Academics Chat Thread

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I believe the old Chat thread has fallen off the front page of this section, and I thought it might be time to reinstate it. I know it's only sporadically useful, but sometimes it's nice, right?

I am a lowly postdoctoral English Lit type. Finished my PhD in 2014, teaching associate for a couple of years, and now part-time while DD is a baby. I'm currently working frantically to get my book manuscript to the publisher by my deadline (October), and also trying to regain enthusiasm for the job market.

Who else is lurking around here?

Hello! I'm a second-year PhD student in the sciences. Was firmly in the middle of a second-year slump earlier in the summer and got some very valuable advice from wise MN-ers (and my incredibly supportive supervisor) which helped! I'm currently 6 mo pregnant so getting quite tired and looking forward so badly to my mat leave. But in the middle of running a study. Another week or so to go, and then I'll only have data analysis and writing to do for the next 3 months.

Have decided to stop thinking about post-PhD life and just try to crack on with the next few months and then take stock after mat leave since otherwise everything is too overwhelming. I'm in my mid-thirties almost and feeling ancient compared to peers.

Godstopper I'm doing the same this year. I am saying 'NO' all over the place and feeling much happier. It feels like a completely different start to the year than I'm used to. There is no sense of dread for once.

Hello!
I'm an old lag too. SL in a STEM subject, mainly not lab-based.

Am just finishing up a sabbatical (sob) and trying to submit a grant plus a daughter-of-grant (the "why not submit it elsewhere if you have it written" type thing.)

Also trying to write a book which is a manual for a method we have developed, so it should be short and sweet but is in fact horrendously complicated, with my collaborators telling me "but we DO have that data, we collected it" and me trying to bite my tongue and say "well you may have collected it but YOUR RA LOST IT owing to the fact that they don't think record keeping is important".

Have submitted 2 grants so far this sabbatical, but totally failed to write any new papers. Though one old paper was submitted to a different journal and should be coming out soon.

On here, people are always saying they are getting 4 publications. In our last review, everyone's papers were downgraded and people were getting 1's and 2's including people who previously had 4 in the last REF! It's a nightmare, I don't know whether they are over-estimating, under-estimating, if I'm facing the wrong panel anyway (that's a certainty) but it is very worrying when your promotion or job tenure is tied to this completely subjective and rather arbitrary process.

Gah a post I wrote last night didn't load it seems. Prob not a bad thing as perhaps a bit moany. I'm just back to at my desk after two blissful weeks off and it's taken me three days to recover a bit of mojo. Holidays are tiring basically!

I don't think I'd get my job now (got a lectureship 7 yrs ago). My portfolio is quite thin for a SL (due to 3 x mat leaves in 5 yrs) and doesn't seem to match up to the many papers and grants people on here have but without permanent jobs necessarily. Academia seems to be getting tougher. I'm also wondering if I'm living in a bubble because I don't feel that much pressure, except from my own frustration at my slow progress.

That last sentence makes it sound like I'm living in some academic paradise or that I'm being smug. It's not that. It's more that I've learnt a lot from this mumsnet board about how tough some academic settings are. We have all the REF and TEF talk at my uni, but it's to the group and there haven't been threats or unrealistic personal targets. I do think though that I'm so engrossed in my own stuff a lot of the time, and not very senior anyway, that I miss stuff (e.g. TEF!)

Yoga I'm in a similar environment, where at the moment, the main target setting is to get promotion, not just to keep our jobs. There are plenty of people who have been sitting at SL level for a decade or more for this reason and are unlikely to move much. This is actually not a bad thing for the uni, as most people who can move up have moved up and we are very top heavy.

I don't want to sit at SL forever! But I think my dpt may have written me off a bit due to young kids, even if no one has said so and people are generally nice. It's up to me really so show that I want to go places really and start doing some extras. But I can't do anything until I finish the monograph I'm working on now (and have been since time immemorial...)
I'm going to finish the current section this week (writing it here as a promise to myself)

FaFoutis: Saying "No" will almost certainly cost me career wise, but I no longer care. I owe nothing to institutions that, rather than help ECR's, see fit to exploit them. I also don't think that academia is the only way of doing my subject, and indeed, I'd go as far to say that it may even stifle the original thinking that my discipline prizes.

I don't think many established academics in my discipline would get their jobs in the current climate (someone who sees fit to teach one module a year - travelling in from 200 miles away - and has published twice since 2007 immediately comes to my mind). These are the same people who make noises about people "failing" when they leave. Bizarre.

It's a good feeling knowing I've got the means to engage with what I find interesting and not be beholden to arbitrary assessments. I really don't think my mental health is up to it, and I come first.

Hey, thanks LRD for starting this. Was just coming by to see if there was an Academic Chat thread live, to ask how looming start-of-semester is going for everyone!

As a brief intro: I'm a SL in STEM, married to an ex-academic in Humanities (posted a lot about his end-of-PhD issues some years ago - he's now just slightly over a year into running his own business). I'm slowly coming to accept a self-definition of 'disabled' due to chronic illness, although I still fight against my limitations and feel like I should manage more, but am also realising that actually accepting limits can result in more productivity as I can realistically plan and make optimum use of my ability, rather than being overly optimistic and playing catch-up.

