Indulging Self Oblitoration

I am seasoned in the act of self-obliteration. There, I said it. 

I am a Self-Obliterator. 

A really, really good one.

Last weekend I indulged in some heavy self-obliteration practices to the extent that I now feel the deep urge to write something about it, before it transcends into something potentially more committed, like being a Defeatist or maybe even an Unjustified Quitter. 

There are some fundamental differences between being a Self-Obliterator and being a Defeatist that I'd like to start by outlining. 

First of all, a Defeatist is defined as being someone who expects or is excessively ready to accept failure without a struggle.

A Self- Obliterator on the other hand, is, I have deduced, someone who is in denial about both the prospect of failure and the possibility of success. They are a variety of deeply ambiguous sole for whom it makes more sense to defend against the troubling realities that may transpire should their actions (or lack thereof) cause the pendulum between failure and success to tip either way. 

Of course, Self-Obliterators are not the same as Head-in-the-Sanders.

Self-Obliterators are in denial, but this denial takes on a distinctly active form. 

To ensure that they preserve their warped self- expectations, that is, that they are capable of/deserve neither success nor failure, Self- Obliterators must account for their tendencies to flirt with the notion of failure and yet never follow through with it, and their potential incapacities/ absence of (obvious) expectation to succeed. 

Not to be confused with those who posses the slightly inconvenient and more placid plight of Extreme-Humbleness, Self-Obliterators violently and verbally beat the idea of success away from their door with a barrage of fear and self-doubt.

'What? No I don't expect to get a job in academia after I'm finished. What do you think I am some kind of idiot? I'll be lucky if I even complete my fieldwork the odds are that stacked against me, I probably should just quit RIGHT NOW...'

It's ok though, attacking the mere discussion of possibilities post-PhD with fear and self-doubt shows to others, for the Self-Obliterator, a lack of fear and self-doubt, obviously. 

'...but yeah, you know, I mean it'll probably be all right actually come to think of it probably. I mean, I don't know how but jesus. I've dragged myself this far beyond the destitute experience of high-school. Surely even I can work something out '. 

The jaws of failure have snapped at their ankles. Observe as the Self-Obliterator expels it with a begrudged sense of entitlement and a 'fearless' display of implied ineptitude.

Sigh.

I shall return with further insight (ha) into this complex, highly useless mentality in the future (maybe).  Perhaps once I have drifted categories into something more productive, like, oh, I don't know, maybe a Believer...

Kath

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'How To' Hit List: Academic CVs

I worked as a CV Adviser at my university for 2 years. To mark the end of my time in the role I thought I'd compile a list of the most useful tips and tricks I picked up along the way.
Some of this might be obvious, but here's my 'how to hit list' for producing a more effective, high impact Academic CV.

1. START WITH RESEARCH INTERESTS

So many Academic CVs I've encountered begin with a personal profile. Nine times out of ten, you've read one of these things, you've read them all. 'Hard working researcher of gender and sexuality with excellent communication skills and a fabulous ability to relay all of the attributes required of the advertised position' and yawn, yawn seen it all... Don't even waste the space, it's an optional addition to any CV anyway. Provide an overview of your research interests in place of a profile- this information is of far more use to recruiters, and it will help to construct a more accurate and relevant image of what you're like as a candidate.

2. KEEP IT CONCISE

Nobody wants to read through the long list of module codes you've slapped in your CV to signify the scope of your teaching achievements. Even if you are applying for an internal position within your existing school, these codes fail to tell readers anything about your actual teaching abilities. 

Instead, translate your experiences into relevant skills. Provide a breakdown of your main roles and responsibilities and contextualise these by evidencing the skills and aptitudes you utilised and developed when performing key tasks. Always prioritise and highlight those skills outlined as essential and/or desirable within the criteria of the roles you are applying for. 

REMEMBER: Writing a CV is about building a case that evidences how you are an ideal candidate for the position you are applying for. So don't cloud your case with waffle, jargon or information that doesn't really tell anyone anything about your proficiencies. 

3. BE EFFICIENT WITH SUBHEADINGS

Your CV needs to highlight your most RECENT and RELEVANT achievements. Therefore it makes sense to create subheadings that make these aspects of your CV more obvious. Organise your work history by relevancy as well as by date. Try fracturing this section in two and creating sub sections titled 'Relevant Experience' and 'Additional Experience'. Lay out each in reverse chronological order and revel in the fact that you just made the task of reading your CV even easier. 

4. DELETE UNRELATED INFORMATION

What's that? You where once a self employed puppeteer in your very own travelling Punch and Judy show? Well isn't that tremendous. 

No.

If it's not relevant to the role you're applying for, take it out.

