Networking and a’ that and a’ that at the 2013 iDocQ

By Calum Liddle, Doctoral Candidate, University of Strathclyde

Speed networking for doctoral candidates attending conference is a little like a modern dating exercise: there’s a little academic flirting, a bit of showmanship and polite, albeit very genuine, intrigue at another’s research. Eighteen students participated at this year’s annual Information Science Doctoral Colloquium (iDocQ) at Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University. That’s nine ‘dates’ a piece. The exercise successfully kicked off the day, breaking the ice - there was strangely a lack of it in the Granite City for a change - far quicker than any timid coffee session might achieve. Speed networking, while still a little novel, should not be mistaken for a corporate away day gimmick. It proved a quick way for delegates to be thrown into a space where invaluable contacts beyond the boundaries of their home institutions were secured.

Calum Liddle and Dr Annemaree Lloyd

 

 

Following the series of dates, the morning guest speaker, namely, Dr Annemaree Lloyd of Charles Sturt University, Australia, took to the stage. She first gave an overview of her recent research, then provided a ‘real world’ account of doing a PhD with hints and tips based on her experience as both a doctoral candidate and PhD supervisor. Dr Lloyd’s presentation was more than well received by delegates, especially those just starting out who are, after all, still novice navigators of the PhD/supervisor relationship.

Desert Island Discourse with Professor Graham Crow

The SGS's Director, Professor Graham Crow, was featured in the Summer 2013's issue of Network (from the British Sociological Association) in its Desert Island Discourse article. Here are extracts on three out of five of Professor Crow's book choices should he get stuck on a desert island... 

The Trumpet Shall Sound - Peter Worsley

It is a wonderful demonstration of how the world is open to apparently bizarre interpretations which make more sense as we learn more about them. It also illustrates how doctoral research has been the point of departure for many significant books in sociology. Two of Louise Ryan’s recent Desert Island Discourse choices came out of PhD theses: Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and Ann Oakley’s Housewife. Longer ago, so did Emile Durkheim’s The Division of Labour in Society.

In my new job as Director of the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science I like to emphasise to research students that a good thesis can be the start of a celebrated career. This was true for Goffman, who was associated as a PhD student with my new department at Edinburgh when he was doing fieldwork in the Shetland Islands. At about the same time Worsley was undertaking his PhD fieldwork on Groote Eylandt in northern Australia and noting things about social organisation that were relevant to themes expanded upon in The Trumpet Shall Sound. He later became President of the BSA and Head of the University of Manchester’s pathbreaking Sociology Department. His best-selling Introducing Sociology only just fitted into my school blazer pocket, but I carried it round with me until I had read it through to the end. Having been captivated by that book, I moved on to Worsley’s own research, reported on in his first book it its account of ‘cargo cults’ and the (to Western eyes) strange rationality of people encountering modernity who imagined that it was just a matter of time before their boat arrived, in the same way that they saw boats coming in to sustain the lives of colonial figures on their Melanesian islands. 

Decades later Worsley returned to these themes of ‘what different peoples make of the world’ in his 1997 book Knowledges in which he re-empahsised the point that we do well to employ a comparative perspective to understand ourselves and our assumptions about what we know or what we think we know.

Is there life after a PhD?

By Dr Edward Hall, Associate Director SGS-DTC

Clockwise from left: Andrew Lyon, Vikki McCall,
Richmond Davies, Graeme Roy,
Catherine Maclean, Mike Woolvin

When the end of the PhD is in sight – the final drafts of the chapters almost there, the external examiner chosen, the viva date set – there can be mixed emotions: joy and relief, of course, but also anxiety and fear for what lies ahead once the final copy is bound and the degree ceremony is over. Is there life after a PhD? Yes, you know a great deal about a very specific subject, and yes, you can now call yourself Dr., but… What can you do with this knowledge and the skills you have learned over the last 3 to 4 years? 

At an excellent session at the SGS Summer School, seven past PhD students who have gone into non-academic careers – an increasingly popular choice for research students – reflected on their own experiences of life after the PhD and how they have applied their skills to a wide range of employment opportunities: economic adviser to Scottish Government, campaigner on health and wellbeing, writer and actress, primary school (and now yoga) teacher, rural policy researcher, museum researcher and NHS data analyst.