Students are showing up soon, and I'm currently enjoying a change of responsibilities - if anyone remembers, after much angst, I ended up applying for then not getting a central admin position, but in the process decided to swap out my main teaching admin load within the dept for another one. Feels a bit odd, because while this one was advertised as lower work (I have yet to see that realised...), I'm actually in a position of a bit more authority -- I hadn't quite realised how many staff I'd be telling what to do when I agreed to it!

On the research side... sigh. Will also try not to moan...(too much). I've submitted 5 grants this year - 2 rejected early on, and just got back from holiday to another two rejections. Only one left. I don't know what I'm doing wrong - all had been read by multiple colleagues, changed, and read again - all were collaborations, including two major international ones with much bigger names than me on it.

I feel like I've fallen down some kind of research black hole and can't crawl back out. I even had nightmares last night about getting grant rejections full of "applicant has done nothing of significance recently"(forgot about those dreams until just now!).

bigkids: 3 4* papers!! Woah. That sounds massively stressful.

While I'm feeling down about my research, I'm incredibly grateful that I've got a permanent position - and everything I hear suggests my Uni is particularly good about recognising teaching (in a comparative way), so I am happy to also spend effort on my teaching roles knowing that it is appreciated.

I'm a post-92 SL (so lecturer then, with no possibility of promotion because we have no grades between this and reader) in the social sciences. I am also disabled due to chronic illness (which led me to leave an RG job with a commute to drown in teaching here without a commute).

I'm worrying more about having actual papers, never mind their star rating. I've just had two back from review: one with the most minor of minor corrections and the other with change everything and then we'll want more changes revise and resubmit. I need to pull myself together and get on with the revisions. :/

I'm dreading the semester starting up again. I keep trying to be positive but 3 years of teaching here has made me quite misanthropic. I've had to admit to myself that I really intensely dislike working with bottom set year 9 the kind of disengaged and unwilling students who opt for the programme I work on. There are a minority who are fine, but I'm utterly fed up with classes of students who aren't interested in anything and strenuously object to any suggestion that they'll have to do some work and learn something. So far this semester I've managed to avoid any seminar teaching in order to alleviate my misanthropy. But, honestly, I don't know how much longer I can do it.

We end up with absurd amounts of teaching and admin, which leaves no time for research. My confidence as a researcher is utterly shot, but I know the only way out of this is to publish. Urgh.

I'm sitting in the cafe at the beach while DS2 has a surfing lesson this morning and thinking that I'd much rather be a surfing instructor! not that I can surf

I'm always kind of edgy before the teaching term starts, don't know why. I've been teaching for years and can do it blindfold, so have no idea why I'd be a bit nervous, but I just prefer it when things get going.

Me too summer. Edgy is a good descriptor.

Another day at work 9-5 trying to get my paper done. Progress is glacial and now I've promised the DC no more Saturdays working until Christmas I guess it will become super-glacial

Well done bigkids on both counts. I struggle with weekend working too. I think necessary due to work load (should not be) but so hard with a family. Good luck with paper progress.

I'm really trying to cut back on weekend stuff. Just read Thrive and it really made me think. Easier said than done though ... maybe no working Sundays

What is Thrive?

Evening all. I'm a recent recruit into academia, in my first year as a lecturer (education) - a teaching fellow by any other name. I've moved from industry so have no research experience at all. I'm supposed to be starting a part time PhD, but I'm having trouble finding a topic - there isn't much established research in my field in my institution.

I'm also 9 weeks pg with my first, and am trying to wrap my head around what to take for maternity. 9 months would have me coming right back to teaching 2 modules, but 12 months is a long time. Not sure what I want.

The pregnancy is also delaying me discussing research with my boss, as I feel I can't really discuss my plans until he knows I'll be going on maternity. Feeling a bit up in the air, but at least I'm not teaching this semester.

Hi!

Do you have to go straight back to teaching, or can you be protected from a full load for the semester following mat leave?

Could you possibly take eg 10 months and have two months working on your PhD before teaching starts?

Hello all, I am an old lag here too. 10 years at new uni, moved to RG last year, social sciences

I'm not sure bigkids - I know lecturers do get a semester off teaching, or at least a reduction, on return. But as I'm in a teaching role (even though I count as research active due to the PhD) I'm not sure if that will be the case. All things I need to figure out.

Helloooo. SL equivalent in humanities at a uni in foreign parts, whence I boggle at the madness of the UK system.

Thrive - sorry if it makes you question an academic career

www.amazon.co.uk/Thrive-Redefining-Success-Creating-Happier/dp/0753555425/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504994290&sr=1-1&keywords=thrive+arianna+huffington&tag=mumsnetforum-21

I have never worked all weekend though, if I work a weekend day it's one day, say 9-2pm with my husband taking care of the children (or them lying in bed these days) and that's it. I do that when I'm marking/have to write, otherwise no. I've never done the very long hours that lots of academics seem to work. That's probably why I'm slower to produce outputs!

I try not to do any busy work at the weekend - only paper or grant writing. I don't look at emails really. But I leave early during the week to see the DC so I don't mind really