what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

But "efficient" is a bit of an ill-defined word here -- it's not as if I'm doing the same stuff now as I was then, so it's hard to compare "efficiency" across disciplines with completely different goals and different measures of "success".

xpost to me

the way i used to hear that lecture pre-grad school was that you could overcome all of that if you were just good enough.

friends of mine from undergrad that have gone on to do grad work all felt like this i think. its mb part of what hes getting @ in that article - u get a lot of praise and a sense of importance from going to a top 10 undergrad school and its p easy i think to seem exceptional and capable - its too easy to imagine yourself as the exception

first year of my Ph.D. program was the worst year of my life: never had I experienced such tremendous self-doubt, realizing how stupid I am. That has helped me a lot, though: this academic life is regularly publicly humiliating (which is what someone pointed out above), in that you put your work out there and others read it and then argue that you are completely wrong about everything in front of your peers. And that's all good! b/c people are reading and talking about you. You also have to get used to being treated like a rookie all over again, just when you think you did something important in finishing a Ph.D.

well i simply am so exhausted from the work i have to do that i find myself turning into a slug in the time i should be spending doing my own research for my dissertation, etc. whereas i think when i was younger i would be more productive in that so-called "free time."

xpost

yeah and i think one problem is that you are of course speaking to professors who DID luck out. the top schools don't tend to have people hanging around who spent years without getting tenure-track appointments, so you don't get that side of the story.

i'm not terribly afraid of being told i'm wrong, i'm more afraid of there being literally nobody who is the slightest bit interested in what i write.

basically i should kill myself.

I'm glad I found ILX/started posting on it - it's pretty much everything I liked about college (jamming about books/movies/other pieces of art) and none of what I hated (writing papers, kissing up to profs)

it was kind of depressing getting an email from one of my TAs last fall being like "so glad you're considering grad school! but for some perspective check out this long list of schools I applied to for jobs and am still waiting to hear back from" *bunch of small state schools in the middle of nowhere*

time has come for my fun AHRC application-making. PhD in (continental) philosophy. LIKELY. I'm in the midst of my Masters now and getting good grades, although my big concern is that my failure to present any papers at conferences or get anything published will stand against me - even though it's not very common at Masters level I'm sure it's something the AHRC love. Currently I'm lucky enough to have my tuition fees covered and working part-time earns me £7000 a year which is juuuuuust about enough to get by, but the working really bites into the academic side. Not a balance I've managed to work out to my satisfaction. So in the likely event I'm rejected here, I guess I'm off to full-time work and saving up for a few years. Anyone got any tips for the proposal process? The main one I've heard so far is that the AHRC are real impressed with talk of CREATIVITY and NEW DIRECTIONS and INTERDISCIPLINARITY and such, which I feel pretty cheap about doing but hey I'd kill a man for £15k a year.

"i'm more afraid of there being literally nobody who is the slightest bit interested in what i write."

i've found this is not a worry limited to grad school/academia, if it makes you feel any better.

xpost - 'Creativity' and 'new directions' are helpful. 'Interdisciplinarity' is very helpful, though it's hard to say what form of words might work for you - I know bugger all about philosophy. It's really worth considering 'impact'. I know, I know. But the the definition is getting broader and broader. They will be happy if you talk about *potential* impact, and for this potential to be all about, for instance, wellbeing or critical thinking (whether for social groups, for public policy, whatever) rather than about the UK economy. Basically, they are looking for people who are thinking ahead about how they might engage people/organisations with the research beyond academia - they will expect you to be realistic and flexible about how that works in practice. They just want to see that you've considered it carefully and shown what difference that might make to the way you approach the project.

Having said that, I know more about all this in relation to research grants than I do in relation to PhD training.

None of the above has anything to do with my personal opinion about the impact agenda - just information about what's sought after as I understand it.

I can sympathize with this, but looking back, I don't think I was "smarter", just better at churning out work in an extremely structured environment. The days of being an assignment-writing machine are over, if I look at stuff I wrote 10 years ago I guess I'm just surprised at how much more efficient I used to be.

Wow. My experience is exactly the opposite. Studying for comps and especially teaching has made me far more efficient than I've ever previously been.

"have made"

Merdeyeux, does your Uni have a central research development office where people help you with proposals? Someone with a good deal of experience should be able to help you put in some buzzwords. Also (you've probably done this already) look at their research mission statements eg http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/Policy/Pages/FutureDirections.aspx

I guess it goes without saying that IMPACT is where its at, although from memory AHRC have been less keen to define it than perhaps other RCs.

I wouldn't worry too much about the emerging themes - they're unlikely to affect decisions on PhDs, just to define future areas for top-down calls. Definitely worth looking at the buzzwords though. Lots of impact stuff at http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundedResearch/Pages/ImpactAssessment.aspx. In the early 'impact' days, AHRC was one of the keenest RCs because it had the most to prove.

I have actually been through the AHRC (or AHRB as it was) funding process. I had a place to do an MA in History of Science (rand corporation, game theory in war, etc.) in London, but didn't get the award so spent a year in publishing. It probably wasn't in my favour that I can't write in full sentences and had a v. straightforward physics background, but I and the dudes at UCL thought my application was pretty strong. I had no trouble at all with the STFC the following year. So I guess my point is, I don't envy people going through the ARHC for money. Good luck!

