The Higher Education Megathread

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Red** » Fri Sep 11, 2020 12:35 pm

Thanks!

He's pretty brave getting that close to a forge with no trousers on

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Karl_** » Fri Sep 11, 2020 1:06 pm

Congrats Red, that's fantastic news!

What are your post-MA plans?

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Red** » Fri Sep 11, 2020 3:23 pm

I've been offered a digging job but the company are a bit disorganised so I'm not sure exactly when/if that's meant to be starting. Applied for a couple more entry level similar commercial archaeology jobs so we'll see how it goes.

If I get a decent grade in the MA I might do construction jobs for a year or so then see if I can get onto a PhD.

How's everyone getting on at their respective Universities in the current climate? We are currently responsible for around 70% of all weekly cases in the city (30 of 37 last week. 47 of 68 this week), but we continue face to face for lab sessions and seminars. Outside of "actual" work on my Workload plan, I am currently up until ~midnight every night video editing lab demonstrations with external camera/GoPro footage with an overlay of me in the corner lecturing. Bloody excellent times.

We also were worried about under-recruiting and have now accidentally over-recruited. Senior management are thrilled. I am less so.

Ah man, I'm so sorry you and your students are being forced in. It's such a shitty situation for everyone involved.

My group has two new MSc students this year but I'm relieved to say we're supervising them remotely until the second wave passes.

We're online only for the semester, and probably for the whole academic year. Sorry to hear about this Mini E, it sounds like you're having an absolute nightmare scenario.

Made the mistake of putting Question Time on there just as they got into the student thing and *strawberry float me* is everyone trying to put the blame on the universities themselves instead of the shitty government advice that's led to bad decision making. Don't get me wrong, the universities have to take a share of the blame for encouraging students to return to halls of residence, but the blame needs to extend to the government as well.

The SNP man has largely been quite good - he gave a good answer when asked about Margaret Ferrier - but didn't do a great job of advertising Glasgow at all - "we have hundreds of cases of student transmission in Glasgow" is so reductive. We also have three universities, one of which has seen 15 cases from a student body of 16,000. And we're rightfully quite proud of the work we're doing to limit the spread of the virus and protect students as well. :lol:

Was looking for some stuff in the loft over the weekend and stumbled upon this in a storage box:

This was the version of my PhD thesis I submitted for external examination back in December 2014, nearly 6 years ago now! :shock:

I think the post-it markers were marking the minor corrections I had to make, looks like there were quite a few! :lol:

Not a day that goes by that I'm not glad I no longer have to work on this! :lol:

Awesome! Mine is bound and sits under my coffee table amongst a load of cookbooks :lol:

Came in here for a minor rant against my own inability to help myself. I'm currently signed up on a PGCert to gain a teaching qualification for higher education. It took me a year to get signed on to the course, and I'm now having trouble remembering to satisfy the obligations of the course, on top of other jobs and commitments. I was unwittingly double booked to teach and be on one of these half-day lectures a fortnight ago, something I've only just learned about today after finding a reminder e-mail nestled in my inbox, and it looks like I've been booted off that section of the PGCert as a result of missing it. If I'd realised I would've asked a colleague to cover the teaching, but the fact is that I can't manage my time well and it's starting to cause issues again. :dread:

Corazon de Leon wrote:Awesome! Mine is bound and sits under my coffee table amongst a load of cookbooks

Came in here for a minor rant against my own inability to help myself. I'm currently signed up on a PGCert to gain a teaching qualification for higher education. It took me a year to get signed on to the course, and I'm now having trouble remembering to satisfy the obligations of the course, on top of other jobs and commitments. I was unwittingly double booked to teach and be on one of these half-day lectures a fortnight ago, something I've only just learned about today after finding a reminder e-mail nestled in my inbox, and it looks like I've been booted off that section of the PGCert as a result of missing it. If I'd realised I would've asked a colleague to cover the teaching, but the fact is that I can't manage my time well and it's starting to cause issues again.

Which PGCert modules are you doing? I did Engaging Students in Learning and Technology Enhanced Learning on mine, so if you have overlap let me know and I’ll send across my assessments.

The whole thing was a monumental waste of time but it allowed me to become a Fellow of the HEA so it was worth it, I guess!

I must stop snoozing my conversation with the nice man called Sam about binding my PhD. It’s been 12 months and we have had two emails each way, with me ‘snoozing until Monday’ consistently. Poor bloke.

Ah, I’m doing Leadership in Higher Education and something about Teaching and Learning Assessments, so sadly we don’t overlap. Thanks for the offer though!

And yeah, it really is all about obtaining FHEA status, everything else I’ve done in the course has been bumph.

I’m hoping that by this time next year I’ll have a book(on President Johnson), a scholarly article(on protest music in the Bush era), a book chapter(on Presidential participation in sports), and possibly a few newspaper articles banged out, so that I can actively compete for jobs in England with FHEA status as well.