5. TINKER TAILOR, TAILOR, TAILOR

This should go without saying, but NO, you can't apply for a range of posts with the exact same CV. Your CV needs to be tailored to each vacancy. It may need a tweak, it may need a complete over hall, but unless the positions are somehow completely identical- some form of editing will be required. Again, we're producing a document that builds an image of what you are like as a candidate in the readers mind. Lets make that image irresistibly clear. 

6. DON'T WRITE IN FIRST PERSON

Take out all if the Is mes and mys that are cluttering up your CV. First person encourages a descriptive style of writing that takes up space. Huge blocks of text are laborious to read through. Swap first person pros for bullet points that start with active verbs instead and behold- your CV should read more efficiently and should have a dynamic and professional tone to it.

7. FORMAT EFFECTIVELY

The return button is your enemy- line breaks add up so try to ration them. 

We know that Academic CVs can be longer than the standard 2 sides of A4, but academics are busy people. No one wants to trawl through a CV that resembles that of a short novella- it's self indulgent and most likely unnecessary. A lot of the lengthy Academic CVs I've seen usually appear that little bit too long because of bad formatting. 

My best advice? Make use of the WIDTH of the page as well as the length. Think twice about hitting return, try a comma first instead. 

Other fabulous space saving tips include setting your margins to narrow (and saving as a pdf), reducing the line spacing to 1.0 (as long as the CV is still readable with your selected font) and deleting the words 'Curriculum Vitae' from the top of your CV- they know its a CV, it should be pretty obvious. 

8. PUBLICATIONS

Literally the currency of winners. Get them/include them. Enough said.

9. FUNDING, CONFERENCE PAPERS, RELEVANT TRAINING, PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

If it's relevant make sure this information is included. It all contributes to helping your academic worthiness stand out. 

10. PHOTOGRAPHS OF YOURSELF

Don't even think about it. Unless it's requested.


Useful Websites

• Newcastle University Careers Service

• Vitae offers general guidelines on creating an effective academic CV

• The Researcher Development Statement, developed by Vitae, sets out the knowledge, behaviours and attributes of effective and highly skilled researchers appropriate for a wide range of careers.

• Prospects: CVs and covering letters - includes an example academic CV.

• Newcastle Researchers' Blog - includes articles on academic CVs for Newcastle University researchers.

• Loughborough University Careers Service - Researchers – CV and applications

• University of Kent Careers Service - Postgraduate and Academic CVs, including sample CVs.

• Jobs.ac.uk recently held a tweet chat on how to write a killer academic CV (July 2014)

Making a Research Website...

**NB** If you came here in search of advice on how to make successful research websites, I'm sorry, but I can't help you...

After spending all day trying to learn basic HTML I feel fine...I said I feel fine ok.



I've experienced some highs and lows, but the joy I felt after working out the CSS code to remove unwanted headings was, I can say, parallel to nothing else, ever.

Realising this information was already conveniently outlined for me on the university's on line 'how to' guide was, however,  a low point, I can't deny that.
My day brightened up a little when an unfortunate "staff copy and paste error" landed in my inbox from the IT Support Department...

But this moment of carefree revelling in the stupidity of others was to be quickly overshadowed my own absolute ineptitude...
Me: "Yes, I'm sure that the authorization for my site template hasn't been set up correctly, I've followed all of your recommendations for how to upload images into my personal database and it's not working so the pathway is definitely flawed".
IT Support Operator: "Yeah have you clicked the + button next to your site's image folder?"
Me: "Er, no, nope I've not done that actually...

Can't wait for tomorrow, what's that you say, onto SEO?! 

Dafuq.
Kath x

On Being Somewhere In-Between...

"Those triumphalist celebrations of fluidity always overlook the fact that being unfixed, mobile, in-between, can distress as much as it liberates. So one's sense of class identity is uncertain, torn and oscillating- caught on a cultural cusp" (Medhurst, in Munt, 2000: 20). 

One of the greatest moments of my life to date was the day I found out that I'd received funding for my PhD. The opportunity to work on a project of my choosing, pursue personal and professional development, enjoy three years of financial security; no words can describe the high I felt in that moment of reading the acceptance letter from my funder. 

What I didn't bank on however, was how 'doing' a PhD would impact upon my sense of self-hood a year down the line. In that moment, of course, the last thing I was thinking about was what exactly I was leaving behind. 

Before I came to university I was a chef. I went to college at 18, gained the vocational qualifications I needed and grafted kitchens for 5 years full time before realising that I probably couldn't have picked a worse industry, as a woman, to attempt to progress in. 

It took me a while, but eventually I made into university and completed my undergraduate and Masters degrees.

