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Thread: The Uni Thread

  1. #801
    Senior Member randomlegend's Avatar
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    Passed my resits and going into final year

    Absolutely buzzing my tits off, to be honest.

  2. #802
    Custom User Title phonics's Avatar
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    I thought you hated it and were going to quit before it kills you?

  3. #803
    Senior Member randomlegend's Avatar
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    Things change. My mental health has improved dramatically. Found a speciality I actually really enjoy which has given me a reason to do it again.

    Let me have my moment. It's been a fucking hard journey.

  4. #804
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Well done.

    Genuinely pleased to hear that and that you're enjoying it again.

  5. #805
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    That 'speciality I actually really enjoy' is booting people off of disability benefits. Still happy for him?

  6. #806
    Senior Member randomlegend's Avatar
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    First day back, lectures 9-7. Fuck this shit.

  7. #807
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    5 weeks into my solicitors course and I'm bored senseless.

  8. #808
    Senior Member Adramelch's Avatar
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    I could never imagine myself studying anything related to law. I like the discipline in general, but having to study the specifics and stuff sounds so incredibly boring to me.

  9. #809
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    Quote Originally Posted by Adramelch View Post
    I could never imagine myself studying anything related to law. I like the discipline in general, but having to study the specifics and stuff sounds so incredibly boring to me.
    The academic side is very interesting (undergrad was great) but this course is designed purely to get you ready for practice so a lot of it is about procedure, solicitor's code of conduct and other tedious practical issues. It's sadly just a case of learning stuff as opposed to having to come up with any sort of original analysis.

  10. #810
    Custom User Title phonics's Avatar
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    AD, gimme your business card so I can shout 'I WANT MY PHONECALL' when I get arrested for doing something dumb.

  11. #811
    Bookie Sir Andy Mahowry's Avatar
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    To what extent has the monarchy been central to British identity in the period 1500-1660?
    To what extent is British folklore connected to the British landscape?
    To what extent has the rural landscape of Britain changed in the past five hundred years?

    Not sure which to pick.

    Not sure why they have a hard-on for the landscape.

  12. #812
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    The first one is the least terrible, and you won't have to read about the Norfolk four-course and poetry.

  13. #813
    Bookie Sir Andy Mahowry's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lewis View Post
    The first one is the least terrible, and you won't have to read about the Norfolk four-course and poetry.
    That's what I was thinking.

    I'm not keen on Monarchy during that period (or any period really) but the other two options are painfully shit.

  14. #814
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    I'd have done the one about folklore and the landscape, but then I like that kind of thing

  15. #815
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    @Spoonsky mate, you dodged a bullet not going to that Reed shithole.

  16. #816
    Senior Member Spoonsky's Avatar
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    First semester DONE. Best feeling in the world

  17. #817
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    4.0 I presume?

  18. #818
    Senior Member Spoonsky's Avatar
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    No clue yet. Wouldn't be surprised if I got a B in one of my classes, but I don't really care.

  19. #819
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    I got an article published the other week (it should have been up months ago), and it turns out that 'Every author at Routledge gets 50 free online copies of their article to share with friends and colleagues'. I don't have any of those, so my actual mates might as well have it if they are interested in Harold Macmillan and appeasement.

  20. #820
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    Independent scholar.

  21. #821
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    Yeah. 100% un-owned. Free to bring you the TRUTH.

  22. #822
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    Did you have to pay to publish? Last one I did was like $2000 per figure if you wanted them to appear in color on the print version. I had about eighteen.

  23. #823
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    They want a few hundred quid for colour figures, and you can pay to have it open access (lol), but us independent scholars don't need any of those.

  24. #824
    Senior Member Spoonsky's Avatar
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    Good stuff Lewis.

    Second semester started yesterday, though I'm still figuring out exactly which classes to take. Did really well grade-wise first semester, should be harder this time around though.

  25. #825
    Romulus Augustulus ItalAussie's Avatar
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    You in the academic job market, Lewis? Or getting out while the getting is good?

  26. #826
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    I tried to get into it after finishing, but I haven't bothered going for anything for well over a year. The competition for post-doctoral positions is mental, and, even with all applicants being equal (which I'm not saying they are), my proposals to write about white men and missiles were never really in line with what universities/funding bodies prioritise. I still have loads of old notes and half-written things that I will do stuff with, but mainly as a means of getting it out of my system and having some fun with it, rather than expecting it to get me anywhere.

