Hi Cobweb, not hiding under the tree, just cowering under the prospective weight of the 80ish essays it look like I'll be marking between new year office opening and the start of teaching, due to various hiccups: that's about 2 weeks to mark 80 of 'em, and the usual teaching stuff! Fandabbydozy, dontcha just love teaching in HE.

I've been really busy socialising, marking, swimming getting my phone fixed, in addition to general panic about marking, non action in the PhD department and fiscal matters - I did start a decadently moany thread, but only two people responded. I have no tree yet, the decs will go up this weekend, but here, have a mince pie anyhow

Stressed, congratulations on your up-grade, that's brilliant. 
(mince) my smilie will only go here, must be working to rule.

Well done on the upgrade, Stressed! And it's great that they were saying such great things about your academic future; recently my favourite historian (!) said something similarly morale boosting to me after a talk (she said I would 'go far' and offered to write references for me!). I was walking on air for about a week after (she is a REALLY big name in modern Brit cultural history). Sadly, though, I still have to finish the thesis... reality bites.

Speaking of which, I am on my last chapter! Yay! Just wish I could get a bit more work done before Christmas. The mulled wine is calling and working is getting harder and harder! (robin) But if I'm to submit in July (the current plan) I will have to do some more serious writing next week. Solidarity to all our humanities chums!

Hope every one had a relaxing Christmas. It's quite nice to be able to just put your feet up and do nothing for a while.
I'm really excited about starting this new year. I had a meeting with my supervisor a couple of days before xmas, and he was so positive about my ideas, so I can't wait to just crack on with it now. It's gonna be a super busy year.
I love it when it's like that. All the best work comes out when it gets closer to the deadlines.

Anyway, I'm rambling, so I'm gonna go now, but have a bloomin' good one this new years eve! (up)

Is it a common thing to get research jobs in humanities straight after doing an undergrad? I know the science people get opportunities like that, but what about us? Do they prefer to only employ those with a research/taught masters or phd first coz it shows experience?

I would love to get a research job right now because a) I would feel like a real academic person and would put my future into perspective a little bit more, and give me a taster of what it's gonna be like, b) looks good on the cv and gets me on the ladder, and c) I wouldn't have to do scummy p/t jobs that couldn't be any more unrelated to my interests. How do you find these research opportunites though? Also, is there much chance of getting a research job even if the topic/subject has nothing to do with your own subject area?

I've come to join you! My research is in education, but I'm not concentrating of teachers - even though one of the people who read my original proposal thought that was what it would be about... and suggested that was what I should be doing. Mind you this is the person who said I needed to define what a laboratory was (?). I'm pulling in bits from all sorts of areas (I have good old Aristotle in my methodology chapter - sounds like some kind of invasion doesn't it!) at the moment I'm buried deep in the realms of business and labour theory and trying hard to get chapter two finished and cut down to size, its way too big at the moment, but it is hard to leave anything out. Its one of the fundamental building blocks of knowledge that are needed to understand what I am on about, but I keep on finding refs to stuff I know nothing about, which is bad, but when I can see an article that looks like it is just what I need, and then I find it isn't available, that's a lot worse :-( I know I could order it, but that takes time, and it might not be as good as it looks, so i tend not to bother. The aim is to get a rough chapter sorted out to send to supervisor on Friday, keeping fingers crossed there! after that its some data analysis - and the dreaded lit review, I'm still not sure what to put in that, I'm sure it's harder to decide what to put in here than it is in the sciences  :$

*sigh* So much reading... I'm getting to the point now where everying I'm reading is all mushing together. I don't have time to go back though - Pants.
I'm making notes in the book as I go along, so hopefully it won't be too painful. :$



Did you manage to get your chapter done by friday Joyce? I would love to be able to work that fast.

Hope all is well for everyone
x

On the subject of working fast, in writing my statement for upgrade my supervisor told me to make a schedule of exactly how I'm going to spend the rest of my funded time (I'm 3.5 months into my second year). She said it could be fictional but obviously I really want to try and finish within the 3 years if at all possible. Actually writing everything out though proved absolutely terrifying! I can just fit it all in hypothetically it seems but my third year will be crazy! I can possibly buy myself a bit more time by getting lots done next term and in the summer, but this term I'm lecturing (I've only taught seminars in the past) so that's going to add pressure. I'm trying not to feel panicked... :$

Hi everyone! Can I join!? I'm doing my PhD in French literature and have only just discovered this forum - what another excellent means of procrastination and distraction! I'm going through a writing phase at the moment. Does anyone else find they go through fits and starts where they get loads done for a couple of weeks then hardly do anything at all in the next few? I used to get really anxious about this, but now I just go with the flow and accept that it evens itself out over time. I also have to alternate quite a bit between reading and writing as I get bored of reading very easily (not exactly a good sign!).
Hope everyone is plodding along ok!

Hi!

I'm glad to have found this thread as the vast majority of the others are science etc!

I'm hoping to start a p/t PhD in October in film and cultural studies and I wanted to ask if anyone else started their PhD p/t and what kind of workload was expected from them in their first year?

Thanks!!!