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

Yikes! What field is this?

& what counts as a "middle of the road" job?

English. All I mean by middle of the road is not Ivy League basically. So yeah "middle of the road" isn't accurate because those are still very, very good jobs in the scheme of things. I just remember thinking "THIS gets 500 applicants?" it's rough out there!

After 8+ years I turned in my dissertation to my committee a couple of days ago. I can't wait to defend and get this shit over with. Pretty sure I've aged about 5 biological years in the last 6 months.

Job market stories like ryan's are scary!

yeah...you're gonna want to change your way of thinking, if top publics count as middle of the road. you'll be lucky to get a regional or community college visiting job, in an out of the way place.

I was on a search committee last year at my previous university, in a less than desirable locale (though still an R1, if only barely), & we got 400+ apps.

my new department, in a much better uni / locale, is advertising this year for a pretty specialized junior position, & I expect at least 400 apps for that.

in humanities btw

oh im under no illusions. i doubt id be a candidate for a top public even in a vastly better job market.

just enjoy regaling people with that 500 number! especially funny considering how specific a lot of those job descriptions are.

I heard 800+ last year for pretty decent jobs

on the other hand, if you saw some of these apps

i think there is a big developmental leap between defending and getting your phd and actually being a decent job candidate. at least there was for me, and it's something i struggled with. my work is rather esoteric to begin with so learning to present myself to people not familiar with it was/is a big challenge.

i feel like an immeasurably stronger candidate this year. more publications, more teaching experience, possible book in the pipeline, knowing what I'm about--and while i feel good about all that i know that my prospects are still pretty grim.

I'd say to anyone starting a phd program (and this was said to me, though i failed to do it): start positioning yourself for the job market right away.

yes, that's essential; when you're shopping around for Ph.D. programs, talk to potential advisors & see whether they're thinking that way also

in addition to judging their placement record

i think there is a big developmental leap between defending and getting your phd and actually being a decent job candidate.

OTM

I'd say to anyone starting a phd program (and this was said to me, though i failed to do it): start positioning yourself for the job market right away.

This is good advice, although I actually say "Make sure you have a fallback plan" before I say this.

yeah i was about to add that as well!

Running very low on motivation for dissertation writing at the moment.

Imagine what it's like when you don't have the giant goal of getting a terminal degree there to motivate you. I've grown to really love teaching but man, it can be hard to get the self-motivation to do independent research or creative work when the main goal seems to be "adding a line to the CV" (aside from the intrinsic joy and value of the work itself, which can sometimes become hard to keep believing in in the same way as you get older if you're not e.g. working on a cure for AIDS).

you get older whether you're working on a cure for aids or not, bro

Ha, OK, poor phrasing.

I just met with my advisor about a doctoral fellowship proposal and feeling pretty incompetent, stupid and traumatized, even though I know what I have to do next to move things on. Will go and pull myself together and then come back and ask some questions here.

fellowship proposals, "research proposals," and things like cover letters are 1000x more difficult to write than a thousand dissertations! (for me, anyway)

I envision hell as a place where I have to write endless grant applications.

correction: a place where you have to revise the same one over and over after it's rejected

I don't mind grant applications; they're fairly mechanical for me at this point.

It's not writing the grant application itself that's the problem. I'm good with blurb in general, and I used to work for a funder (though not in a position where I saw a ton of actual applications). It's the sudden requirement to come up with a convincing extension to a study I only read for the first time last week. On the one hand I feel like my total cluelessness has been exposed and that I should have re-read all my advisor's work before getting here in case something like this happened fast. On the other, the reason I didn't is that I thought there would be at least a little bit of context-setting about the research direction of the lab, and the best way to approach decisions about what to focus on would be to wait for that. But I don't think it's going to happen.

well, that is what's hard about grant applications! & why they get mechanical, once you know your project well. that sucks to have to try to figure it out on the fly. is this a condition of your funding? if so, that sounds like a shaky program to have joined. can't you just say, uh, I have no idea about how to describe work that I haven't even done yet?

dunno what field you're in but in mine, asking a new first-year grad student to apply for funding would be absurd

It's developmental psych/education, in Canada. At my school they insist that every Masters student and every PhD student apply in their first year - formally I'm not sure that it's a condition of funding, but you'd certainly need a very good reason not to apply (just wastes funders' time imo if people are applying when not ready, but perhaps that's my old life talking). This is for doctoral fellowships, not research grants as such, but you do have to describe the trajectory of your research and specify some immediate projects. Many people who are not yet strongly affiliated to an advisor will describe research they have no clue whether they'll do or not - my understanding is that the funders are betting on the people who write convincing apps, rather than backing the projects.

Really interested in a range of views on this - other fields? countries?

EDB, does your program make you do this?

... and how's it going, btw? Welcome back!

who evaluates these? write to your audience. if it's people in the area / administrators / etc: the angle to take differs in each case

can you just take your statement that you wrote to get into your program, & soup it up with a bit of the direction that you talked about with your advisor? I'd try that, send it to your advisor asap, & see what s/he says.

xxpost: What funding body is it? SSHRC/NSERC? (though I think this is for Canadian citizens only?)

Incidentally I started drafting a SSHRC application a few days ago, albeit of my own volition. I worked through what amounted to like, hundreds of drafts of one last year, so I've internalized the template well enough to pop them off in a day or two :) (I think there were some information sessions about them last week that may repeat). OGS, on the other hand, I have no idea about and should probably look into

I've actually been meaning to inquire about this since here is it's done through your school.