  27. #827
    DEATH TO THE WEIRD Raoul Duke's Avatar
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    Surely "white guys with missiles" is topic du jour nowadays with an orange mentalist with his finger on the button?

  28. #828
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    The idea was to use olden days case studies to develop a better way of analysing 'irrational' foreign policy preferences, so I was well ahead of my time.

  29. #829
    Romulus Augustulus ItalAussie's Avatar
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    I don't really know how post-docs work in the humanities. Could you take a sideways jump? I know the Peace & Justice studies crew always seem to have funding at Sydney, so it might be that straight history isn't the easiest way to go?

  30. #830
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    I tweaked my proposals for applications to related fields, but you are still ultimately writing about the same sort of stuff (and if you find a specific project that somebody is running that you think you could contribute to they have already promised the role to their PhD students anyway).

    The problem (for me at least, although you could argue it is a wider issue) is that funding in the humanities is almost entirely decided by the extent to which your research can reach beyond the academy, and most application forms devote as much space to demonstrating how your research does that as they do to your actual research proposal. This might be the case with all fields, but in the humanities there are no obvious industrial applications for our stuff, like there might be for your research, so that essentially means relevance to public policy (or bullshit social history). That left me having to tout my project[s] as the beginning of the end for traditional foreign policy analysis, which, even if I believed I could contribute towards bringing about a different way of looking at certain things, probably just made me look like a Toby-headed twat.

    This is why your Peace and Justice cobbers will always have money, because they will be able to present their work to a bunch of NGOs and the like, and, even if it never has any actual impact (ugh) beyond that, the university can say 'Hey, a team from...' and rake in more money off the back of that. What little money there is goes to projects on migration, women in warzones, and shite like that (this is also why every teaching position in these subjects 'particularly welcomes applications' from people doing gender and post-colonialism, because that is where the research funding is). Funding for foreign policy projects is pretty much restricted to supranational institutions, conflict resolution, and terrorism. My stuff, nuclear stuff... You might find something if you were working on proliferation, and there will be a fellowship at an American university somewhere named after a maniac to support your work on containment/kicking Iran about; but that is all 'Political Science' and International Relations stuff, and they tend not to want honest historians and their actual academic standards (plus that is not my area).

  31. #831
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lewis View Post
    I tweaked my proposals for applications to related fields, but you are still ultimately writing about the same sort of stuff (and if you find a specific project that somebody is running that you think you could contribute to they have already promised the role to their PhD students anyway).

    The problem (for me at least, although you could argue it is a wider issue) is that funding in the humanities is almost entirely decided by the extent to which your research can reach beyond the academy, and most application forms devote as much space to demonstrating how your research does that as they do to your actual research proposal. This might be the case with all fields, but in the humanities there are no obvious industrial applications for our stuff, like there might be for your research, so that essentially means relevance to public policy (or bullshit social history). That left me having to tout my project[s] as the beginning of the end for traditional foreign policy analysis, which, even if I believed I could contribute towards bringing about a different way of looking at certain things, probably just made me look like a Toby-headed twat.

    This is why your Peace and Justice cobbers will always have money, because they will be able to present their work to a bunch of NGOs and the like, and, even if it never has any actual impact (ugh) beyond that, the university can say 'Hey, a team from...' and rake in more money off the back of that. What little money there is goes to projects on migration, women in warzones, and shite like that (this is also why every teaching position in these subjects 'particularly welcomes applications' from people doing gender and post-colonialism, because that is where the research funding is). Funding for foreign policy projects is pretty much restricted to supranational institutions, conflict resolution, and terrorism. My stuff, nuclear stuff... You might find something if you were working on proliferation, and there will be a fellowship at an American university somewhere named after a maniac to support your work on containment/kicking Iran about; but that is all 'Political Science' and International Relations stuff, and they tend not to want honest historians and their actual academic standards (plus that is not my area).
    Would you be willing to take a government job doing policy analysis, a position doing military intelligence, or travel to work at a political thinktank?

  32. #832
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    The military life isn't for me, but yes to the other two.

  33. #833
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    Just come to the US already. We'll go tailgating together.

  34. #834
    Romulus Augustulus ItalAussie's Avatar
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    It really sucks that academia is a tough ask for you (if that's what you were set on - sucks less if you weren't, of course), but it's good to hear that you do have really good options available.

  35. #835
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    If STEM could be turned into STEAM, can't we just go a step further and make it SHTEAM so that Lewis can be cool like Ital and I?

  36. #836
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    I think it's a tough ask for anyone when supply far out-weighs demand. It's harder for me in that my areas are unfashionable, but even if you are on trend then you will still have forty people going for every job, and half the ones you will go for will have already been promised to somebody in the department.

