PhD advice welcome here please!

[Katkins1]

I'm an undergrad in the arts. Just been offered a conditional offer of 2.1 on a PhD (to skip masters). If I can get a career development loan and p/t job, will start this year. If not, then next and go for AHRC. Or get put in for AHRC next year.

I'm quite excited about it- it's my absolute dream, and thrilled to be skipping MA (if I get the grades- which I'm scared about, a LOT). I'm being a realist, single Mum so I know will be hard (have to work, pay my own way), but I'm so happy about it. I really want to be a lecturer and it's so exciting.

I'm determined to it; so can anyone give me practical advice- where to look for academic jobs and so on? And what to expect , please? I'm prepared to wait until next year to do it, though I'd like to start this year if I can. Considering part time too.

Teaching is getting increasingly competitive. I think something like ten years ago, it was fairly normal to go from an arts/humanities PhD straight into a permanent job, whereas now it is not, so you're not just competing against other students for teaching experience, you're competing against people who've finished PhDs but are teaching to keep CVs open or just to earn money. Where I am, they would not possibly employ someone straight out of undergrad to teach, because they have a surplus of people competing for those jobs and they can pay them all the same.

I agree that you wouldn't have some random just graduated person to teach. But OP is.in Drama, and it is.possible.to get teaching off the back of your practice - offer workshops from your latest project or be asked to teach a specific kind of training practice. Most Drama undergrad courses have module which need to make a show and you can be asked - off the back of your practice - to direct or facilitate a devised show because they want to offer a specific form or genre you have experience in. It happened to me and all the departments I know have a lot of contacts like this to deliver say a physical theatre production or a devising project. Work on your practice, OP. Because there are a load of people who can do the academics but you need to combine that with an ability to produce practical work that is critically engaged.

The PhDis in exactly what you just said sparky. I run workshops in schools and with arts forums all of the time :)

I took them my practice project. I think that's why the PhD appealed to me it's practice based research- you get a lot more for your tuition fees, if you see what I mean.

My uni is small, no AL's and no researchers/ big projects. I'm the only one who actually wants to be an academic from my year.

That sounds good - you need to get these workshops going in the institutions you want to work in - Universities - because that's how you'll get the AL stuff. If your practice can be used to get funding into the Uni - say by connecting a particular audience to the Uni for which you could get independent funding, you'd be an attractive prospect for a department. Work on your practice and leave the PhD until you could make a living from the practice. You're more likely to get funding that way and could in any case support yourself with the practice should none come your way.

A bit late to this thread but I just wanted to sound a note if caution about taking out a career development loan: even if you can get one for an arts masters or the first year of a PhD (which isn't normally the case), it's not usually possible to defer repayments in the sane way that you can on conventional u/grad student loans - the repayments normally start immediately the year finishes, so bear that in mind when planning what you want to do afterwards.

Sorry for typos - on phone!

Katkins you've posted quite a lot about frustrations & difficulties with your UG course. You seem to have quite extreme swings of feeling about your course & studies. I think a year out of formal education (at least), and in the work place would be a very good thing.

From what you've said in here, I'm pretty sure I know where you are (indeed, I suspect I taught at least one of your tutors). If it's I think it is, it's not in my opinion the place to do a PhD if you want an academic job afterwards. It isn't research-active in its institutional profile, although a couple of the people teaching you are individually good (others are dire, but that's another thread). And if an institution isn't properly research active, it's actually difficult to develop a research culture for staff and research PGs. How many of the books for your courses are written by the people teaching you very day? Because at all the places I've taught, our students are engaging with the people who've written the books ... But in post-92 universities, this is much rarer. It doesn't mean you're not being taught well, by good people, just that there's no sustained & developmental research culture. Unfortunately, turning polys into universities actually destroyed what polys were good at, but didn't fund them to be proper universities.

And re creative practice: I'm afraid contrary to Sparklyboots' advice, I've worked in places where Departments have employed part-time or hourly-paid creative practitioners. The people in demand were experienced, had quite a long careers of professional practice, their own theatre companies, for example, drawing in Arts Council funding, or they'd earned their livings as practitioners, not simply fresh out of an UG course. Which suggests another reason for spending some time earning your living before you go on to an MA and PhD.

