Nice new corner! Come and chat!

[NeverEverAnythingEver]

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

Thanks for the info upthread buffy, I appreciate you finding those links for me.

I've marked the blogspot "9 hour challenge" and will see if it can help me get out of the loop I'm in, with this paper.... I've diagnosed it as a cross between mis-placed perfectionism, procrastination masquerading as excessive self-administered distractions and, probably in fairness, information overload .

Having read up on the critical consciousness Wikipedia, I agree it is relevant to MN and other forums (fora?), especially the bit about:-

taking action against the oppressive elements in one's life

What if the "oppressive element" is everyone else??

No easy answer to that one, is there neverever.

I guess, break out with the gin bottle perhaps?

Can you drink gin after you've brushed your teeth?

Actually we have lots of tonic water but no gin. Must do something about that.

No drinking though. I've got to give two lectures tomorrow...

Huh. You might have to wait a long time.

I'm wondering whether to clean my teeth with gin, never. Kill two birds with one stone. Mind you I don't do spirits, they always me me a bit depressed.

What are your lectures about?

Gin would be very antiseptic so ideal for cleaning your teeth.

Has anyone joined Academia.edu or Research Gate? I joined Research Gate earlier this week in a fit of procrastination, and now I'm getting all sorts of emails about who's looking at my stuff, who followed me, suggestions I follow others, etc. I'm finding it a bit overwhelming! I don't really want to have yet another social media life.

Very annoying notifications.

Hi, its great to have this corner! I am looking forward to discussions :)

Oh, I will have to figure out how to turn off notifications.

Hello all. Nice to have a corner! Humanities person here, under major pressure to complete a shed-load of research before going on maternity leave after Christmas. Two articles and a book proposal; proposal and one article in an 'almost finished' state, and second article but a dream at this stage. So, procrastination for sure is happening here.

namechange, that all sounds very frustrating indeed. I completely empathise regarding the pull to leave. I feel like I've been coasting along for a few years now, with very little ambition or desire to push myself to the degree required for advancement. I mean, I throw myself into my teaching, I do events and talks and conferences etc, but my publications have been, well, not up to the level they should be. I changed field about four years ago, so that hasn't helped, but really I need to get a grip, or get out. My situation is slightly complicated by the fact that my position is such that while I am permanent, I cannot be promoted. I think that hasn't helped my ennui. I care about my students and my teaching, but less so about the rest of the business of being an academic.

Anyway, I've resolved to be extremely productive this semester, and go out on a high. Pomodoros ahoy.

Hello,

Soon to enter the (dismal) job market in a humanities subject. Present number of jobs available in the U.K in my field: 4. Number I can conceivably apply for: 1 (and that is a reach).

Viva on the 15th. I've been re-reading my thesis (through partly closed eyes, with a sense of mounting horror) this week. Completely aghast at the typos/formatting errors, though I suppose 25 in a 240 page document is not major. It's just very annoying, as some of them appear to have occurred when I converted word to PDF, and it is my own fault for refusing (because I couldn't bear it) to look any further. Two are in the abstract which is really annoying.

I have made a list, and already corrected them: would it be acceptable to take a corrected thesis into the viva, or is that going too far?

It's a strange feeling. I am beyond mentally ready to move on from the thesis, and want to think about extracting papers from it, and looking for jobs; but I have to spend time going over all the arguments (reasonably confident they stand up, less so about the typos!).

Hi Godstopper - just wondering, did you publish some papers as part of the process towards building your thesis? I notice you mentioned you want to extract papers from it, so I'm not sure if you have already published some stuff, along the journey, and do you mean, you will try to write more papers to extend the research (post-Doc?)

I'm still in the thick of my PhD, but trying to navigate through all the hurdles and confusion, in the hope of coming out the other side (in about 18 months) with my sanity intact (or as near as damn-it!).

All the very best for 15th by the way!!

