Daily Junction: Researcher Tales
Researcher Tales: the sometimes painfully honest, often humorous, sometimes too wordy, tales on any aspect of their researcher lives. If you want us to feature your blog musings please get in touch with the team.
Grumpy Young Man
Although it has had many casualties, last night I realised at a comedy gig that the recession has been great for comedians, providing a rich vein of material. One comedian joked that in the present crisis, the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, looks a bit like the weedy kid at school who wants to be on the cricket team. He is finally handed the bat, whilst every other player scarpers, knowing that the window behind him has just been broken.
I could laugh last night. This time last week, however, was one of the most stressful periods I have been through since I finished my PhD. As I blogged about recently here, I've been waiting on the (forever delayed) outcome of a job interview for an academic post. Meanwhile, my partner was about to learn whether she would be made redundant. On Friday, I finally learned I had landed the position, whilst my partner was kept on in her employment. Hence the comedy, when it could so easily have been tears.
For myself and my partner, things have worked out well, but that jest about the kid left holding the cricket bat is one that reaches towards a truth for my generation in general. Whilst people in their 40s and 50s may have made money and good homes on the rising housing ladder and stock markets, the younger generation have been left at the bottom, struggling to climb on the rungs of safe jobs and safe houses. And yet, with the windows now broken in the credit crunch, with the world warming and non-renewable resources depleting, it is the young who are expected to fix the broken environmental and financial systems that the baby boomer generation have created.
Perhaps it was with a slight sense of guilt about this that in the United Kingdom New Labour, led by its middle aged, middle England, average Joe (nee Tony), came to power in 1997. New Labour pledged to address the social, income and environmental inequalities that had been generated by Thatcherism. The engineer for this change was an echo: "Education, education, education." Labour promised to get half of school leavers into Higher Education, the reasoning being that better education leads to better paid jobs which in turn leads to a more equable society. Although I was convinced that student loans - which Labour introduced in order to fund the expansion of higher education - would be counter-productive and put the poorest students off from applying to university, and although I worried that with so many gaining degrees employers would be unable to discriminate between good and weaker graduates, at the time I agreed with the principle that university education should not be the privilege of a select few but be open to all.
However, as a recent PhD graduate emerging from my study into the present world crunched by credit and a decade from environmental disaster, I cannot help but wonder whether my generation has not been sold a bit of a pipe dream by its middle-aged leaders. Though I have enjoyed every minute of my university life, is education really going to be the panacea it was promised to be? Are degrees really the best medicine that the young can take to heal the problems created by the older generation? A report from the Higher Education Statistics Agency last week showed that a quarter of graduates are not in full-time employment three years after graduating, whilst one fifth of graduates are in jobs that do not require a degree. As the recession bites, one-in-ten graduates from the class of 2009 will still be jobseeking in six months time. This will be the first group to have paid the full £3000 tuition fees for their education. They will be the most indebted, least employed - but best educated - generation ever.
Last week, my partner and myself got lucky, though we were told that luck should not come into it: get a degree, and that safe job with good income is guaranteed. However, the statistics cited above - one in ten, one in five - tell the story that the lottery is in play for many other, less lucky but talented, graduates.
Yet what has struck me during the stress of my personal life and of the national news is how student life is very isolated from the bigger picture of economics and politics. Just as, I suspect, many of the class of 2009 are experiencing now, I feel like I have been asleep for the last seven years of academic work, and now the "real world" is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
As a dormant PhD student, although I regularly shouted at the radio news, I always felt somewhat detached from the world of economics and housing markets, which were theoretical spheres in which I did not move. After all, as a graduate researcher I lived off a small income, and was going to have to do so throughout my PhD. It was good to discuss in the pub whether nurses were underpaid or whether inflation was too high; but with a disposable income and overdraft stuck at zero, such discussions were purely abstract, irrelevant to my own life. So long as I could buy bread and milk, and heat my house, I was going to be just fine. The smug chatter about skyrocketing house prices and loft extensions discussed over bottles of Merlot across middle England passed me by. I had no chance of getting a mortgage, so house prices were irrelevant. The pensions time bomb was a bit of a damp squib; I did not even have an income, let alone the ability to divert some of it into a pot for retirement. As a left-winger, I saw income tax as unqualifiedly the best way of redistributing wealth to the poorest in society.
