Hi

I have got an interview on Friday to working in a shop and I still want to do a PhD, will it be pooh poohed on working in a shop or am I just going straight into the PhD?

P.S. Still waiting to hear from St Andrews.

Any decent supervisor will realise you have to make ends meet while waiting for a PhD to come up.

The important thing, I'd say, is that even if working in a completely different area, try to maintain as much contact as you can with academia, whether face to face or online. It might help you network and find out about opportunities that you might not hear about otherwise.

A job is a job, you can't hang around with no money. HazyJane has it spot on, keep your hand in. Did you do an MA dissertation? If so what does your previous supervisor think of it, if you got good marks for it you could always re-write it and try for publication? That way you will still be working on your writing and critical thinking skills and have something to tell on PhD applications. ;-)

That's good advice from Wowzers. Also consider contacting local departments to see what seminar series they have which are open to external people, and start going along to get to meet people. Twitter is a good place to develop an academic network, and sometimes jobs and funding opportunities are circulated there. Look out for prizes (e.g. essay competitions) and one day courses/seminars that you could possibly attend to keep your hand in and build up your CV.

I did an PGCert Project and I got pass with minor corrections on my Viva. Seminars will be a nightmare to get to at the local uni, I kept going to them when unemployed. Still keep going to the Scottish Neuroscience Meeting. Networking on twitter as best I can, can be hard to if not in academia already.

This job would be working in a herbal shop with me looking at jobs in neurochemistry!!

hi janine I'd just seen this thread!
Best of luck for the job! I think it's great to be in a shop for now. Why not :-)
Just be in the shop and keep applying for a phd
it will happen soon

love satchi