Hiya, no papers as of yet. Hoping to extend some parts of various chapters into papers. Think prerequisite to be competitive when applying for jobs. It's a bad situation. Last lectureships at my institution got something like 300 applications, a lot of whom could do the job. Not feeling especially optimistic.

What's the PhD on? I kept alternating between loathing and enjoying my topic whilst writing. Seems to be normal experience.

Godstopper I could have written your post! Darent look at my thesis but must as viva looms. Will do papers if I can.... There hasn't been a job I can apply for since June... (When I did at least get an interview)

Oh dear, all this hasn't been helped by meeting a friend who I know through work but who it turns out has actually left academia (high earning DH so she is just taking some time out, no intention at all to go back or do any research-related work so I think she feels the pressure is off to move to anything else immediately).

Problem is, I love my research. I'm not very speedy at it and I don't churn out those papers as fast as I should nor are they hugely exciting (except to me) when they are out, and I no longer feel that newly minted PhD student burning excitement when something new that has a bearing on my research comes out, or a rush to get my paper out first.

But I'm not one of those natural caring teachers (heresy for a female academic!), it helps now we have DC for me to think "one day this will be one of my DCs", but beyond that, I'm just an old curmudgeon who harumphs at students who can't spell or organise their time. And it's OK to be a male curmudgeon, but not a female one.

And I do like research and I like finding things out and working out knotty problems.. and at my level it's hard to think what else would pay similarly too.

There's a brilliant/cynical/depressing blog called "College Misery." One of their mottos is "Why care about your students' education more than they care about it?"

I think this cuts through the "caring female academic" crap. I do care about my students to a point; but only as much as my male colleagues, and without the adoration that my male colleagues get simply for turning up to teach.

I've just been to my 'annual performance review' (although as it's only the third one in 10 years its level of annual-ness remains at question :) ) Things seemed to go well, although I feel like they were very down-downing my interest in promotion. I'm got to Senior Lecturer 5 years ago now (applied in my 4th year for promotion in my 5th), and would hope to go for Reader, which would involve absolutely no change in salary (thus no cost to the Uni). Back when I applied for SL you had to pick to go for that or Reader, although now if you go for Reader and 'fail' they might give you SL. I'm a bit annoyed about that, which came in place just the after I applied, as I would have definitely gone for Reader if they had done it that way then. I tried to get feedback on how they scored me (e.g., would I have made Reader if I'd gone for it), but didn't get any.

I said I was well aware that I need to get funding to apply for promotion, but their response was yes, and also get a few more publications, perhaps having funding for a few years first. That will take ages! And I'm actually being the most productive I have been since, actually, ever, coming out with 5 publications in the last 2 years (I was going to say since mat leave, but it truly is since ever!). There is no way I will get anything like that until a grant is nearly over and another spate of papers comes out, and that is assuming I get a new and steady crop of PhD students to work alongside it (as my last pre-mat leave PhD student just graduated). So we'd be looking another 5 years in the future at a minimum -- that would be working for 10 years at SL for a horizontal promotion (albeit with one mat leave). That seems a bit overkill to me, and I am planning to apply as soon as I get a grant, although I suppose I need my HoS support.

Those of you a little further on in your careers, what sort of track record would you expect to see for a SL to Reader promotion? I've had two post-doc carrying grants as PI, and been on two others as Co-I's. I've got 28 publications, 17 since being promoted to SL (and one more submitted). Do I really need that much more to go sideways? I figured one more PI-ship while continuing to publish papers at 2-3 per year would do. I guess I'm just a bit flabbergasted as I thought I was pretty close to Reader 5 years ago, and we still don't know if I would have made it, and to need so much more now seems hard to believe.

Although I also got a lot of useful advice and pointers to some people that I will contact to collaborate with. I left the meeting with my HoS and said how useful I'd found it; he replied by thanking me for taking things on board so calmly. I'm not even sure what to make of that -- I didn't think there was much to be calm (or excited) about! I even did tell them that I was going to come talk about promotion after I get my next grant, regardless.