And at RG universities where I've worked/am working I'm afraid we rarely award funding (either AHRC or equivalent University studentships) to someone already registered in a PhD. At one institution, we were also pretty tough about part-time PhD enrolment. It was discouraged in the first year, and a candidate really needed to show how they would make the real time available to pursue a PhD. This is a tough policy, but I could see the rationale: self-funded PhDs are the worst for completion rates. Now the Research Councils have an unrealistic aim of all PhDs completed in 3 years (I think they really need 4 years)

The thing is, a PhD is nothing like undergrad study. Really nothing like it. Which is why doing an MA is a good stepping stone. And if you can upgrade your UG qualification by doing an MA at a research-intensive university, you'll stand a better chance of successful PhD study. And you'll get a better sense of what the research world is actually like.

I think we are saying pretty much the same thing UptheChimney - I'm saying leave the PhD too, and pointing to a realistic way for the OP to realise her long term goal to be an academic. I'm just less doomy in the way I'm saying it, ha ha.

OP, everything UptheChimney says is good advice. The reality is you won't be able to 'become an academic' by doing the PhD you've been offered in this context. Develop your practice and start the PhD once you are established (if you still want to). You do need to do a PhD at some stage but you should think of it as part of what you have to do to be an academic and not a passport into academia. The rest is stuff you can start doing now - building your practice, looking for opportunities based on what you can do, and looking to expand your experience and knowledge of your specialist area. There will come a point where the PhD is the next obvious step and you should easily find a funded place in a research active institution if your practice is good and you have developed an expertise in your area. But it won't be next academic year!

Up the chimney, thanks for the advice. I don't think you know where I am from what you have posted- if you do know, though, can you keep it confidential that you have talked to me, please? If you said 'one DD' , my tutors would know straight away! Oh, and the PhD thing, it would be so obvious. I have sort of said things about my life on here I'd rather people in RL don't. I've not been offered a PhD where I presently am though (they have no research profile);somewhere else.

I think how I'm feeling about my studies depends on how I'm feeling about myself, and having recently had a bereavement, I think that's effected my mood quite a lot. I think upthread I explained how much I was still coming to terms with trauma, too. From that perspective, I think a year out is a good option.

Most of my tutors are ace, and my supervisor is incredibly supportive. She also happens to be very, very good in her field and quite lovely. I do wonder though, what are the chances of finding another supervisor like that- should I run in to problems mental health wise? Even at work, that idea worries me. I'm only just coming out of quite a haze of depression. I do love my studies (so passionate and committed); but all of the things I have read here share my thought process and doubts.

You don't want a supportive supervisor.

It sounds odd, I know. But for a PhD, you don't - not the way you do for undergrad. You want someone who pushes you and simultaneously makes you feel you don't need them. Of course, she might be like that for her PhDs!

But don't worry too much about whether you'd ever find another supportive supervisor, because it doesn't need to be an issue. That's my first point.

Second one: forgive me, I may be over-identifying here (and I was never especially brilliant like you), but I think if you find that, in the middle of all the mental health stuff, the research is what makes you feel calm and focussed, then even if you choose not to do the PhD and to stop at a MA, even if you do the PhD and don't go into academia, then it may still be a really good experience.

Doing a PhD is, in theory, bad for mental health. I forget the statistics but I think it's more usual than not to be diagnosed with depression at some point, and if you have a history of it you might feel it's a scary prospect. But then, if you are someone who already has a history of depression, and this is something that makes you feel positive, then there should (IMO) be ways to proceed such that you don't risk too much, and don't have to give up.

There must be lots of ways you could keep doing things, like this library job or like drama workshops, which would look good in the context of a PhD but which would also give you the chance to walk away without it ever being obvious you'd been staking everything on getting into academia. And then if the worries about mental health did catch up with you, it shouldn't affect your CV too much, whereas if you found these things helped your mental health, you'd be cumulatively building up a good academic profile?

If it's a toss up between the kind of supervisor who might come out with the kind of gems quoted here and someone supportive, I know which I'd choose.

LRD I'm determined not to sign on , that's the thing! I have decided to just defer both places and work and save up, make a proper decision in a few months time, when I've been away from academia. I might change my mind, and it's a big commitment.

It's not unheard of for people to take a year out. I think having being diagnosed with PTSD during the course of my studies, and a recent bereavement, maybe I do need time to process these really personal things before moving on to more education. The way I am thinking now, I'd welcome a break and an opportunity to start with a fresh/ less cluttered mind at PG. My tutors have been lovely, but in the midst of depression , I have disclosed things I should not have and got too personal. That was very healing and helped me immensely at the time, but perhaps I need to go my own way a little now.

This thread has helped me to see that, so thank you for that. It's not just about my studies (I won't get any less clever in a year out), it's just my well-being is important, too.

