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.

Up weirdly in my department the trend has been the other way - there were a lot of women in the department up until the late 90s, but since a wave of retirements then the department has reverted to being more and more male dominated. I have a private theory that there was a period from the 70s-90s which was actually quite a good time for women in my field, because the job was a little more compatible with having children/letting your career lie fallow for a few years the picking it up again. Since the advent of the RAE/REF culture in the 90s the department be ane very masculinist in culture, and there has not been one hire in my department of a woman who already has children (all the women who have got posts were childless when appointed and most have remained so). Obviously that's just my institution, but it's very striking in my department, highly frustratingly so!

*became

Is it maybe the case that there've always been people who give you a rose-tinted version of their experience, and/or who sail through?

I know people who've finished this year, doing a PhD in three years, getting a lectureship straightaway, enjoying lovely conversations with friendly supervisors while pondering the meaning of life. Those people must always have existed. I do an excellent line in voodoo dolls for this reason (kidding).

I think this is a problem that the OP's new plans will probably help her steer around.

Hmmm I think my decisions are depending lots of factors, if I'm honest. Overall tiredness (I am terrified I won't pass my undergrad as there's still so much for me to in a short space of time), confidence and whether or not I can cope with so little money.

I am pretty sure a good offer will still stand next year.

I've had 2 hours sleep last night and after I've tidied up and put DD to bed will probably have the same tonight. I feel absolutely awful, and am asking myself, however talented, whether I will be happy to do this for another 3 years right now.

It wouldn't be more of the same, though. So it depends why you're tired, if you see what I mean?

If you find it's tiring constantly reading up on things only to write a short essay, or constantly splitting your focus over lots of different subjects, then IMO you're tired of being an undergrad!

Sorry to be extremely obvious but you've seen the GP about the sleep issue?

Katkins I always tell my own students that the value of some time between undergrad and postgrad study can't be too highly rated - that psychological break is invaluable for making clear decisions about graduate work and future directions. And most universities offer a delayed PhD start in January too, if you want to keep your options open on the current offer - you could find out if they would be prepared to do that?

Buffy it sounds like you have done really amazingly to get so close to completion in that time! Only 8k off is fantastic! Just keep going...

I am tired of splitting my time, and at this level its getting the work done (last chapter of dissertation and referencing needs doing, plus one 3,000 word essay and a presentation). I'm tired of the workload and it's relentless towards the end. I'm a bit tired of worrying about failure too.

I did wonder about January too, and I know there's a round of scholarship for MA at another uni (close to home) coming up soon- they would probably snap me up with two offers like that, let's be honest!

But them it depends whether I really, really don't just want a break!

LRD the sleep issue is because I stayed up trying to finish chapter 2 of my dissertation (I managed it - 1,500 words to go until the end, it's due May 28th). It's an incredible amount of work we have right now, plus DD. I'm catching up from bereavement in January, too, so I feel as though I've been doing twice everything.

Oh, I'm with you now. Of course you're tired!

I asked because I know people who loved undergrad because they got to chop and change from subject to subject, and they did that well. But then some of them hated the idea of working on one thing.

I guess in a really clumsy way what I am trying to say is that if you really enjoy research, it shouldn't feel like work all the time and it will actually relax you. I think? Maybe I am very naive.

I don't like the changes from subject to subject- I do really well at very specific things (research suitable, I would have said!).

It's an exhausting time coming to the end of undergrad. My assignments are 2nd, 13th, 15th and 28th May. I feel very unprepared.

Just to tell you all that I got the arts contract . It's a very small freelance fee (not wages really); but it is a lovely thing to be doing. I am going to be co-ordinating a local arts project, and delivering a scheme of work.

I'm so very pleased, it really will help me to have contacts in the local arts, with funders, artists and so on. I will be developing my practice through that, and I'm going to apply for a funded MA this year-deadline soon.

Great news, well done. Many people struggle to find actual paid work in their discipline straight out of Uni so you are ahead of the curve. Just keep plugging away and it will suddenly be that you have a career!

Thank you. I am a bit overwhelmed though; so many decisions and things happening all at once that I can barely keep up....and writing what feels like the most complex dissertation ever... though I'm sure it's not.

I agree with UptheChimney. Very important is her section on peer reviewed publications and a book. I hold a PhD and I had an ac job. Have a good supervisor - I had 3 good supervisors - I never changed them - and perhaps this gave me a view of different approaches. Getting the PhD is work and commitment - doable.

There is competition in academic jobs from outside UK as well. Having supervisors with a record of latest research and publications and being in a research intensive place is - in my opinion - the important step.

Congratulations!

I spoke to my lecturers- they all agree a year out is a very good idea; I will contact the uni soon, and defer it. I'm really struggling with my undergrad right now (really); so I'm not sure I will male the grade, never mind anything else.

I am always interested in academics and threads like this. They are all as bright as women in the professions and the city but I wonder what they get out of it, why they do it? It doesn't seem an easy life at all and the money is so much worse than other things. I can understand the academic pull - I write books relating to my subject and give talks on it in the UK and abroad but that's as a side line and I get paid for it. So what pulls women into it in the first place?

Is it because it's the logical next thing to do if you adore your subject and want to keep researching? Is it like a teenager going into teaching because they know teachers because they are at school so it seems to be career which is visible to students whereas they may not know or have considered other options? It seems to be very difficult and takes the brightest people but not for much reward. Would that sum it up? You then have to spend a lot of time dealing with students some of whom don't want to be there or aren't that keen some of the time too and then all those politics. I think I remember 20 years ago reading some novels (Bradbury?) about promotions and university in fighting which sounded like the disagreement and personal difficulties you get in convents too, worse than in ordinary offices perhaps?

I think that's an interesting question.

This is probably quite personal, but bits of it apply across the board. I am sure there is an element of thinking 'well, I'm good at this so why not carry on', of course. And personally, I did my PhD because they paid me and no-one else was offering me a job. But I'm not sure I agree with you that anyone who is 'bright' could do anything.

You've got to remember that being 'bright' is actually not that important in any career. You may need a certain basic level, but much more, you need the talent in the right area. I'd be a terrible city banker (for example)! And, equally, the brightest student in my master's programme completely bombed after just a few months doing a PhD - he dropped out and he's now a lawyer, which suits him much better. The skills are not all the same.

For me, what I love about it is that I genuinely enjoy what I do, and I feel so privileged. I get to handle thirteenth- and fourteenth-century books, which you'd see under glass at a museum, on a daily basis. I get to feel I'm contributing to something, which won't just last for a little bit but maybe for generations. It is so exciting when you pick up a book made in, say, 1300, and you know that (all things being equal), it'll still matter long after you're dead.

I also enjoy teaching. I am very new to all of this (I've only just passed my PhD), but teaching is actually great. I've had some really lovely students. Including ones who were struggling quite a bit - and I got to feel that maybe I made a bit of a difference. Looking at my own teachers, I know they made a huge difference. So you feel you're actually helping people, contributing to society as well as getting on with individuals.

Thanks to both. I understand what you are saying. You probably have more freedom than an NHS consultant who is bossed around by less intelligent hospital managers making silly decisions for examples and certainly less than in hierarchical City type professions at least in the first 10 years. I certainly was not trying to put anyone off doing what they love. I love what I do and I wish more women picked careers they love.

Don't worry, you certainly didn't come across as trying to put anyone off, I didn't think.

I am still too junior to know, but I know lecturers do complain about the lack of freedom and I know a bit about some of the pressures that do make it less than fun. But I also know people who've been academics for twenty, thirty or fifty years who still love it, so they must be doing something right!