Now, though, as the highlight of my life is to receive a pay slip every month, the world seems a little different, and economic issues start to matter greatly. As a taxpayer, especially one whose partner works with the long-term unemployed, suddenly income tax does not seem quite so perfect an instrument of social change. As I now own a car, inflation hits me every time I pass a petrol pump. Whilst I agreed with the expansion of higher education as a student, as a graduate who chose to continue in education rather than enter work the interest on my student loan has increased by £1500 over the last few years. Last year, I managed to pay off a healthy £6 of interest, let alone any of the capital. Diversifying higher education is a great idea - but do I have to be the one to pay for it?
The economic world matters - and unlike when I was a student, this time it's personal. The comic I saw last night really did sum up the sense of bewilderment I feel. I did not make the world in which mortgages are impossible to obtain. I did not burn the carbon now clotting the atmosphere. And yet I find myself left standing in this sort of world, whilst my parent's generation looks on from behind net curtains in unmortgaged houses, hoping I am going to be able to put their mistakes right.
But my first person "I" may be a false one. I am not alone. I am one of a generation of young, talented graduates who may be in debt and out of work, but which does have an education and skills behind them. I am writing this blog at a website which hosts several thousand committed early-career researchers, studying climate change and stock market behaviour and social justice. So please, Graduate Junction members and readers of this blog, tell me to stop being so pessimistic. Tell me I'm wrong to feel resentful about the older generation. Tell me we can set things straight. Tell me I'm not holding the cricket bat alone.
Posted by Alistair Brown, 12 months ago
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What's That Over There?
From the sweetly acerbic, often hilarious musings of one "academic, hopeful" ...
"I have noticed that my recent posts have been distinctly non-academic, at least in the direct sense. I am in heavy thesis mode at the moment, thrashing out the very last of my empirical chapters. I will then turn my efforts to rewriting the history and context chapter, and then, only naturally, rewrite the introduction and conclusion as if I knew exactly what I was saying all along. Nothing to see here, really. I ride to my Department most days and sit in an open plan workspace. Otherwise, I walk a few hundred metres to my College library or else, I stay home (in College). It all depends on the type of thinking I need to do and whether I am in a focused or excitable mood.
Each day and all day, I receive emails about upcoming seminars and conferences, job opportunities, IT maintenance, washing up (drying and putting away) coffee mugs. I struggle with the habit of writing a good few sentences or paragraphs and then - instead of stretching (I have a clicky sternum from cowering over the keyboard), doing my eye exercises (it's all about varying that focal length!) or simply ploughing on - finding someone or something on the Internet to make me feel connected to something other than my new ideas or old ideas in tidy sentences and arguments. I am often confronted with Facebook status updates of fellow academic friends gloating about internships, accolades or some garden party or other. I get lost in the anxiety and find myself frantically clicking on a total stranger's Greek Island holiday. Each time I do this, something (probably sharpening my focus and seeing the strange couple in their swimwear) kicks in to make me stop and return to my work, vowing never to go back to Facebook during work hours.
Nonetheless, if I get up and walk to the Department kitchen for a drink, I then have to absorb the complaints of various students about how long a PhD takes, how the time required for academic tasks is almost impossible to predict, how ill-disciplined and/or inadequate they feel, how someone else in the Department published an article or received some research work from a Professor. The next day, sometimes the next hour, the same people offer speeches on how fortunate (and horribly selfish and without perspective) we all are. We vow to be more grateful. Often I hear myself jumping on these conversational trains or even, I admit, spearheading a theme. But, these days, I am actually quite bored of these types of conversations. I have little energy for anything that won't help me across that finish line. This aloofness is uncharacteristic. Sitting and typing is the way forward. I am writing a lot. This means my downtime, even at the Department kitchen, has to count as downtime.
By the end of the day, after I go for a walk or to the gym, feed myself, check my emails again, read, watch some BBC iplayer, read again, the last thing I feel like doing is writing an involved blog post about my day, the unremarkable bullheadedness that is academia for me right now. I trust or at least sincerely hope that once I am done with the thesis I will have whole spaces in my daily routine and brain to dedicate to more thoughtful, dynamic posts about the politics, vagaries and practicalities of academia. And I plan to get a whole lot more whingey too, possibly in that ultra dramatic, filthy tempered way that is quite the hip approach in blogland. Maybe not. I suspect having some sort of job security (there are degrees, I am aware) will lead to a blog reblossoming of sorts. I hope so.
