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Now Ye're Talking - To A University Lecturer

  • 18-02-2015 11:43am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,840 ✭✭✭


    Hello all,

    This week we have a University Lecturer in the hot seat. This Boardsie has been given a special account for this AMA for privacy reasons.

    Lots of people seem to think this is some manner of "soft" job or that there isn't actually a lot involved in being a uni lecturer. Here's hoping we can dispel that this week :D


«13

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Thanks Dav, I'm only on the phone right now and pretty busy until the evening so it might be a few hours before I get to answer anything today, but I'm looking forward to it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,325 ✭✭✭✭Dozen Wicked Words


    Saw a bbc world presenter bemoaning the amount of lectures/tutor time her child got in UK university compared to her other child in US university.

    Just wondered if you know how Ireland compares with the US and UK in this regard, and do you think your students finish with a good level of learning associated with their degree or other qualifications.

    (Appreciate obviously the cost differences are massive.)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,899 ✭✭✭megaten


    Are you humanities lecturer. When writing journal articles do academics give any consideration to readability at all? The hardest thing by far in college for me was bending my mind to breaking point to comprehend how articles where structured and rarely managed to even get as far what they were talking about despite reading the whole thing. I can read normal prose and articles just fine and I generally understood the contents of spoken lectures.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,345 ✭✭✭Gits_bone


    Do you get paid extra for working during the summer with foreign students?

    Do you take a 15 minute break in between lectures like most of mine did? i.e lecture would finish 10 mins early and would be 10 past or so when next one starts. Length of walk to the halls never made a difference.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,205 ✭✭✭cruizer101


    Is there any sort of teaching training, either compulsory or voluntary ( I realise this may differ by college but still interested in your experience), do you think you should.

    How much time do you spend, actively teaching, preparing for teaching, research, other admin stuff. I'm guessing this changes throughout year, more research and that during summer but if you could give and overall indication be great.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,049 ✭✭✭Cloud


    It's not me BTW!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Saw a bbc world presenter bemoaning the amount of lectures/tutor time her child got in UK university compared to her other child in US university.

    Just wondered if you know how Ireland compares with the US and UK in this regard, and do you think your students finish with a good level of learning associated with their degree or other qualifications.

    (Appreciate obviously the cost differences are massive.)

    I wouldn't be sure of the statistics on this, and generalisations about universities in the UK and US are very difficult to make, but I would suspect that we don't compare very well in terms of student-teacher contact hours

    I teach English, which has huge numbers, and limited resources. Last semester I was the module coordinator on a first year course of 463 students. They would have one lecture a week on that course, with various different lecturers throughout the semester, and one tutorial a week always with the same tutor. But the tutorials can be quite big, so students can go hiding or be overwhelmed. The students will only get one-to-one feedback for a few minutes on their mid-term essay. It's completely inadequate, and one of the effects was that we had a high drop-out and failure rate on the course.

    That was my first time coordinating on a huge core module though, and I probably made some mistakes. But, for reasons I'll get into, there just wasn't the time you would need to keep tabs on students and try and get to them before they decide to give up (virtually EVERYONE who ever fails an English course does so because they haven't attended tutorials or didn't submit a major assignment).

    The UK is hard to generalise about. If you're in Oxford, your tutorials will be one-to-one, you will have mentors in your college, etc etc. There is an apparatus to make sure your work is fostered and encouraged, as well as that you don't fall off the radar. That kind of level of care just isn't possible for most universities anywhere, and it isn't the norm elsewhere in the UK.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    OSI wrote: »
    While in university, we had several companies coming in to talk about future prospects and bemoaning the lack of actual relevant knowledge and skills taught in Irish universities and the amount of time and money they had to spend bringing graduates up to scratch. Would you agree that's a disparity between what private companies require/expect of a graduates knowledge and skill base and what Irish universities are providing?

    I'm not sure what your area was, presumably business, science, technology? I remember when I was an undergraduate some local technology compannies had influence over the curriculum in the computer science department, which they also part funded. That is one of the more positive examples of private engagement with third level. I don't really know how good or bad most of those disciplines are in terms of preparation for the workplace.