Euler - at the federal level it's the funding agency, but I can't apply at that level (but have to do a dummy proposal for the class). So mine will be for the province - but is evaluated internally, first by the dept and then by a generalist panel. However, the proposal also has to actually work in the lab - my advisor will expect me to actually do the work. I absolutely will soup up my statement - I started last night; glad to have your endorsement of that approach!

EDB - it's SSHRC, but a dummy one because I'm not Canadian, as you say. So I'll write it as a SSHRC for a class assignment, and then reduce it down in length for a real OGS application which will be shorter and vaguer. I have some OGS info I can send you - does your webmail work?

My worry is not the 'how to convince people' part - I can be convincing. It's 'what to do that will actually work and be worthwhile'. I have a better idea since meeting with my advisor yesterday, but the meeting felt brutal (disapproving, why-don't-you-know-this-yet)

... and yes, I've been going to the information sessions on SSHRC - they're pretty good - but they take time telling me things I kind of could have guessed when I could be reading in my field in order to make the actual proposal more convincing...

I'd just enlist my advisor's help A LOT getting this together; write a draft of your statement + plus some vague notes about how to integrate with your new lab; ask the advisor to look over this & comment already at this crude & raw stage; integrate comments, send again to advisor; repeat. you might think: this'll make me a pain in the ass & I'll look like I don't know what I'm doing. forget about being a pain in the ass: it's their job; as to not knowing what you're doing, this comes with the territory. do it all over email; now that I have graduate students I'm shocked at much time I'm spending with them in person, & how I can't get anything else done at those times. It's a joy but I need to get my own shit done too! but with email I can fit it into my schedule better, like while I'm walking between buildings, waiting for a bus, etc.

Ugh, SSHRC applications are the worst but maybe I feel that way because I never won them (or maybe I never won them because I felt that way?). People all around me at York were getting them though. Seriously, my friend won with an imo bs proposal that was written in Comic Sans.

Even now, I blanch a little when I look at the application forms for SSHRC research grants.

I'm very surprised that they're making you write a dummy application as a class assignment when you're not even able to actually apply, though.

Also, pretty much all my postdoc colleagues have gotten academic jobs, or in two cases, have gotten TWO.

Euler, I'm sure you're OTM. This is my advisor's first lab, and I think we are her first PhD students. She's committed and wants to see us in person once a week till the apps are in, which is good of her. I'm also comfortable emailing her drafts (and having just come from a busy job that involved fobbing off nice-but-take-too-long meetings, totally understand about the face-to-face time issues).

But I find the face-to-face sessions with my advisor a bit excruciating at the moment. It will be easier once I'm more comfortable with her. She seemed to expect that I'd turn up with ideas poised to go, but I may be imagining some of that in an imposter-syndrome type way. I'd like us to have lab meeting that sets out the research direction of the lab and briefly introduces all upcoming projects, rather than launching right into discussions of specific, surprise projects no-one knew about and introducing rules like 'no arguing in the lab' (! - wasn't planning on it).

What I might do is very tentatively raise the possibility of a context-setting session with the lab's postdoc, and see whether she might enable it to happen. Though she's new to this advisor too, she has a certain status that might make it easier for her to raise.

that sounds good.

one other tip I'd recommend is flattery; most academics are ego-maniacs & yours sounds like no exception. but if you're like "your work is so impressive & I want to be sure I rightly & clearly describe my proposed contribution to your project" then you might have an easier time of it.

What field are you in, Ed B?

Even now, I blanch a little when I look at the application forms for SSHRC research grants.

(sign that I'm in the right field, obv)

What's your field, Sund4r?

Music composition/theory. So I guess SSHRC application skills are actually much less essential than they are in other fields. Still does seem to be an important part of the whole deal.

I'm in Art History, the aformentioned postdocs that are all getting ~JOBBZ~ are assorted humanities people, though,

Aw crap, I don't think things are going to work out between me and this advisor. I can deal with all sorts of difficult people, honestly, but there's one type I can't deal with and I've got a sinking feeling that I recognize it here. I really don't want to spend four years angry after every meeting and having to hide it. I know I have to give it time, though. (And get to know other faculty in the meantime).

^^^do you really have to give it time? It shouldn't be this hard with your *advisor*. Get another advisor, stat, if you can! And if you can't, your program should really think about what a bad policy that is.

Anyhow, about a decade after sayonara to grad school for what I thought would be forever, hell if I'm not gonna do it again! Total career change: please prepare for quincie, MSW, LCSW-C

Fantastic, Q! Are you applying right now?

If I tried to skip over to another advisor now, unfortunately no-one would take me seriously because we're 6 weeks in. I think first I have to come up with a strong, executable dissertation idea that 'naturally' takes me to someone else. Also, that way minimises any potential politics and bad feeling.

That sounds like a sound strategy. I'm applying for Fall 2013, but I'll likely need to do an online course in human development--apparently my two bioscience degrees will not exempt me from this requirement! I'll do that next semester (oh god, I'm going to be considering time in semesters instead of financial quarters!!!). Would like to get all my application stuff in by end of January. Only applying to three schools (VCU, UMD, and BU). VCU and BU have distance/online programs; UMD I can do my first year in R'ville and my second year in Baltimore. Still not sure if I will do full time or part time. I guess, since I have to pay for this, I should do part time, meaning ~3 years too finish.

TO finish, not too finish. And work at the same time. Then take an MSW job at approx half the salary of my current corporate gig. But I'm very happy with this decision and am excited to go back to school!

Can you do lots of different types of jobs with an MSW? Do you have your eye on something specific?