Luke on Nostr: this reminds me of a presentation I once delivered on reasons why you shouldn’t ...

this reminds me of a presentation I once delivered on reasons why you shouldn’t develop distance learning programmes (which I gave during the appointment process for a job developing distance learning programmes) - I got the job ;-)

In my experience our PGRs are the ones who understand the realities of a PhD better than some of their supervisors who are still seeing a PhD as an academic apprenticeship (although they are now in the minority). The majority of our PhD graduates both get good jobs and think their PhD helped them develop the skills they need, most of them outside the academy (that’s factual, from our destinations data) and true regardless of discipline. And the majority of our PGRs are realistic about that and pretty open-eyed about destinations. One of my colleagues used to get a show of hands during PGR induction about desire to become an academic and reported that even in the arts/hums the balance had shifted to non-academic goals some time ago… (although sometimes people shift the other way).

It’s not a big part of my job to dissuade people from doing a PhD (although it’s very much part of a sensible process to select for potential to succeed): it’s my job to help provide a context in which a wider range of candidates *can* succeed. And that requires us to be better supervisors and administrators who work for better conditions and support for actual people, not just for ‘traditional’ over-achievers… without undermining the nature of a PhD (although I think the nature of the PhD needs thought too). And that’s a big job given the funding context right now!