    Obviously, in a subject like mine, it is, intrinsically, not particularly geared towards the requirements of the economy. And of course it is also not geared towards students who already know what it is they intend to work as. I'm a bit of an old romantic about my subject in some ways and am happy that in many ways what we do is teach people how to question and think for themselves.

    I'm not naive enough to think that most students have the luxury of being able to study without thought for the job market, but I am also very resistant to the idea that the university should always reflect the needs or demands of the private sector. The university has to prepare people to enter work and enhance their employment prospects, but if it doesn't also foster critical thinking and provide some kind of critique of the current social order, then for me the greatest benefit of having a university will have vanished.

    But yeah, if the Quinn School on UCD or whatever is educating students in business and they come out incapable of working in the area for which they've studied, then there's a problem. It could be related to the tension between the demands of research and teaching placed on university teachers.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    megaten wrote: »
    Are you humanities lecturer. When writing journal articles do academics give any consideration to readability at all? The hardest thing by far in college for me was bending my mind to breaking point to comprehend how articles where structured and rarely managed to even get as far what they were talking about despite reading the whole thing. I can read normal prose and articles just fine and I generally understood the contents of spoken lectures.

    Oh, don't get me started! I work in a discipline that is supposed to value language, but where many seem to specialise in producing absolute, incomprehensible gibberish.

    This is strictly my point of view, and I have colleagues who would say I'm talking nonsense, but anyway: this tendency to write in obfuscating, weird, technical prose emerged in the 1970s and 80s, with the rise of French theory. It's quite alluring for some people, because it gives an air of authority and specialisation to literary study, a feeling that what we do is remarkably difficult. All of that theory stuff is used in philosophy, social studies etc etc as well. If mathematicians and physicists and other hard core disciplines have a language for their own tribe, isn't it nice for us to have one as well?

    I don't want to dismiss critical theory; I've taught it, lectured in it, used it in my own research. But another alluring element is that this kind of language can make relatively simple ideas seem radically new, insightful, and best of all difficult. Myself and an American friend, when we were doing our doctorates, once sat down and tried to parse one of Gayatri Spivak's essay on postcolonialism. Many of the sentences simply didn't parse. But even if they did, that's just bad writing.

    I'll be honest, I was quite taken in with all this as a grad student, and had to force myself to follow simple rules of writing: never use a technical word where an every day one will do, and never use subordinate clauses where separate sentences will make it easier to understand.

    I don't mind theoretical language where basic language wont convey a concept, though, and there is a tendency for people to decide that since they themselves don't understand it, it mustn't be worth knowing. I once sat in a crowd of literary critics while an Irish judge lectured us on how we were responsible for making literature inaccessible to "the normal man" (!). He manifestly hadn't read anything by the people he was complaining about (couldn't name any of the books he was decrying when I asked him to do so).

    However, I'm of the opinion that literary study possesses intrinsic value to our society, and can enhance our understanding of ourselves. I also think that as lecturers we have a duty to bring our understanding of literature and its place in society to a broader audience. Some people get a serious kick out of feeling as if they are living in rarefied air, that they are special people with special knowledge that YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. The best writing about literature, and the hardest stuff to write, is understandable to a reasonably educated person. I think that's because the best ideas don't need to be dressed up in fancy language. Some people are afraid that they might be found to simply be making a simple point. The giveaway, as you say, is that the lectures don't tend to be like that. We want our students to understand what we're teaching, but often that desire deserts us when we sit down to write an article. I think the trend is shifting towards a more straightforward prose though.

    Ugh... TL;DR: yes, too much gibberish in academia, but I think it's going out of fashion.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 5,840 Mod ✭✭✭✭irish_goat


    What's your opinion on lecturers who write books and then put said books on the syllabus?


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Gits_bone wrote: »
    Do you get paid extra for working during the summer with foreign students?

    Do you take a 15 minute break in between lectures like most of mine did? i.e lecture would finish 10 mins early and would be 10 past or so when next one starts. Length of walk to the halls never made a difference.

    I don't work with foreign students during the summer. Anyone who I know who has done that was paid for doing it, but they would not have been in jobs where they are being paid all summer. Most young academics (PhD students or recently finished ones) are being paid per hour, rather than being on a salary. They earn the square root of f**k all, to be honest.

