Let's get it done well but hopefully also do something different."

WTF is positivism... is it poncetastic language for "evidence based"?

Colleague Prof3 is very keen to move away from evidence-based!! It's his creative new mindset ambition.

(yes I've been on the cancer causing )

I dunno, but Prof3 has put me onto reading all about X-thinking, which is very open about the huge amount that can't be known or controlled, and yes criticises reductionism as very much too restrictive for finding solutions to certain types of problems. X-thinking is supposed to suit public health problems like HIV epidemic or heroin addiction.

Problem is, NHS wants evidence-based medicine.

Here's the plus of being an RA, I don't have to satisfy the funders that their money was well spent.

More excellent tips - first thing Monday I'll get me a research philosophy!

I'd say 'leading a significant project in the field of X/being a named PI in some prestigious grant' or 'running a section of the lab'/leading a team of 5

But I'd want to hear how you plan to do that - how that emerges from what you're doing now. With evidence. I'd want to know about your 5 year planning & sense of your trajectory. What are the steps along the way & what are you doing now which will lead to the elevation to "prestigious grant" in 5 years (which is the mere blink of an eye, tbh).

I'd also want to know (or have evidence for) your own ability to evaluate & plan your own progress. I think this is an essential professional skill, but also one of the more difficult things we do.

"because academic jobs are rare as hen's fucking teeth, and this one came up now. You're probably better placed to speculate as to the temporality of our convergence in this place today, in fact. Given that you decided to advertise the post. Next!"

I've heard that answer to the "Why this job here, and now?" It's fair enough. If you can say it with some humour, or ironic recognition, most people are human & will respond.

But your answer shouldn't stop there. Yes of course jobs are scarce, but you don't want to be in the wrong place & the wrong job, any more than we want to employ someone in the wrong job, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. So do have a positive, evidenced reason for applying as well. But you know that ...

It could be the start of a productive conversation. You want the selection committee to start thinking about you as a colleague.

That,'s a good point shirking I need to break down the steps to PI-dom.

"Presumably you had one for your PhD?"

My PhD was utopian. We did whatever we liked.

I think the equivalent is "I just want to do SCIENCE. And TRUTH. And erm... where's my data... it was here somewhere..."

With a combination of events, this is my first Monday, which is normally my WFH day, at home since being off sick. In theory these should be very productive days but in practice I'm brooding a bit.

I did manage to send a mildly snotty and in fact massively toned down email to a journal editor who had for some reason unknown to anyone in the universe decided to send my article to a third party for mangling "editing" before sending to reviewers. I'd never heard of this being done before and I was so confused by what they'd done that I sat there saying "wha?" for a few weeks and then was off sick so now that's a couple of months delay before it goes to reviewers. 90% of the edits altered meaning, were purely stylistic, or messed up my reference codes, so I didn't change much anyway meaning it was a complete waste of time.