Overview of Mackem_Beefy
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Link to study on PhD and depression
I think I might add a link to that from my webpage / blog after I've given it a read.
The link does work by the way.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Is this discrimination?
It's none of his business. You manage and therefore he needs not be concerned.
Whilst the hours a PhD candidate puts in can be quite heavy, it does feel as though one or two academics expect people to spend every waking moment on their work. This is not possible and people do have lives away from work and study that they manage fine without someone creating a problem where there is none.
If the remarks are just a minor nuisance value, leave it be for now if things are going okay otherwise. If the supervisor starts to create a situation, then you do have grounds for complaint on the basis discrimination. It reads to me as though the person concerned has assumed you are going to bear the brunt of the child's care responsibilities (you're a woman, etc.) and that is an archaic attitude that should indeed be left back in the 1950s.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Do you know anyone in Newcastle or are you in Newcastle? Help! I'm doing research there. £10 voucher for all who take part.
======= Date Modified 11 Sep 2012 08:25:36 =======
The mods over there have deleted the message. Although I said it was serious, it appears they have viewed it otherwise.
I'll get one of the mods there onside and try again.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Do you know anyone in Newcastle or are you in Newcastle? Help! I'm doing research there. £10 voucher for all who take part.
Done - Charmless, don't you dare identify me!!! :-)
http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?p=13415919#post13415919
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Do you know anyone in Newcastle or are you in Newcastle? Help! I'm doing research there. £10 voucher for all who take part.
======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2012 20:44:10 =======
Oh hec, I forgot about this.
I'll get something stuck up on the other forum I was on about.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
PDF files - Alternatives to Adobe?
======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2012 15:07:10 =======
There's Foxit to read PDFs and Foxit Pro that does all the Adobe Acrobat stuff at a lot less cost.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
How do you convert word file to a PDF?
On Office 2007, 2010 and the forthcoming 2013, when you save off the file you can chose to save your word file as a PDF. Make sure you staill save as a Word file too as you will not be able to edit the PDF.
This page will tell you more.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/save-as-pdf-HA010354239.aspx
Note on Office 2007, you may have to download an extra Add-In to add this feature.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7
Regards,
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Thesis deposit - not wanted but what to do
Hey guys, do you know what'll happen if you dont submit your thesis loan and deposit form? If I don't agree, then I suppose the school/ library won't be able to keep a copy of my thesis in the public. I'm not happy to have my thesis either stored in the library or online. But the admin told me that the max. period to impose a restriction is 2 years with possibility to extend further. What am I to do?
Why do you want to restrict and why do you want to restrict for more than two years? Is it commercially sensitive?
When you signed up to do your PhD, you might have signed something saying the library and online repository could hold copies and make available immediately, or after six months, one year or two years.
This aside and assuming you haven't signed anything, in theory if you are the copyright holder you could refuse outright to have your data distributed. However, you might have to challenge the current practice legally in order to do so and it may be a solicitor's / lawyer's letter if a challenge is made may be sufficient to make Universities introduce five year restrictions or even permanent ones in line with copyright law.
I have to admit if you want to continue restricting, I find it hard to understand how the University can just go ahead and make the data available without your express say so after two years rather than assume that no action on your part means you're giving your consent. You instead have to indicate again that you want to continue restriction after the two years (i.e. you opt into continued restriction rather than opt out).
I've never heard of anyone restricting beyond the six months, one year or two years and I don't know of precedent to enforce a longer period. That said, I had a long discussion with my predecessor who was pro-restriction as he did not want to distribute. Six month, one year, two years and (if commercially sensitive) five year periods were available.
In the vast majority of cases, the commercial value of the data produced during a PhD is minimal and it only later commercial work (where the real value normally lies) that normally develops any such work into a viable idea. For that reason, I distributed as I saw no value in sticking the data on a shelf somewhere to gather dust and be forgotten about as my data had no real commercial value.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
IT Conversion Course.
======= Date Modified 09 Sep 2012 19:44:12 =======
My husband's first degree was in physics and astronomy. He followed this with a 1-year conversion Masters course in Computer Science. This was very intensive, but it helped that my husband was already an enthusiastic programmer in his spare time - really he should probably have done a computing degree in the first place! He followed this with a computer science PhD, and for the last decade and more has worked in a university computer science department. He is now a research fellow.