Appropos of nothing in particular, this link was posted on one of the STS mailing lists I subscribe to. Offer of 2 phd studentships in Norway. 3 years at $60,000 a year, bring your own (Zero emissions buildings) research topic and make your way to Trondheim:

https://secure.jobbnorge.no/job.aspx?jobid=64830

That 'Benton' "Big Lie" article seems a bit ridiculous to me. The basic premise that a PhD in comparative literature does not offer the widest range of career opportunities seems pretty obvious but this article comes off as OTT fear-mongering. If he were supporting his argument with the statistics he encourages students to find for themselves ("the rate of attrition, the average amount of debt at graduation, and, most important, the placement of graduates...") or with actual interviews with actual graduates, I could take it more seriously. AFAICT, though, he seems to argue his point primarily by relating a fictional sob story about a hypothetical student (whose blue-collar or middle-class family enthusiastically supported her decision to pursue a comp lit PhD - as all such families presumably do? - because of the ever-pervasive lie that this was a ticket to a comfortable career). Anyone who lives in MI should be aware that economic times are tough and jobs are scarce for the working class as well, despite the success of the hypothetical student's hypothetical brother. And even if a PhD does need to go to a community college or a professional college to get certification in something other than comparative literature and does end up working under people younger than her or less educated than her, that does not strike me as something that should necessarily be a totally demeaning, soul-crushing fate. Writing skills are valuable. And, yes, comp lit != all the arts or humanities.

right but ten years getting a doctorate, to have that just boil down to "writing skills", that IS pretty soul crushing imo

he implies a very unfavorable numbers game but he doesn't provide the numbers himself, it's true. it would strengthen his argument if he did. i always kind of assumed that the number of people who get a PhD from an American university in 1 year are probably enough to fill ALL of the openings in ALL university departments in that field. it's a huge pool of qualified applicants for a tiny number of jobs. and that's true of every industry these days, but the time and effort and cost that goes into becoming a qualified applicant really really magnifies the gamble.

thx for the advice guys, I will give you 10% credit if I'm successful and 100% blame if I'm not.

If everything goes to plan, I'm gonna graduate this August! w00t! But holy fuck this semester is driving me absolutely crazy.

(I suppose I am critiquing Benton's argument more than his premise.)

I've just been accepted for an English PhD. What the fuck am I getting myself into?

congratulations!!

congratulation!

Haha, thanks you guys. I'm kind of terrified, but it's something I really want to do, and also I have no transferable skills to the outside world so it keeps me away from the even scarier prospect of working in a shitty office again.

Haha, thanks you guys. I'm kind of terrified, but it's something I really want to do,

A+ reason do do a phd. Have fun! congratulations!

and also I have no transferable skills to the outside world so it keeps me away from the even scarier prospect of working in a shitty office again.

ruh roh! hope this isn't part of the reason.

Nah, it's not really part of the reason why I decided to go for it, more of an exasperated joke at my own expense. Plus things like the article above are enough to make me realise that if I wanted to avoid crappy jobs I should be doing something vocational rather than more academia.

Did you get funded?

Only just got the letter of acceptance so funding comes next. The new methods are confusing, though.

w0000. Will you be going ahead with it even without funding?

I too just got my (conditional - I pretty much have to not fail my Masters dissertation) PhD acceptance, in philosophy. Which isn't much cause for celebration, cuz I needs the moneys, so the real big deal is that I've just applied to the two scholarships I'm eligable for. Loadsa rubbish about how wonderfully original and relevant and interdisciplinary I am. Now for a crippling few months of finger-crossing.

Rock rock on, email.y!

I always call you email.y by accident. ;_;

w0000. Will you be going ahead with it even without funding?

I think I can just about manage to, yeah. The possibility of not getting funding is one reason I decided to apply for the part-time course, but I'm now kicking myself, as it actually completely cuts off one avenue of funding (although admittedly that avenue is only a single year's fee, but even that would be nice).

Congratulations to you, too, and good luck with the scholarships. What area of philosophy are you specialising in?

(And Abbott, thank you.)

omg! congratulatio! what area will you be specialising in?

I'm gonna be doing '60s (give or take a few years) British experimental writing. My love affair with BSJ will never die. (For some paranoid reason I'm wary about giving away more detail in case the powers that be google my project and see how I fritter away my time/realise I'm an idiot.)

Ooh, sorry, I tuned out for ages! But yeah, this sounds wayyy awesome. You gotta let me know more at some stage...

Just out the other end of a Philosophy PhD - don't think I could do it again even with lavish funding at Oxford/Princeton, but totally glad I did - but be warned: you won't be the same afterwards ...

i just got back in. 2nd grad degree. wtf, me?

i got accepted to do a phd but like an idiot I went and re-read all the funding application stuff-- and now I feel tiny and useless and likely to get disqualified on a technicality or just plain found out as a charlatan.

i got accepted to do a phd but like an idiot I went and re-read all the funding application stuff-- and now I feel tiny and useless and likely to get disqualified on a technicality or just plain found out as a charlatan.

You'll probably feel that most of the time for the next few years - might as well get some practice in!

email.y who is BSJ?

arrrgh I did it again

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._S._Johnson

(presumably)

blow shit job

Thanking you max.

well done C! for now at least ;-)

I've found myself giving consideration to a part-time masters in an international relations-related field. should i stop it stop it right now?

also, what is the difference between an mres and an msc, in tangible terms? numbers/analysis and stuff?

my brother did an mres. my understanding is, compared to an msc, an mres emphasizes a substantial independent research project at the expense of some of the taught course element. mres is more common in the sciences, so that might be why it has a numbers/science rep, but there's nothing to stop a humanities dept doing an mres.