  37. #837
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    My wife is on the same boat. Her 16th century research meant that she could only apply for seven positions in the whole country, five of which where for 'generalists.' Everything goes to Francophone and/or women/migration related shit.

  38. #838
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    The typical teaching advertisement in my field looks like this (identical one here for American History). I don't even know what half of it means.

  39. #839
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    Mine read more like this:

    The Department of Mechanical Engineering at Rice University invites applications for two tenure-track/tenured positions effective as early as July 2018. We seek faculty members who will develop a dynamic and innovative independent research program and will excel in teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels while embracing Rice's culture of excellence and diversity. Excellence and scholarship in teaching and research are the primary selection criteria for a search in all areas of Mechanical Engineering, including robotics, solid mechanics, dynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and controls. Applicants should have a PhD or ScD in Mechanical Engineering or a related field. The positions are open to applicants at the assistant, associate, or full professor level.
    'We don't give a fuck what you do as long as you publish' basically.

  40. #840
    Senior Member Spoonsky's Avatar
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    Why do you like the 'nuclear stuff' so much?

  41. #841
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    He likes big butt[on]s.

  42. #842
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    Humanities doesn't seem to be as 'publish or perish' as the sciences (it fucking can't be given half the useless cunts in lecturing jobs), but what pressure does exist is in bringing external funding in, so it sounds like the reverse of your cashed-up environment.

  43. #843
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    You need to bring external funding in? In the humanities? That sounds fucked up.

  44. #844
    Senior Member Spoonsky's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lewis View Post
    Humanities doesn't seem to be as 'publish or perish' as the sciences (it fucking can't be given half the useless cunts in lecturing jobs), but what pressure does exist is in bringing external funding in, so it sounds like the reverse of your cashed-up environment.
    My parents have published for years.

  45. #845
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spoonsky View Post
    Why do you like the 'nuclear stuff' so much?
    I personally am equally as interested in 'conventional' military and political history (albeit all higher-end statecraft stuff), but as far as applications for things go my thesis, book, other book contract (which won't happen now, but was happening then) are all on nuclear stuff, so that was all I could really go for with no real way of demonstrating my wider knowledge.

  46. #846
    Senior Member Spoonsky's Avatar
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    I meant more like, what about it interested you in the first place? Why study that and not 16th century French peasants?

  47. #847
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    I don't know really. My original PhD application was going to cover more general stuff, and then I just narrowed it down to nuclear things as the most interesting. I had never actually studied any Cold War stuff at BA/MA level.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pepe View Post
    You need to bring external funding in? In the humanities? That sounds fucked up.
    You won't get sacked for not doing so, but if you want to climb the ladder your promotion prospects will be heavily-weighted towards the externally funded research projects you have been involved in/managed, since anyone can just write bollocks for desperate publishers. Those adverts make you read between the lines for it, but others (Mrs Pepe) just say it ('high-level research' is also code for it).

  48. #848
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    Does externally funded = you found someone willing to publish your book, or do you also need to get money to get students and whatnot? I guess I don't quite understand what externally funded means in the humanities. I think most tenure requirements over here are basically publish 5-7 articles and 2 books, at least in literature.

  49. #849
    Won the Old Board Lewis's Avatar
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    It basically means getting people not affiliated with the university to fund your work. So you might get a government grant (through some research council) to research Lesbianism in the Syrian Civil War, which you then use to fund your work generally, and that is good; but you might also hire a research assistant, and possibly even fund a couple of extra PhDs on loosely-related subjects (Fetishism and the Derg: 1974-87). All of which either subsidises the university directly (since your research assistant and PhDs are all on the books and teaching and getting more funding per head), or at the very least gives the university new people to improve its research output. Other sources - fellowships, travel grants, etc - all get chucked in as well.

    I posted before about my old supervisor getting fifty grand to produce an interactive map of an old base that is now an industrial estate. It was the most pointless project ever, but the funding bodies have to justify their own existence by taking academia to the plebs, and an interactive map of something nobody cares about technically fulfils that requirement (see the earlier point about bullshit social history).

  50. #850
    Romulus Augustulus ItalAussie's Avatar
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    External funding trumps publications as the key academic metric now. Publications are simply a mechanism to improve your chances of pulling in grant money.

    Science is exactly the same.

    EDIT: Hence the month of January every year in Australia being almost uniformly dedicated to grant-writing. Ask me how my day's been.

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