My studies do keep me sane, but it's not the only thing in my life, if you see what I mean. I have other things that keep me supported and grounded. I'd just like time to go to the theatre/ read/ take a holiday/ have a weekend to myself before I embark on a huge amount of study again. I think I might invest in some specialist trauma counselling, too. Have been thinking this a while, but at present, just don't have time.

Some of those are awful. If you're on twitter 'academicablism' as a hashtag is getting a lot of comments, too.

I don't think anyone should have to choose between the two, though. I think it's awful if someone who knows they have mental health issues feels constrained to choose someone 'supportive' of that. I could rant here, but I won't.

What I was trying to get at was, simply, that the OP shouldn't need to feel worried about finding someone as supportive as her undergrad mentor, because she might still have a great experience with someone who was not so obviously 'supportive' but who had her interests at heart. See, I don't think encouraging someone to go from undergrad to PhD is supportive. However nicely it's done.

kat - oh, yes, loads of people take time out! Best of luck with it all.

Certainly lots of people take time out. Indeed, they often write better PhD proposals having had some time away from study. That's where doing an MA, then taking a couple of years out, might be a good plan -- get you on the way, but in increments.

And of course I'd never talk in an identifiable way about anything I read on here. For one thing, it would out me!

LRD it's interesting what you say about what is "supportive" I warn my PhD students that doing a PhD can ruin their lives but also make them. It's a huge thing and it changes you -- although a lot of PhD candidates don't expect this. They expect their PhD to change the world. Unless you're Witgenstein, it rarely does, but you changes.

I'm very wary of any academic who thinks they can counsel as well (unless they're in that field, of course!) -- sometimes academic support can be about referring on, or about being very businesslike & professional. It may seem tough, but if I don't make it clear what a PhD candidate has to do to complete successfully, I am not being supportive. I'm indulging myself, TBH, in making me feel I'm "wonderful" instead of doing my job.

Academia is unusual in the way it asks for a personal as well as professional commitment, and we need to be very careful about dealing with those blurred lines.

If it's a toss up between the kind of supervisor who might come out with the kind of gems quoted here and someone supportive, I know which I'd choose

The problem is, that sometimes people treat study/university as a form of therapy, and as a way of affirming self-worth. It really isn't.

That is probably because I can't spell (always a good skill for a PhD). C&P gives #AcademicAbleism.

upthe - interesting to hear how you put it.

I was simply thinking that it gives you such a confidence boost to get to know someone whose judgement you can trust to be impartial, and who gives you regular feedback. Because you then feel secure about what is good and what is not. I am sure many people who are supportive with their undergrads are rigorous and scary with their PhDs, though! I just mean the OP might interview with someone who didn't come across as supportive, but who was actually the right person.

Double posting, but, as supervisor responses go:

'This chapter is very good, and considering you are currently having a very bad time with depression, it's excellent' sounds supportive, but gives you no useful guidance whatsoever.

'This chapter is very good, but x and y could be improved' is actually far more useful.

'This chapter is not great, and x and y could be improved' is harsh, but in terms of factual content, not dissimilar to the previous option, and might be more honest.

'This chapter is terrible and it's probably because you've wasted time/This chapter is terrible [and I won't even acknowledge your depression]' is unacceptable and shitty.

There is a big range and IME the first option is actually as unhelpful as the last - you don't want them to make allowances for you if those won't help in the long run. That's just my experience though.

But buffy, you are great and you are going to get there. Very soon.

Agree with lots of others on this thread that the funding and jobs situation in arts/humanities academia is absolutely in crisis at the moment. I have friends and colleagues with undergraduate Firsts, distinctions at Master's level, PhDs from Oxbridge, several years' teaching and lecturing experience, a monograph with a good university press and a full slate of REF-able publications who are struggling to get jobs at the moment. Not to be too doomy but things are pretty desperate in the job market at the moment.

So I would never advise someone to self-fund or take in debt to do an arts PhD. Getting yourself into a position where you are competitive for AHRC/other funding is essential - not least because later on, when applying for jobs, search committees are looking to see that you had AHRC or other funding on your CV. To get an academic job, too, universities are looking for what you could teach for them - not just in the narrow area of your PhD research, but more broadly - and doing a Master's before the PhD gives you a broader base for later on, as well as more specific and general research skills training.

I think certain types of research practice can be therapeutic. But I don't think getting a PhD is one of them

I think perhaps I stated it too bluntly -- I don't think one should go into any sort of formal non-compulsory education as therapy. It may be therapeutic, but that shouldn't be your aim.

LRD -- excellent points, well-made.

My standard one is "This draft hasa lot going for it. What came out of it for you? What will you do about X and Y"

But I am a tough scary bitch.