Goodboy, why are you always so confrontational and offensive to people? I really don't understand you in the slightest, you are being extremely rude to both Keenbean and to Bewildered for no reason whatsoever. (down)

It is quite obvious that your uni runs things rather differently than the rest of us - ALL academics employed in universities have to produce research, its what the unis are rated on in the current system. Its what they do! My supervisor has several and on a particularly big project he may employ a research assistant but most of his work has been his own, individual research. Where do you think journal articles come from - research - active research that they carry out alongside their few hours a week teaching time.

There really is little point debating anything with you, you resort to insults every time and that is very disappointing, this forum is a lovely place to be with fantastic, supportive, friendly people. Please try to join in in the manner that everyone else does and stop with the insults.

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@ Goodboy - I am perfectly aware of that - I also work in academia - the discussion was whether supervising is part of a supervisor - ie lecturer/senior lecturer/profs job description - why twist things and try to make people look stupid?

Any news yet Chris? I've developed cramp in my fingers they've been so tightly crossed ;-)

It is a tricky one - could you speak to your supervisor, explain the situation and ask what grade they would predict and whether it would be ok to put that on your CV? Its always best if there's any chance that your potential employer would contact your references that they are well informed ;-)

Extract from job description for lecturer - I checked out a few and they all said the same...

Duties of the Post:

• To conduct high quality research,
• To obtain research funding,
• Supervise postgraduate research students
• To carry out such teaching and administration duties as request by the Head of Department,

It looks as thought supervising us is certainly part of the job description in this case - maybe your uni is different to the rest of them Goodboy, in which case it sounds ideal - extra cash, nice staff rooms and no need to supervise - we should all go for a job there!

======= Date Modified 30 Jun 2010 14:26:38 =======
They don't get anything from it in financial terms - its part of their job description! Half of the lecturers and profs I know actively try and get out of supervising PhDs as they are so time consuming. They are on a set salary scale - if they were paid that much per student or even for supervising at all they'd shoot up the scale - that doesn't happen. They put their research students on their CVs - it looks very good for them if they successfully supervise us to completion and get a good result, and are able to use the fact that they are working with us in our topics to extend their academic areas on the CV. As for research funds - I'm not sure in other areas, goodboy is in a totally different area to me, but the fees don't go to the supervisor, research funds have to go through the central uni books and be completely accounted for as do expenses. As for refurbished staff rooms - I just nearly destroyed my laptop coughing my coffee back up - what staffroom and what refurbishment? I work in my dept as well as study so can speak as staff and our staffroom is a tiny kitchen with a kettle and a microwave that hasn't been touched in the 7 years I've been at the uni and we have a lot of PhD students in our dept who recieve funding.

Lol, I'm more like a two year old having a tantrum right now ;-)

I'd definately speak to your supervisor. I had to learn basic statistics (albeit for the most part unsuccessfully - when my sup who was teaching the course banged his head repeatedly on the desk I realised that I wasn't quite cut out for it lmao) but I know at our uni the maths dept offer MA modules that you can do as a PhD student even if you are in a different dept - a friend has done that as his need was greater than mine - I didn't even go there - me and numbers just don't mix ;-) So see what is available - the postgrad administrator in your future dept will be able to help you possibly more than your sup in that. I also very much like statisitics for dummies (yes seriously) it was far more easy to understand that the official - learn statisitics books - and gave me a bit of a grounding to begin to understand the more complex stuff. As I say, I've never gone much beyond the basics, I don't need that level of understanding, but your first port of call is to find out what software you'd most likely be using and what your uni offers in terms of taught courses for PhD students.

OMG!!! Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! May your printer print at the speed of light - I'm getting butterflies for you lol

Damn :-( that's such a shame, and yes, we all know that jobs are advertised that are effectively already decided but they have to go through their stupid HR directed motions which cause a lot of hassle and false hopes for the other applicants, but the patronising nature of the feedback is just infurtiating. I still can't understand why, if they already have someone who they want to appoint, they are forced to go through with this charade. She couldn't give you answers because no doubt you were spot on but not 'her'. Really feel for you Eska - all experience, blah blah blah but even still :-s

Wow, wow, wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So pleased for my best Phdbug buddy 8-) - sigh, I'll miss you though lol - sounds like you'll be finished a year ahead of me :-( so jealous, but so pleased you got such a stonking great grant xx

So pleased for you, I too can't wait to hear that you've submitted and you've written a thesis - very jealous - I so wish I was on my last night lol :-) Well.... scrub that, maybe not the last night, but the night after its submitted! Gooooooo Chrisrolinski 8-)

That's great, thanks so much, i'll go and have a look at it now :-)

I meant to say, I have checked online for the mindmap software, but there are dozens and I'm not sure which to go for :-)

Thanks so much :-) I'll certainly go onto amazon in the morning and have a look for those books, I feel I need all the help that i can get and they sound extremely helpful. Jepsonclough - where do you get the mindmap software? I used to use mindmaps a lot for revision in my BA years and found they helped me no end, but I don't think an A4 sheet of paper (or even A3 come to that) will do it for this - is it freeware or do you have to pay for it?

Half the trouble that I'm having is that things that I had proposed to do didn't work out when examining the sources and so things have changed a great deal and I've gone off in a totally different direction to what I'd expected to be in even earlier this year so I'm a little confused as to how its supposed to all fit together. I'm assured that it will, but its meant that even my over-riding questions have changed totally and I'm examining sources and writing about things that I hadn't considered initially which has thrown my structure totally and I'm having to approach my topic from a completely different angle. This exercise will be so useful to pull it back together and move forward but I'm just not quite sure which way I'm heading to begin to do that :-)