    Most of my lectures are not consecutive, but I have honestly never been late for one. My main problem is finishing on time, there's always more stuff that I want to say than I get a chance to. As an undergrad I remember having one or two like that, but they are a vanishing breed. The people in these departments are relentlessly driven these days, and it's a very competitive world. Particularly if you are not in a permanent position, you wouldn't last long with that kind of feck-acting, as there's no shortage of people who want your job.


  • Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 23,238 Mod ✭✭✭✭GLaDOS


    Has your career always been in Academia? Or did you branch out at all after either your under-grad or post-grad?

    Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    cruizer101 wrote: »
    Is there any sort of teaching training, either compulsory or voluntary ( I realise this may differ by college but still interested in your experience), do you think you should.

    How much time do you spend, actively teaching, preparing for teaching, research, other admin stuff. I'm guessing this changes throughout year, more research and that during summer but if you could give and overall indication be great.

    On your first question, when I first taught a tutorial, I was given no teacher training at all. I was really young, twenty-one, doing my master's and only just finished my degree months earlier, and I was sent in alone with no real guidance. In retrospect it was ludicrous. That was over a decade ago now. The last department I was at had workshops for all incoming tutors held with the department of education on teaching methodologies, lots of practical exercises etc etc. Some of it was fantastic and some of it seemed completely detached from the reality of the classroom. But yeah, they really should be doing this.

    On the second question, hard to generalise. Last week I'd guess I worked about 60 hours. I'm quite junior, a department head would probably work more like 80, with way more of that being administrative. I'm not a module coordinator this semester, but last week I was designing two seminar courses, so that took up a lot of time. I actually have to do some reading for these courses at the moment, so for the next week or two a lot of my "work" will be reading novels. But also unearthing articles, reading them, putting together a format for the course, designing assessments, liaising with the department on the material etc etc. I'll also be in departmental meetings etc. Obviously the teaching itself (each lecture probably represents about 8-10 hours of actual work, not including reading the novel/text you're speaking about).

    Later in the year exam meetings and corrections take up most of your time (easily my least favourite bit of the job). Any time you aren't busy with that stuff, you are (or should be) busy with your own research, which is what actually secures you employment, rather than your actual teaching, even though you don't get paid directly for your research most of the time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    irish_goat wrote: »
    What's your opinion on lecturers who write books and then put said books on the syllabus?

    Plenty of them will be self-important goons I would imagine. It's a weirdly arrogant gesture. Others will have written a text designed to be a core text on a core module (like an introduction to poetic analysis). The book might have emerged from years of teaching the course, so maybe it makes sense. That's the exception. Also often someone's teaching will reflect their research interests, so sooner or later their research will be relevant to something they're teaching.

    But yeah, in my experience it's something people are shy about doing because it makes you seem like a monumental a-hole. I've never done it, btw...:)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Has your career always been in Academia? Or did you branch out at all after either your under-grad or post-grad?

    After my master's I went abroad to do TEFL, but I ended up having a university job anyway. It doesn't really fit with what I've done since, and it didn't feel like being part of the academic "world" I have been in before or afterwards, but I guess it isn't really leaving academia either.

    The best people I've worked with have all worked outside academia at some point. I had a supervisor who worked as a staff nurse before doing a PhD and becoming a brilliant literary scholar. A professor I know previously worked for almost a decade as a civil servant. Another was once a barber who had played football in the LOI as a young man. Plenty of people I studied with had left other industries to do a PhD. They tended to work very hard, probably valued the opportunity more than people who have never been away, who tend to take it for granted. My financial background growing up was tough enough and I worked hard jobs through college, but always part time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,454 ✭✭✭Clearlier


    Hi and thanks for taking the time to answer all of our questions.

    What do you think of Open Access journals?

    Have you a preference between teaching and researching?

    What's your personal teaching philosophy i.e. how do you plan your teaching, have you got specific learning objectives for each lecture/seminar or do you pick a theme and talk around it. Do lectures usually pan out the way that you expect or do sometimes get driven off track by questions?

    What are the opportunities for career advancement like in Ireland for you? Would you/Do you expect to work abroad at some point in your career?

    Do you expect to be an academic for all of your working life?

    Were you driven to study English or did you kind of fall into it?

    If not English, what would you have studied?

    Favourite novel?