Mini E wrote:How's everyone getting on at their respective Universities in the current climate? We are currently responsible for around 70% of all weekly cases in the city (30 of 37 last week. 47 of 68 this week), but we continue face to face for lab sessions and seminars. Outside of "actual" work on my Workload plan, I am currently up until ~midnight every night video editing lab demonstrations with external camera/GoPro footage with an overlay of me in the corner lecturing. Bloody excellent times.

We also were worried about under-recruiting and have now accidentally over-recruited. Senior management are thrilled. I am less so.

General update:

Previous week: 98 student cases, 2 staff, including a spike of student cases in our department.

Management have found a way of removing 10% of our WLP hours, so we now all have 10% more capacity even though everyone is just disgustingly over capacity as a result of Covid.

Website opening line: "We are pleased to confirm that our campuses and halls of residence are open."

:roll:

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Red** » Fri Oct 09, 2020 9:35 pm

Just got my dissertation result back and it's a distinction so that's a distinction overall! MA Archaeology achieved. I'm so happy, it all seemed like a crazy dream and a massive risk to leave a decent career to do it but it's worked alright, and I have a good trainee commercial archaeology job at a huge Victorian cemetery lined up too.

Drinking a bottle of Maximus ale and listening to the Gladiator soundtrack to celebrate.

Huge congratulations Red, great result! :toot:

Bit of an odd one here but I am finding it difficult to support my girlfriend as she does her Phd.

She is aiming to get it finished soon but it seems that every chapter she hands in comes back with corrections and it puts her into a tail spin.

I really have no frame of reference for how difficult a Phd is as I only got a HND, and bailed on higher education.

To me it seems that she keeps comparing herself to others who have managed quicker and with fewer corrections and all I can really do to help is to remind her of that, but it seems to be a regular occurrence which is only making it harder and harder for me to give the emotional support, which in turn makes me feel shitty.

ahhh I dunno, just wanted to get some feelings out there.

Kezzer wrote:Bit of an odd one here but I am finding it difficult to support my girlfriend as she does her Phd.

She is aiming to get it finished soon but it seems that every chapter she hands in comes back with corrections and it puts her into a tail spin.

I really have no frame of reference for how difficult a Phd is as I only got a HND, and bailed on higher education.

To me it seems that she keeps comparing herself to others who have managed quicker and with fewer corrections and all I can really do to help is to remind her of that, but it seems to be a regular occurrence which is only making it harder and harder for me to give the emotional support, which in turn makes me feel shitty.

ahhh I dunno, just wanted to get some feelings out there.

It's going to be a regular occurrence for the rest of the PhD process. Anyone who has done a PhD has compared themselves negatively to their peers, it's part and parcel of the process, which fosters insecurity and self-doubt in almost every candidate. All you can really do is keep reminding her that her project is unique, she doesn't truly know what's gone on behind the closed doors of her colleagues' reviews and submissions processes, and that it's OK to feel overwhelmed by the process on occasion.

It'll be tough for you as well, because you'll see her hit some absolute lows - the process is *so* mentally draining - but it will be worth it when she gets through to the other side.

Out of interest, what subject is her PhD in?

Yep, what he said. It's a tough process at the best of times and everyone suffers from comparing themselves with others in academia but like Cora says every PhD is unique and you really just have to focus on your own work and not worry about whether anyone else is finishing faster than you or publishing more frequently etc. (this is definitely easier said that done though!)

I took an absolute age to get mine finished as I had to abandon full time work on it to get a job so the final write ups and revisions were a real slog and I genuinely don't know how anyone put up with me during that time! My wife was really supportive and managed to strike a good balance between giving me space and encouragement to get on with it whilst also acting as something of a whip cracker to keep me focussed when the bouts of procrastination crept in!

Thanks Cora (Edit: and Jenuall!!) :wub:

Part of me knows this, and I do really want to be able to support her to the fullest because its clearly tough. However, I still find myself with selfish and arrogant thoughts which just makes me angry with myself.

She is studying Ecology/Entomology with teaching added on too

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Karl_** » Wed Nov 04, 2020 2:07 pm

Is the problem that she's falling down the same mental "hole" over and over, and you're getting frustrated with that?

PhDs are very conducive to poor mental health. They are often lonely and high-pressure, and the structure of the work encourages you to beat yourself up. It might help to think of her as having suffered an "injury" to her mental health as a result of all the stress of the programme. Certain emotions will have a much bigger weight in her mind until that "heals". This is how I try to explain it to people when I do things that are a bit counterproductive or emotional as a result of stress, anyway.

Yeah Karl that is probably spot on. I guess its also in my nature to try and fix things which then just compounds the issue as I can't. Which I know. I know it doesn't work that way, still it can be very frustrating.

The idea of an "injury" is actually a really good way of thinking about it!

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Red** » Wed Dec 02, 2020 6:44 am

My MA supervisor is encouraging me to apply for a funded PhD he's got going at the moment and I have no idea where to start. I don't really understand the correct requirements for proposals and I only have a few weeks to come up with something while also working ten hour days and losing university library access.

Mnnnghh

The Higher Education Megathread

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