Like a lot of 'non-traditional' or working class students, I never really felt like university was for 'people like me', but that I had thought those thoughts in the first place annoyed me significantly enough to gain the grit required to bash through, if only just spite myself and "see what might happen".  

Last September, I walked out the kitchen for the last time. I was a part-time baker/cake maker for the duration of my BA and MA studies,and news of my funding meant that finally, I could leave behind the industry that I had found no longer sustained my appetite for self development. 

I don't regret leaving, and I definitely don't miss sweating for a wage barely shy of minimum wage, but in my leaving, in closing that chapter of my life to make room for my new academic pursuits, I was also to find that I had left, or lost perhaps, a secure sense purpose and of who I was.

The transition into higher education is often painful for students, and especially for non-traditional students(Burns and Sinfield, 2004). The feelings of shame, fear and inadequacy provoked by this movement through a system of higher education that is argued by some to ignore cultural inequalities  and exacerbate myths of meritocracy and classlessness, are well documented (Tett, 2000, Leathwood, 2003, Sinfield, 2003). 

But what about the shift up from structured postgraduate programmes to PhD study? Is it to be presumed that such feelings abate the longer we are in this system? Are we expected simply to 'get over it' by the time we reach this level? 

A pivotal aspect of my identity, that which had in fact driven me to endure my anxieties about being at university and complete my degrees, rested on my perceptions of my ability to 'graft'. I was a 'grafter'; a 'hard' worker; a 'good' worker; a 'real' worker. I knew what it was like 'out there', beyond the ivory tower. My participation on a taught postgraduate MA never threatened this identity, partly because I still had a job in the outside world, and otherwise because the structure of the programme suited my work style. With short bursts of work across the course of the year, it was much like shift work, when the tasks were over, they were over. You could close the door on them and leave them behind. 

Doing a PhD is like nothing I have ever experienced, I say this all the time! I am well and truly out of my comfort zone. My 'authenticity'- my sense of self feels threatened, as I 'oscillate', to use Medhurst's words, between who or what I thought I was and what I now must try to become. I mourn the loss of an identity or way of being that I had mastered. I fear that I may fail to successfully 'become' 'a PhD student'- in all their seamless, articulate, organised, quietly genius glory. I will be uncovered as an imposter, a fraud, a mistake. 

I am no longer there nor have I yet found myself here. I have not let go but must reach ahead in order to become something new. I am in-between, ambiguous. I am abject.

"Abjection is above all ambiguity. Because, while releasing a hold, it does not cut off the subject from what threatens it- on the contrary, abjection acknowledges it to be in perpetual danger"(Kristeva,1982: 9-10).  

NB. Am I saying academics aren't grafters? Am I saying they aren't 'real' people? Am I saying they don't have to try or struggle? Of course not. My feelings of inadequacy, of fear and of uncertainty rest precisely on the ways in which I have quite irrationally interpreted the talents of 'others' as 'innate'!

I should know better, but to attempt a sociological analysis of your self-hood...I should think I might be more objective, if I wasn't so attached to myself. 

Am I middle class yet? ;)     

Kath

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Pals: The Importance of Friends

You've heard it said before: doing a PhD can be a lonely business. 

Making a few pals along the way is really important: 

a) to ensure that you don't turn into one of those 'eccentric' academics with less than perfect social skills and b) to keep you sane during your PhD.

Although it can be pretty nerve racking when you first start, taking other postgrads up on their offers for coffee or a pint is all it takes. Failing that, just talking to people in your office is just as good.  

I'm the first person to cringe at the thought of awkward silences and nervous eye contact, but it doesn't have to be that way. Remember what you have in common- doing a PhD. 

I've learned loads about what's involved in doing a PhD, from what to expect from the first Annual Progress Review to how to write an academic book review for a journal. Also:

THEY TELL YOU THINGS YOUR SUPERVISORS WON'T/CAN'T/SHOULDN'T

Some of the best advice I've been given this year was to start saving for a fourth year, even if you don't end up needing it. Why? Because despite how confident you are with that Gant chart you made during the submissions period, a lot of projects run over three years, and if your sponsored, that's when your money is going to dry up. 

I don't want to call this networking, because for me at least, that's what you do with other students and lecturers at more formal events and conferences. This is about trying to make a pal or two who you can turn to for advice and support, who you can help out in return, and maybe who'll also just let you rant at them when things get a bit wild.

Of course, sometimes, these friendships do turn into opportunities. Currently, thanks to a well connected pal, a group of friends and I are working as a team of Research Assistants on an arts and humanities project in our local area. Working with your mates, amazing. 

I've made some good pals last year and this year, and seriously, I can't imagine doing this without them. 