    P.S. You may wish to edit some of the details of your earlier responses if you wish to remain anonymous!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,812 ✭✭✭thelad95


    Do you get offended if students leave your lectures early or could you care less? Obviously sometimes students simply have a bus to catch or they might have a lecture on the other side of campus that they want to get a good seat in but some students think it's an implicit two fingers to a lecturer if they leave early.

    Also, do you think the function of colleges should focus on preparing students for work or should the focus remain on academia? I mean does a few years of cramming and half-arsing assignments really prepare someone for the world of work?


  • Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 23,238 Mod ✭✭✭✭GLaDOS


    Have you ever had to deal with serious cases of cheating/plagiarism that resulted in disciplinary action?

    Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,930 ✭✭✭✭challengemaster


    On your first question, when I first taught a tutorial, I was given no teacher training at all. I was really young, twenty-one, doing my master's and only just finished my degree months earlier, and I was sent in alone with no real guidance. In retrospect it was ludicrous. That was over a decade ago now.
    After my master's I went abroad to do TEFL, but I ended up having a university job anyway. It doesn't really fit with what I've done since, and it didn't feel like being part of the academic "world" I have been in before or afterwards, but I guess it isn't really leaving academia either.

    I'm working off what I know in relation to how difficult it is to get a lectureship these days, so I'm assuming you also did a PhD somewhere along the way :) Unless Arts is drastically different from STEM, it would be very rare to get a position after only doing a Master's.

    Did you know when completing your undergraduate degree that you wanted to stay in academia? If so, why do a masters rather than starting a PhD?

    How difficult is it within Arts to progress? I've seen this infographic relating to PhD graduates in STEM, would you feel it's similar in other fields?

    06n84.jpg

    As the IRC deadline has just passed and the usual stats are around 1200 applicants for ~250 scholarships - In general, do you think there is a surplus of people pursuing PhD's, a severe lack of funding for PhD's in Ireland, or a bit of both?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,139 ✭✭✭westernfrenzy


    What's the most challenging aspect of being a university lecturer?


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭sunbeam


    Do you think that grade inflation is a serious issue in your subject area at undergraduate level?

    Have you ever been under pressure to pass or award a higher grade to a student who you felt didn't deserve it?

    How do you think that the current crop of undergrads compare academically to those back in your day?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    What do you think of Open Access journals?

    The more the better if there's a way to protect (and continue to improve) the peer review process. Especially in a discipline like mine that, ideally, wouldn't be a closed shop.
    Have you a preference between teaching and researching?

    Not really. I love lecturing and tutoring, engaging with students and seeing how they respond to a text, especially if they respond differently to me. I despise correcting exams and essays, whether they are good or bad. On the other hand carrying out research is the most fantastic thing, I can go to an archive and go a whole day without speaking to anyone but have a great day. But the hardest thing is forcing yourself to gather the ideas into real articles/books, because then those ideas will be there for all to see and will never match how good they sound in your head. If I had to choose, though, I'd prefer research, simply because the actual class time is such a small part of the teaching process, and all the other parts are a bit boring.
    What's your personal teaching philosophy i.e. how do you plan your teaching, have you got specific learning objectives for each lecture/seminar or do you pick a theme and talk around it. Do lectures usually pan out the way that you expect or do sometimes get driven off track by questions?

    Many universities nowadays expect you to lay out learning objectives in your course descriptors. I will usually have a fair idea of my objectives for each lecture or seminar but I won't announce them, because it tends to force the class down a corridor, and defeats the purpose of literature as independent thinking.
    What are the opportunities for career advancement like in Ireland for you? Would you/Do you expect to work abroad at some point in your career?

    I will probably work abroad at some point, I've certainly applied and interviewed for foreign posts in the past. The Irish situation is bad because we have only a few universities and lots of PhD students. I'm full time but it's a temporary contract. I would be considered one of the very lucky ones in my generation, most people I studied with are doing adjunct work where they are paid per hour taught. It's a discouraging vista but there are opportunities there. Abroad isn't some paradise that awaits us, but there are opportunities (in terms of money, sure, but mainly in terms of opportunities to work with great people or with great resources) that I want to take advantage of at some point.
    Do you expect to be an academic for all of your working life?

    If I can, I probably will. But you never know what's coming.
    Were you driven to study English or did you kind of fall into it?