If you want to work in academia you will almost certainly need to continue to complete a PhD. You should not consider a taught Masters on the way to be an impediment, but you need to do as well as possible in that conversion Masters (ideally gaining Distinction level or equivalent) to compete with other students trying to tackle a PhD. And in the PhD you will have to be excellent as well to continue on to academia. In the UK at least there are very few academic jobs available for post-docs.
Good luck!
Where did your husband do his conversion course? I did mine at Newcastle, admittedly years ago.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Difficult Uni admin staff that you have to deal with
======= Date Modified 08 Sep 2012 17:10:42 =======
From memory, contact was restricted to possibly dealing with the departmental secretary or accounting clerk - they were great and the departmental secretary became a personal friend of mine.
Apart from that, with the main University staff (equivalect of 'central' mentioned by Dalmation) they did their thing and you did yours and never the twain met. As long as you followed the way they did things, they left you well alone and the most you got was a grunt from them as you handed over paperwork to them for processing of purchases or paying off accounts, etc.. The problem was no one knew what what their way was and this might be changed on the whim of a senior office clerk (alledgedly a bit of a good looking girl - probably to another dragon) who I never met face to face. And you were expected to know.
It led to some classic confrontations, including a demand for my sacking from my first post-doc (serious and comical hissy fit) because a rep said he needed a photocopy of some paperwork so we could get some equipment repaired. My sin with this clerk was to photocopy said paperwork.
If I hadn't, the repair would not have been done and I'd have been in trouble for not getting the equipment repaired. Our departmental clerical staff placated the main University clerical staff without the senior academics ever knowing.
Everyone got roasted by the accounting gnomes at least once, so the above was pretty much par for the course (demanding someone's dismissal was pretty much like eating and breathing for the accounts people and they were pretty much ignored). If they were that obsessed, then a couple of hours for new PhD students and post-docs in a lecture room to explain how to process orders and bills would have been the way forward.
IT were the other ones to watch, however, when a PhD student sets up point-to-point file sharing on their PC and there are five thousand people (this has to be an exaggeration by the IT lads that) accessing the PC to download music, I guess they had every right to go nuts. The file sharing was slowing down network access for the whole of her department to a snail's pace. Unlike accounts, they could get people sacked or registration suspended if there was a serious abuse.
Tell that to the lecturing and research staff who were known to download pornography and were completely ignored. The story of one lad and how he got caught out is unfortuatley not repeatable on here (PM me for the story, anyone who wants to know - suffice to say I was told he should have washed his hands).
I'm sure there's stories that could be compiled into a good comedy book out there. :-)
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
How do these people published soo many publications!? : (
======= Date Modified 09 Sep 2012 19:44:39 =======
Someone else such as a PhD Student or a Research Associate does the work and the papers. The senior academic then has their name placed on the paper as an author, even though they might not even have significantly contributed. Their contribution as such will probably be they head the research group and no more.
Cynicism is a wonderful thing!!!
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
IT Conversion Course.
Dear Reenie ,
Hope you're doing fine. Don't say sorry ,its perfectly fine :-)
Dear Mackem_Beefy,
Hope you're doing fine.First and foremost ,i would like to thank you for spending your valuable time replying me. Your reply is greatly appreciated.I agree with you that Msc Computing is quite a challenge ,added the fact that I'm from a business background.However ,i think I'm up for the challenge :-) I even checked the course structure of the programmme and i think if i put in effort ,i would do just fine.
Yes ,one of my main concerns was whether i will be able to secure a job upon completion of my conversion course ,bearing in my mind that i would be competing with IT students who completed their undergraduate degrees in IT.Another factor that i'm considering in choosing IT conversion course is the fact that the rising of business information systems field these days?perhaps ,upon my completion ,i would be able to land a job as an IT consultant considering i have the blend of IT and Business knowledge?
My long term target is to become an academician..Do you think its possible for me to land a job as an academician as soon as i finish my conversion course. What worries me is the fact that a lot of universities these days opt for lecturers who are from a research background compared to those who did taught courses during their masters. I'm still in the process of considering my options as i have just recently finished my undergraduate degree.I'm planning to start my conversion course by next June.Do you think i should start it next year or should i wait a little longer and gain any working experience first?
Once again ,i would like to thank you for spending your valuable time replying me.Thank you.
:-)
It will be extremely difficult to follow an academic career straight after the conversion course. As you say, a research background with publications is also looked for.