So instead of battling on, trying to provide spiffy, insightful posts about academia, I will instead refer you to some far more keen, reflective and/or witty posts about the subject. I am hoping it will serve a 'Look over there!' and a counterweight function until I finish my thesis. Here we go. Some inspiration:
Academic Cog (2007) Dissertators, Has This Ever Happened to You
http://academiccog.blogspot.com/2007/08/dissertators-has-this-ever-happened-to.html
Academic Cog (2009) Lessons for Girls: Don't Just Ask Insist on Help (even if it makes you feel weird)
http://academiccog.blogspot.com/2009/07/lessons-for-girls-dont-just-ask-insist.html
Dr. Crazy (2009) One of My Best Qualities: Ability to Meet (Ish) Deadlines
http://reassignedtime.blogspot.com/2009/07/one-of-my-best-qualities-ability-to.html
Dr. Crazy (2009) How to Succeed in Academia Without Really Trying?
http://reassignedtime.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-succeed-in-academia-without.html
Dr. No (2009) Getting Naked
http://acadamnit.blogspot.com/2009/06/getting-naked.html
Dr. No (2009) I Got Nothing
http://acadamnit.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-got-nothing.html
Inktopia (2009) And then my Grading Pen Exploded
http://inktopia7.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/pe/
Inktopia (2008) You Might be an English Professor If...
http://inktopia.blogspot.com/2008/12/you-might-be-english-professor-if_10.html
Historiann (2009) What is Good Teaching, and How Can We Know It?
http://www.historiann.com/2009/07/22/what-is-good-teaching-and-how-can-we-know-it/#more-6397
Historiann (2009) Teaching and Tenure: What counts (and what's good?)
http://www.historiann.com/2009/07/20/what-counts-for-tenure/
Candid Engineer (2009) Irritation Yields Clarity
http://candidengineer.blogspot.com/2009/07/irritation-yields-clarity.html
Bavardess (2009) Career Angst and the Scholarly Life
http://bavardess.blogspot.com/2009/06/career-angst-and-scholarly-life.html
John Flood (2009) What is Your Research Worth?
http://johnflood.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-is-your-research-worth.html
Ok. That actually took a lot longer than planned. I intended to include around thirty as there's some excellent stuff out there. Need to stop now. Too fiddly. But if you have any favourite academia-relevant posts to share (your own or others), please do send them to me in a comment to this post. Thanks team!
p.s. Just in case there's any confusion, you're still expected to stay loyal and check my blog a few times per week. I'll still be nattering away."
*First published by Academic, Hopeful on Wednesday, 29 July 2009 http://academichopeful.blogspot.com/2009/07/whats-that-over-there.html
Posted by Candice Kay Lee, about 1 year ago
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Academic Job Interviews: A Personal Perspective
Settling into life after my PhD, and finding it now only mildly frantic, it is scary to contemplate re-entering the full pace of academic life. But that is precisely what I have been doing over the last month or so, applying for every plausible academic job that comes up in the hopes of hitting that all important first post. If nothing comes through I may be able to stay teaching part-time at my current university next year, and I have several other temporary jobs that keep the economic wolf from the door, but these are nothing compared to the long-term security an academic post would bring.
So far I have sent off six applications, and been invited for three interviews, which is not a bad success rate (though despite having a generally free summer, one interview was unfortunately scheduled on a rare day I could not do, so I had to drop out). However, interestingly, all the jobs I have been shortlisted for have been for teaching-only roles. It seems clear that the old adage about publish or perish still stands. I may have a few journal articles to my name, but it is only having a book publication that opens the door to a full academic role. And revisiting my PhD to prepare it for publication is something for which I don't quite have the stomach yet.
So what have been my experiences of the two interviews for teaching-only posts that I have just been through? As ever, my thoughts and advice to you, dear reader, are most relevant to someone interviewing in English literature, but can probably be extrapolated across subjects.
Firstly, there was an odd difference in the duration of each interview. One was an hour and a half marathon, in which the interviewers went through my CV step by step, challenging gaps in my experience, whilst also encouraging me to show how other facets might compensate for my weaknesses. The other interview, by contrast, was short, just thirty minutes. The questions were more directed, asking me to give examples of certain points where I could show I met the person specification. Additionally, the first ten minutes were occupied by a presentation I had been asked to prepare, on "The Challenges of Teaching Contemporary Fiction."
From these two experiences, I can draw the following conclusions. In the case of the longer interview, I tended to waffle, because the interview was so broad and lengthy. I may have ended up speaking a great deal, but I'm not sure I put myself across in the best possible light. I am convinced myself that I met the needs of the post, but I gave the interviewers a hard task in trying to extract the relevant pieces from my long responses, so they could connect them to the person specification. In the latter, by contrast, I knew - because I was told how short it would be from the outset - that I had to be more succinct and to the point. I spoke less, but in the thirty minutes my voice really had to work, if I was to distinguish myself from any of the other applicants.