    I loved English since I was a very young child, and got more and more into fiction as a teenager. I didn't necessarily want to be a lecturer when I was in school, but I knew I had a flair for it (although while it was clear to some of my teachers that I could excel at it, I only really found my feet in the subject in my second year in college. I didn't even get an A in the Leaving Cert :o )
    If not English, what would you have studied?

    I also studied history and have worked in the past as a researcher for historical projects. I gave some thought to doing that at one point but never really thought of doing anything other than this. More recently I've wished I had studied economics, or pursued sociology beyond the basics because I was interested in questions of social mobility. But if I'd done anything else, I'd always have wondered. It wasn't something I ever wanted to be wondering about.
    Favourite novel?

    If I said, I almost certainly wouldn't be anonymous any more. Outside my areas of research, Bleak House by Dickens is an unbelievable examination of British society at that time in all of its complexity and interconnections. I don't think there's a better novel for understanding a society. The Wire (I know it's not a novel) has done something very similar for America recently.

    Ask me that again tomorrow and I'd have a different answer. It's just what's in my head right now.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Do you get offended if students leave your lectures early or could you care less? Obviously sometimes students simply have a bus to catch or they might have a lecture on the other side of campus that they want to get a good seat in but some students think it's an implicit two fingers to a lecturer if they leave early.

    I tell students that if they have to leave early, they should let me know before class, and sit somewhere they can leave discreetly. Some people are clearly leaving because they're bored. I don't care about that, I'm not easily offended, but it's very distracting, you lose your train of thought and it throws you off.
    Also, do you think the function of colleges should focus on preparing students for work or should the focus remain on academia? I mean does a few years of cramming and half-arsing assignments really prepare someone for the world of work?

    The first question, as I've said earlier I'm a little torn. Some subjects are clearly industry-oriented. My subject I'm not exactly sure what we should be doing to prepare someone for work, given that they could work in virtually anything. For the latter question: no, it doesn't. I think we assess our students far too often, and the tendency seems to be towards finding more and more ways to assess them rather than letting them get to grips with the material. My first years last semester had to do weekly assignments which were not related to their reading, also contribute in tutorials which was assessed, do a mid-term essay, and do a final exam. No wonder students start to strategise about which assessments they'll give time to and which ones they'll half-ass. In terms of learning lessons for the workplace, I think that's what constant assessment teaches.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    HugsiePie wrote: »
    What happens if someone does a Ross Gellar and sleeps/has a relationship with one of their students?

    If they were caught, they'd be fired. I've never known of any relationship between a lecturer and a student, though my friends all have very active imaginations about these kinds of things.

    I know of two situations where a student has alleged that they were uncomfortable or harassed by a professor at some point. Neither were in Ireland. One lost his job, but was picked up by another college (he was very high profile), the other was suspended I think.

    I would say that a bigger issue is relationships between grad students and professors, rather than undergraduates. I haven't seen much of that within a department, but at conferences most definitely, and it can be quite creepy. I mean, there's a lot of flirting and sex at conferences anyway, because these are basically nerds suddenly in a social situation where everyone else has the EXACT same interest as them, everyone is in hotels and you are out every night. But then you have big-name scholars, who in the normal population would be just some ugly reading guy, suddenly is surrounded by young women who regard him as a rock star. There's a power dynamic at work in those situations and some people take advantage of it. It can be a bit of an old boy's club, all the more surprising in a field where feminist theory is so advanced and prominent. I would say that can be very particular to some specialisations though. My area, most definitely it is a big problem.

    Always makes for good gossip though.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Have you ever had to deal with serious cases of cheating/plagiarism that resulted in disciplinary action?

    Numerous times. It's a huge issue with new students in English. Some of it is inadvertent (failure to cite the correct source), some of it quite clearly deliberate (failure to cite the Wikipedia article it was copied and pasted from). There's a procedure in place in most departments. When I was module coordinator in the big course, when the tutors found a suspected plagiarism case (students submit essays electronically nowadays via a system that scans for possible uses of online sources, so one way of finding plagiarism is to check this) they looked for the real source, made a note on a post it, and sent it to me. I would then review it, and if I agreed, sent it to a plagiarism board that met at the end of the semester and decided on grades. Guilty cases got a fail. Repeat offenders were thrown out I think.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 456 ✭✭NotCominBack


    Is English really a subject and should it really be taught in university, given that we all speak English anyways?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    I'm working off what I know in relation to how difficult it is to get a lectureship these days, so I'm assuming you also did a PhD somewhere along the way :) Unless Arts is drastically different from STEM, it would be very rare to get a position after only doing a Master's.