You are generally expected to hold a PhD if you want a career in academia (i.e. as a lecturer). If you want to teach at a lower level outside the University sector, you will still need a teacher's qualification depending on what is required in the country where you live. In the UK, that would be a PGCE.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
IT Conversion Course.
======= Date Modified 06 Sep 2012 17:01:34 =======
I did an M.Sc. Computing conversion course years ago ages before my PhD. What basically happens is the University concerned tried to cram as much of a degree into a year as possible.
In my case, a modular format was followed. Firstly, there was an intense crash course in basic programming lasting a couple of weeks, the target being to bring you close to the standard of a end-of-first year undergrad (though honestly, we were still miles behind). This was followed by a set of six modules covering the first semester and a further six modules covering the second. Exams were held at the end of each semester. The project was conducted over the summer, this to be submitted late September and this represented the equivalent of the undergrad third year project.
It's high intensity and not for the faint hearted. Expect to do excessive hours if you expect to approach three year degree level by the end of it. My health failed during it and to be honest I thought I'd failed and I decided to re-enrol on a different M.Sc. (Quality Engineering) not too far removed from my Materials Science undergrad degree. But lo and behold, I ended up gaining the first M.Sc. as well after major corrections to my M.Sc. dissertation.
It helped me decide I did not want to follow computing as a career as also I got through, I felt I did not have the aptitude to succeed in computing. I returned to my core area in Materials Science and made a go of that instead.
The M.Sc.'s did help me later with PhD, as I gained some of the writing skills and structural / experimental design thought useful in PhD (I will admit the Quality Engineering helped more though). So if you intend to follow an academic path for which a PhD is advisable, it may give you at least a grounding for that.
However, if you intend to follow a career in computing in the real world bear in mind your competition includes people who have studied three year full time or four year sandwich degrees (one year industry), who will have that edge over you in the jobs market. That said, some IT recruiters have taken people from any numerate or technical degree with the thinking that a blank slate is better than an already fixed mindset of an IT graduate.
It depends exactly what you want to do afterwards as to how much it helps you and if you intend to go into academia, the fact you already have an undergrad degree preceding the M.Sc. conversion course may offset the advantage that former full time or sandwich people have.
Mine was at Newcastle University, however, there are a number of places that do conversion courses and I would shop around.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Do you know anyone in Newcastle or are you in Newcastle? Help! I'm doing research there. £10 voucher for all who take part.
Thank you very much for the forum suggestions - I'll try and spread the word there!
I might be able to help spread the word on one of those forums (the Sunderland Message Board), but I would not use your Uni. e-mail address. Set up a temporary one on Google, Hotmail or Yahoo first and I'll post on your behalf.
Expect to have the p*ss royally taken out of you though.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Do I take the PhD or wait for others to come up??
I'm going to take a slightly different angle on this, as I see what Ariel is saying. I've been there in my varied path through life.
Going back as a PhD student is different as you're not mixing with large classes of undergrads as you did before, so yes it can be lonely. I know the feeling of it being time to move on as well. I felt that at Newcastle after completing masters there and the suggestion I might want to do a PhD straight after masters at Newcastle did not appeal. People had moved on as you say and whilst I would no doubt have got to know new people, it would feel empty without the people who had left.
To give a little background, I'd ended up previously doing two masters back-to-back (health reasons meant I thought I'd failed the first so I tried a different subject and ended up gaining both) and I can say the second felt a lot emptier. All I saw around me was lots of new, strange faces and I felt the extra one who no longer belonged. That made me not the most pleasant of company if I'm honest. PhD at Newcastle at that time would not have been a comfortable experience given those feelings and I probably would have pulled out very quickly.
I finally did PhD five years later strangely enough at Northumbria, a stone's throw away. However, it was five years on with slightly different immediate surroundings and a completely different set of new faces. There were no old lecturers or other staff that gave a feeling of what I had slowly fading away. The time gap and the fact it felt like a fresh start meant those feelings of no longer belonging no longer applied.
If you feel those feelings might be such that going back to Nottingham might make the experience uncomfortable, then I would actually leave it for the time being as a PhD is hard enough without feeling you shouldn't be there. There's no point in taking a position where you're not happy and deny the position to someone who would be happy there. Give it a year if possible to defer and you might feel differently.
However, if funding is going to be difficult to find for a PhD elsewhere then I would think long and hard before turning this chance down as funding will only become harder to come by. You're as entitled to join the student societies as the undergrads as a way of making friends and if things go well, you should make new friends with other post-grads in your department.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
