Jet

Thanks - it was quite spectacular!

This was posted recently on another thread about the life of a lecturer - it might put you off though! http://www.kevinboone.com/university.html

You could also check The Guardian Education and the Times Higher Educational Supplements, either the newspapers or online, for an overview of HE in this country. And browse this forum for other honest insights! :-)

No idea about whether masters are essential for business and marketing - have you checked the prospective applicant info on individual uni websites, it might depend on the candidate.

flops

tapa

You need to be stumped for weeks before you're truly stumped!

Is it just me, or is the header for this thread huge and orange now...?

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I guess it all depends on various things really... how interested are you in doing the PhD and the other course - is one more interesting to you than the other? Would it make any difference in the long run if you postponed one of them, completing the other first? How will both these courses be funded, and will you have financial considerations to take into account? Also, how good do you think you are at juggling different and sometimes conflicting responsibilities?

I can only answer whether it's possible to do other things from my own experience. I'm doing my PhD part time while also working part time. It's a lot of extra work and frequently quite stressful dividing my time between these things, even though they're related. Quite often after a heavy term's teaching I realise I've done absolutely no work on my PhD for months, and it takes quite a while to mentally pick it up again and remember where I was with it, even though it was only 3 months earlier. The positive thing about it is that I don't think it's as isolating as being a full time PhD student and I am working, which is obviously useful financially in the present dodgy economic climate. I really like teaching and doing research, so I do want to stay in academia afterwards as I like my subject more now than when I started.

I was thinking of doing a postgrad certificate in teaching after my PhD because from 2010 there will be a requirement for all teachers in Higher Education to have or be working towards a teaching qualification. It's not necessary now, as you pointed out, but I think I should be able to get my fees paid by my uni if I'm lucky, plus get more teaching work, so I might as well do it now while the money's there. It'll just be an extra thing that should be useful when I'm applying for jobs in the future and shouldn't take up much time. I half thought of doing the teaching certificate a few years ago when my uni seemed to be extremely keen to fund people to do it, but in the end I just didn't have the time or mental energy to do it on top of everything else.

If that other course you want to do is a vocational one that will give you more job choices in the future, maybe you could leave it until after your PhD, if you can do it later on, and pursue whatever you find most interesting right now. Some things you can do any time, because there isn't an age or a time limit on them. If you do several things at once, it seems fairly likely it will dilute the amount of energy and commitment you can give to them, with a possible impact on the quality of the work you produce, although it ultimately depends on you. You've already got a place for your PhD, so maybe start that and see how it goes. You'll be making a more informed assessment of your situation by then, but it all seems a bit abstract right now, from what you've said. I think there are usually options to transfer to part time status from originally starting as a full time student on PhDs, but you could check with your uni. Also, lecturing isn't the only option after doing a PhD, other ideas are likely to pop up along the way. Best of luck with it!

Or more ready made heads and clothes would be nice, and less time-consuming for us thesis writers......

Oh yes, the Father Dowling nun was in DM today, wasn't she! Her dad in real life was Ricky Nelson, the singer who got famous in the 1950s whose songs the Cramps do sometimes! If it's the Elizabeth Taylor 'Cleopatra', she is wonderful in it but I'd never try that eyemakeup myself, would look funny on me even in modified form, I'm more of a lipstick person really. You could give it a go if it's just you and the supernoodles and see how it turns out!!

Lunchtime murder mysteries for me whenever I'm working at home, otherwise I don't switch it on! It's Diagnosis Murder at the moment, now that dark haired medic has gone and I haven't seen this particular lot of repeats. Also maybe a bit of Jessica Fletcher if I'm feeling lethargic, but the clothes are a bit too 80s for my liking - I'm not a fan of big shoulder pads and rigid backcombed normal person's hair (if they were big haired goths it would be ok, but that's not very likely in Cabot Cove!). But I do wish it was early Ironside... *sigh* ... such brilliant sixties clothes and themes, murderous flower children, pretend beatniks, drug crazed psycho-hippies, Black Power storylines, shocking variety of 'deviant' delinquent youth situations, interesting vans with gadgets and some lovely cars. PhD lunchbreaks from heaven!!

I probably should have asked earlier, but I was curious about why you'd want to do both courses at the same time? Will the other postgrad course fill an intellectual gap or take you in a different direction to your PhD? Or if you do your PhD, will your interest in doing the other course disappear?

I was wondering, because I thought in the past, much earlier in my PhD, that maybe I should do a fashion history postgrad course at some point as I knew nothing about it, which left a big gap in my knowledge for my PhD work. I ended up having to do a lot more reading, but I don't feel any urge to do a course like that now, as my PhD includes enough of that subject to get by with my undergrad teaching and to finish my research. I will still do a postgrad certificate in teaching after I complete my PhD though, as it's a different set of skills and a different qualification.

I don't know whether it's relevant to your case, but some PhD students at my uni have done short courses and training, though mostly technical (video editing) because it was necessary for their PhD research, so it was organised and paid for by the uni. Depends what you want to do, I guess, and on the uni.