On the other hand, I am not sure how my presentation was perceived in the second. Not knowing who would be on the interviewing panel, I decided to pitch it at a fairly colloquial level rather than with the detail of a conference paper. I tried to deliver it from memory and ad libbed at times, though in actuality I'd written a 2000 word essay to work from. I also tried to give examples of "The Challenge of Teaching the Contemporary" with reference to texts and modules on the course at that university. However, I fear I may not have been innovative enough. Candidates were asked to present "in any manner deemed appropriate." Speaking a presentation that originated on paper, to a panel who unnervingly gave little feedback other than an occasional nod, may not have portrayed a sense of my enthusiasm for teaching, or my ability to talk about texts in the spontaneous, largely unprepared way required in the classroom. But maybe there is no right way to give a presentation of this kind, and maybe, given that a successful interview depends a great deal on confidence, it is better to be over-prepared and to do a safe presentation, rather than to risk showing off and using unusual approaches on the day.
That ambiguity aside, to anyone preparing for an academic interview, the following specific advice is worth passing on. To make the interviews relevant, ensure you have the person specification at the top of your mind, so that you know precisely what the interviewers are looking for. Discoursing on the science fiction film Forbidden Planet, as I did in my first interview, may have been interesting to me as it was based on my research, but did not really demonstrate my knowledge of textual adaptations as the role required, since the film was never a book to begin with. By contrast, when one of the panel in my second interview asked how I had got a flagging tutorial re-energised, I had the example of a tutorial on Toni Morrison's Beloved at the top of my mind, which given the racial subject matter allowed me to show not only my teaching methods, but also the way in which in that tutorial I had integrated opinions of students from diverse backgrounds, which was another element of the person specification.
One factor that was common to both interviews was that although these posts were teaching-only, both nevertheless asked how my research might integrate with my teaching. Go in with a quick and easy synopsis of your research at the tip of your tongue, and do not be afraid to simplify, as if for a lay audience. It is probably not good, as I found in my first interview, to talk about obscure postmodern theories that are irrelevant to the post, and outside of the specialisms of the interviewers.
In order to show this synergy, it is important to be thoroughly acquainted with the modules you may be required to teach, so that you can point precisely to how you can match research and teaching. There may, for example, be particular texts that you have already written on, even if you have not taught them. Because an early-career academic like myself is unlikely to have taught all the books on a reading list, it is important to show how one's research has given one a confident, broad coverage of a field or period, even if not the specific works. But, even if you think that you are knowledgeable about a work that is on one of the modules, ensure that this confidence is justified. Asked about Jane Eyre, a novel I must have read tens of times and taught just six months ago, it probably did not show me in the best light that I could not remember the name of Bertha Mason, the madwoman in the attic.
On a positive note, though, I got the impression from both interviews that the interviewers were quite open-minded about the demands of teaching at university level. At this level, in discursive subjects in the arts and humanities, teaching in tutorials and seminars is definitely not about conveying information. It is, rather, about effectively stimulating, guiding, and summarising a debate amongst students, so that they are then enthused to explore the nitty gritty detail for themselves. In this context, it is not your own knowledge that matters so much as your soft skills: the ability to communicate succinctly, to be sensitive to students' differing abilities and the validity of their different opinions, to convey passion for a subject. It is not essential that you know the works to be taught intimately. In fact, this can sometimes be a negative thing, leading you to lecture to, rather than respond to, a student discussion. And, of course, if selected to teach a particular course, you have as a PhD graduate presumably got the ability to research a new topic efficiently - with courses not starting until September, both interviews made clear that there would be ample time for preparation of new texts before the start of term. Consequently, the interviews were not, as I had feared, tests of my current knowledge - In what year was Wide Sargasso Sea first published? Who won the Booker Prize in 2003? - but tests of my underlying ability to teach anything that happens to be required by a syllabus.
Responding to these perceptions would not, of course, guarantee a successful interview. It is easy to forget, when one is focused on preparing, that there may be many other candidates shortlisted for a role. However, even if unsuccessful it is always better to reflect on the outcome as being due to the fact that the panel pro-actively chose a candidate with more and better experience, rather than that they simply dropped you because your interview was so poor. On that note, I must confess: just this morning I've received a letter confirming I've not been accepted for the second post. For the first, I have to wait until the university knows its student numbers, but I'm not hopeful here, either. What I do know is that the two interviews were quite productive experiences because quite different, and next year, with more teaching and a few more articles (maybe even that first book) behind me, things could be looking up.
Posted by Alistair Brown, about 1 year ago
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