Good luck with the feedback.

jojo, you are serious about this arent you

simuzosha - no comment.
jouri - thanks.

am just about to go to sleep. not really looking forward to the hard slog after feedback. it's been a great two weeks of not thinking about my thesis. have to be up early tomorrow to go for medical tests at the hospital. i really hate needles!! hopefully get some time to look at the paper again. am really struggling to write this paper partly because its not in my specific research area. anyway.. no excuses, i need as many publications as i can to get a job. i was sitting tonight thinking.. ' what jobs to PhDs do?' apart from academia. i sometimes think it would be sad to get a PhD and just be an academic and never 'change the world'. there's got to be more out there.

What is everyone else planning to do with their PhD?

anyway, lets see what tomorrow brings.

What to do with the PhD? I want to work for a big NGO helping improve humanitarian policy and practice... I want to write books about politics and humanitarianism... I want to do pottery! Defo don't want to go into academia!

sounds likely exactly what i want to do in the long term; get involved in policy formulation and write a bit in my area. but how do I get into an NGO? google all their websites and look for adverts? i have had a look at the world bank and UN websites... also WTO. a lot of them need quite a number of years of working experience. am torn between working for a couple of years first and going straight to the NGO coz i haven't sat the professional exam that is needed to practice in my field yet. am primarily interested in NGOs working in development. which NGOs are you interested in working with?

Ah how interesting - always good to 'meet' people into the same area! Generally I am joined to charityjob, which seems a good site for keeping an eye on jobs, and forums like aid workers forum. My plan though is to go to lots of seminars, workshopsn and conferneces in my final year - or even for the year afterwards - and get my name known and get a job through contacts. Or send a proposal of how I think their organisation could work better from what I know from my PhD work and try and get an interview that way... Skills-wise I am very low on work experience but am volunterring in India for fieldwork which I hope will help -have you done work experience as part of any of your field work?

ALso, it is always good to see what transferable skills you may have as part of your PhD - managing a project, teaching etc. This is all work experience. Volunteering is always good if you could afford to do that for a year when you finish - or write lots of articles and publish as part of promoting yourself. Am sure this is all old news but when it comes to thinking about the big wide world after this I love as much info as I can get and assume we are all pretty similar! Oh, I am thinking of working for a humanitarian relief agency, or the relief side of development... Don't know really as am analysing the big agencies in my PhD!

i have a colleague who is analysing IMF and WorldBank for their PhD. i will certainly look at charityjobs. my thesis is theoretical so i haven't done any fieldwork. during my phd i have taught for 3 academic years and done a few placements here and there, so that might count as experience. as for publishing, am now writing my third paper.. two submitted and awaiting feedback. so hopefully i'll get my name out there somehow. i plan to send copies of my work to the agencies concerned although i don't know if that would be a smart move because i criticise some of their work. as for experience on the ground and conferences - which i have only attended two - both in the same town as my uni - i will need to give that more attention. thanks for that. i'll keep you posted on how i get on.

oh i forgot that i had attended an international conference at some point. lol.

i was reading through your posts again. sounds like you have a good plan. am going to adopt a lot of the things you're doing. thanks. we can learn one or two from each other.

Ah, well these agencies need thinkers too. I reckon if you were to target your proposal it would be better than just sending your work off because then you can tell them were you could fit into their organisation/team. And being critical is good as long as you show how this critical thought can be turned into a practical positive for them. I hope so anyway because mine is VERY critical!! They need critical thinkers to move forward tho eh? When I finish I plan to spend a year writing my PhD book (hopefully!), and just getting round lots of someinars and workshops and networking so I can taget my 'speculative' job proposal... even if they take you on as freelance for a while is all about job experience. Anyway, you have enough on your plate with completing - just wanted to spraff. Goooooood luck! x

ooh just saw latest post (am very keen - can you tell I am skiiving?!) - thanks! Defo keep in touch - maybe we'll end up at the same conference at some point!

thanks Jayney. Yesterday's hours; 12pm - 6pm. today am preparing for sup ervisor meeting tomorrow. fingers crossed .

good luck tomorrow, jojo! don't let them get you down