Ooh Stressed, I'm so glad you're another one! I do wonder if our expectations of how we are supposed to work for a PhD are a bit too rigid and that's why sporadic workers get anxious about not being up to scratch some of the time. Having said that, the 9 to 5-ers at college look very industrious and stride in each day in a very purposeful manner, but sometimes I notice that they're surfing the internet, chatting for hours and going off for long tea breaks. They're the ones that say, oh no, I don't work in the evenings, I treat it like a day job! We all seem to get it done in the end though, in our own ways.

It probably sounds stupid, but I didn't realise that's the way I worked until about a year ago. Since then, it's been loads better having lots of regular deadlines set my my supervisor. It's still hellish getting stuff done, but it's far better to have lots of mini last-minute stints than one huge and possibly unachievable one right at the end. Maybe you could do that with your supervisor, get more deadlines agreed? I know mine hasn't read everything I've sent as it comes in, she's left several chapters to read in one go, but at least it made me get them done at regular intervals. I'm part time and was pretty much left to my own devices most of the way through, but in retrospect I think I'd have got more finished earlier if I'd been working in this way for longer. I'm just really glad I've found a reasonable way of working before it's all got too near the end!

It is hard, I think it's a temperament thing with me. Maybe some people live life on the edge by going bungee jumping, and some of us do it by cutting our deadlines a bit fine! It was useful seeing Lara work towards her submission a little while back as it sounded so horrendous and last minute that I thought... I'll never do that!! I try to stave it off and be sensible and work regularly, but it doesn't always happen. Annoying as I've got a great subject, a dream team of supervisors and am supposed to be very good, if that doesn't sound too bigheaded, so am really trying to do myself justice academically... It would be so annoying to get to the end and wish I'd done more, but maybe that will always be the case however much one does... Perhaps there are different sorts of PhD people, ones who do the 9 to 5 thing, and ones who work in sporadic bursts accompanied by fits of guilt about not doing more. Well, I'll never be a 9 to 5 person so I'll never know any different!

I'm often like that, I wish I could work regularly each day but it doesn't happen like that, even with a deadline looming....I didn't get started until after dinner today which is a bit pathetic with a Tuesday deadline, but I just couldn't muster any enthusiasm for methodology somehow. Not that it's very exciting at the best of times! I think sometimes it's a bit deadly being a night before sort of person, especially with a PhD as there's so much to do that you can't afford to be like that really. My worst example of that was during my BA when I was still writing an essay the day before the actual exam that I was supposed to be revising for, but I coasted through ok, though not doing myself justice really. Do you think it's a personality thing, that you know you can do it anyway so you don't try as hard as regular plodders? Sounds like you can obviously do your work well, maybe you've got high standards and just need a bit more faith in your abilities.

You know, if you still get enthusiastic about your work sometimes, then maybe that's ok because that's how you work and you shouldn't compare yourself to that other student who says she does loads all the time, people like that are guaranteed to make you anxious on a bad day! If you actually meet your deadlines, that sounds ok. Is your supervisor pleased with your work? You could always speak to them if you're worried about it though, but maybe you're doing fine really and it's a just a temporary lapse of confidence or something.... PhDs are great for inducing them!!

I think the worst students ever are ones who are rude, demanding and arrogant, think they know everything already which includes knowing more than their supervisors, are really bad at both writing and talking about their work and don't actually care about that, as they think they should still get a PhD anyway. So you don't sound like a student from hell, if you don't mind me saying so! Well this isn't much of a reply really is it, sorry about that. I probably should get some sleep or tomorrow will be a dead loss, workwise...

But in reality, how critical is the job title likely to be in an international setting? I would hope that at this level of academia, most people would be able to understand the vagaries of different educational systems without variations in job title damaging either educational or employment prospects. It doesn't seem much to expect for anyone from a different academic system to 'translate' a British job title into the equivalent from their own country, or indeed vice versa, particularly if it's accompanied by a PhD, decent publications, experience etc. To change our whole system would be confusing, as XJR said, so what would the actual benefits really be, other than introducing international consistency (which I don't think is a good enough reason in itself).

I'd like a greater distinction at the lecturer end of the scale though, as there seem to be too many permutations of education, experience, research etc that are hidden in the current system. There's something that niggles me about 2 different people being employed as Senior Lecturers, where one has a PhD, lots of teaching experience and is also engaged in ongoing research, while another is employed on the same basis but does not have a PhD and does absolutely no research, being purely teaching orientated. I feel that the level of engagement in research should be reflected in the job title really. It doesn't mean that one needs to be deemed a better or higher status position than the other, but the differences should just be recognised in ways other than a extra notch up on the salary scale.

I really think you should do one first, then the other - first complete the PhD then do the other postgrad course afterwards, or vice versa. A PhD is a LOT of work, more than you realise at the beginning, so you really need to be very committed to it.

It's a big deal to take a large chunk time off during a PhD, at my uni it has to be approved by two different committees at various levels, so it's not just something you can do because you feel like it. You can't argue with illness, births and deaths which are acceptable reasons for time out as MissSpacey said, but popping off to do another degree somewhere else seems a bit odd, without knowing any details. Have you mentioned your idea to your prospective supervisor? I would think he/she would like to know you were totally committed to your studies when you start, it's only fair. Alternatively, if this other postgrad course is really important to you now, perhaps you could defer starting your PhD for a year as you have a place, get the other course out of the way then start your PhD with no prospective interruptions. You should really decide what's most important now, in case you need to sort anything out, then stick to that decision. Good luck!