Kath

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Linkedin: Developing Your Professional Profile

If anyone had asked me what the deal was with Linkedin before Monday, I would have been like:

It's been around since 2003, but I didn't join until 2012, kind of around the time when it was gaining a fair bit of hype online. 'Get Linkedin or Get Left Out' they said, so I was like O.K.

I'll admit straight off the bat that I'm not the most media savvy person the world has ever seen. I recently experienced something of an online identity crisis and tried to join Tumblr, only to realise that a) I don't know what it is b) I don't know what it's supposed to be used for and c) I've far surpassed the age demographic of the majority of the site's users.

Needless to say, whilst Linkedin was clearly always going to be of more use to me than Tumblr, I always ended up neglecting my profile because I didn't really feel like I knew what I was doing.

On Monday Newcastle University held an interactive workshop in collaboration with the London Alumni Branch to help students get to grips with Linkedin. At the 'LinkedIn Lab' we were given the chance to ask a 'Lab Doctor' questions about our profiles and how to improve them. They also offered a professional photography service for those looking to gain a more professional looking profile picture. I bottled out of this because I hate getting my photo taken (as if the cat face thumbnail doesn't make this obvious) but I wish I hadn't. Talks were also given by London Alumni Branch chairman Sam Waterfall and Linkedin 'guru' Charles Hardy. 

Since starting this blog and using twitter for more academic and professional purposes, the benefits of social networking platforms for sharing ideas and networking with other students and academics have become more obvious. Hence, progression into Linkedin made sense. Anyway, as I found this session so useful, I thought I'd share with you some of the top tips I took away from the Linkedin Lab.

1.Ensure your 'headline' is attention grabbing and precise. Writing 'student at whatever university' is too vague, and won't help you to stand out. Think keywords and include searchable terms to increase your visibility. 

2. Your 'summary' in Charles Hardy's words, is your 'elevator pitch'. There's a 2000 character allowance and he recommends you use it to tell your professional story. Note the word 'story' here. Go first person narrative all the way. 

3. Complete your profile. Users with 100% completed profiles are 40 times more likely to gain opportunities through Linkedin.

4.Giver's gain. That's what they told us. Endorse your contact's skills and write recommendations for them. They should return the favour, helping you to increase your professional kudos. 

5. If your curious about what your professional profile picture says about you, try getting it rated by others at PhotoFeeler but be warned, this is not the place for those whose egos bruise easily!

6. Not looking for job opportunities right now? Doesn't matter. Start now, be future focused and build your professional network whilst you study. When the time comes to look for jobs, you'll already be well connected.

My profile is still 'under construction' as I continue to learn more about how to improve it, but if you would like to view my profile, follow this link!

Kath 

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It's Emotional Work

One of my supervisors gave me a copy of 'Dancing and Wrestling with Scholarship' by Professor Les Back the other day. She kindly gave me a pile of around 20 to hand out around the office, but as they were headed with a personal message that read:

 'This was really useful for me when I was doing my PhD, I thought it would come in handy for you'

 I knew the other 19 copies were there to make me feel a little less like I was being bureaucratically flagged as 'on the edge'. Which was appreciated. 

This article really got me thinking about the emotion work behind doing a PhD. Those further ahead of me may laugh at this point. Of course I'm only in first year, I know I have barely dipped my toe into the incessant pool of desperation, exhaustion and disillusionment that awaits me, but like all first years, I have just been thrown in to a completely new way of working, and I'm doing my best to make sense of it all.

'When your PhD is going well it is a good dancing partner. When it is going badly it feels like you are being thrown around some intellectual equivalent of a wrestling match'.

How true is this? 

I don't know whether I should be worried at this stage that I am a little too invested in my PhD (is this even possible?), but, 7 months in, I have already experienced great intellectual highs that make you feel like you could in fact change the world (!) and the crashing lows that, on the flip side, make you to feel as though you might as well set fire to your year's work and get down the queue at the nearest job centre.   

It's like nothing I have experienced before. I have had jobs were I have worked independently, I have always cared about whatever job I have been in, but there is something I find far more personal about handing over your ideas and aspirations for review in a supervisor meeting. 

My feedback is always productive and I trust my supervisors unequivocally, but there is always that pinch: 

'A moment of 'pinch' between what one does feel and what one wants to feel (or what one thinks they ought to feel). In response, the individual may try to eliminate the pinch by working on feeling' (Arlie Hochschild 1979).

I really feel like there is a significant amount of emotional labour that has to go into being a PhD student. We have to continuously perform a series of personal management acts for self preservation, to allow us to cope with the pressures and strains, the unforeseen circumstances and the knocks to our confidence.  

I haven't mastered the techniques for successful emotion work yet, but I'm told that eventually, I'll develop a thick skin. 

Kath

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