    Yeah I did a PhD. About 10 years ago there were still a few in English departments without one, but far as I know they're nearly all gone.
    Did you know when completing your undergraduate degree that you wanted to stay in academia? If so, why do a masters rather than starting a PhD?
    I wasn't certain whether I would do the PhD until I was living abroad after the Master's (I'd looked into it a little). But in English it's very rare to do a PhD without doing a masters, indeed it's almost unheard of at this point. There was a time when a Masters was a research degree that people turned into a PhD midway. But nearly all MAs are taught courses nowadays and you wouldn't get accepted into a PhD without one. When I was doing the MA there were still limited opportunities to skip the stage but I was advised against it because it would be regarded as something missing from your CV, and included a lot of training that it was simply assumed you already have once you got into the doctorate.
    How difficult is it within Arts to progress? I've seen this infographic relating to PhD graduates in STEM, would you feel it's similar in other fields?

    06n84.jpg

    I've never seen the infographic, and I'm not sure I fully understand what it's measuring. The problem with English PhDs (and this probably holds true for humanities generally, but maybe not social sciences) is that there are very few opportunities outside academia, or at least there isn't enough effort made to prepare PhDs for taking advantage of those opportunities. It's more or less regarded as training to be a lecturer. Even though everyone can plainly see that there are far less lecturing positions than there are PhD students looking to become one.
    As the IRC deadline has just passed and the usual stats are around 1200 applicants for ~250 scholarships - In general, do you think there is a surplus of people pursuing PhD's, a severe lack of funding for PhD's in Ireland, or a bit of both?

    A lot of both. Loads and loads and loads of both. I never got the IRC as a grad student, but I got an IRC postdoctoral fellowship. I forget the numbers, but it was a tiny percentage of applicants got the fellowship, less than 50 nationwide across ALL disciplines, including STEM. Which is pathetic for a "smart economy" but whatever.

    In my discipline, people who love reading and writing and don't know what to do are encouraged to go into a PhD. Really talented students. They have dreams of lecturing, imagining it to be a job where they travel, read, are respected and do what they love. But the student's best interests and those of the department are not identical. The department is considered better the more grad students they can bring in (and on the quality of them, but quantity helps). Also the more grad students there are, the bigger the pool of surplus labour they can draw on to fill gaps in their teaching without having to pay people as full professors.

    Departments are now massively reliant on casual labour, which they still treat with massive disrespect for the simple reason that they are dispensable. It's a scandalous situation that has huge knock-on effects for quality of teaching and research for universities, and which feeds young people with dreams of great things while their twenties are spent in penury, working for almost nothing, only to find themselves turned out at thirty with little to show for it but a picture of themselves in a stupid hat.

    Like I say, I love this job. I've had some really tough years getting to where I am (and could have more in the future). I would recommend someone really dedicated should take the chance. But far too often the realities of it all are not really spelled out to young people. I think existing professors, without having to seem like they are pi$$ing on their dreams, need to take responsibility to explain to students what they are getting themselves in for. One problem is that older professors probably don't really know, since they came in at a time when most everybody got a position. And also, by definition, they are the success stories, the people who made it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    What's the most challenging aspect of being a university lecturer?

    Producing good research outputs. You are employed based on the quality and quantity and breadth of your research expertise, and only secondarily on the quality of your teaching. But you're teaching takes up vast amounts of time and energy, while everyone still expects you to produce new research, which unless you win a research-leave grant or a postdoc or whatever, you will not be getting paid to do, and won't have time to do outside of term. But here's the thing: nobody cares. You just have to do it, this is what you're meant to be about, writing, providing new insights, publishing articles, presenting papers, writing books. So you just have to do it, even though if you don't, there's no boss asking for it at the end of the day, no timetable. The challenge is being able to motivate yourself to keep doing it even when you're tired, when the research doesn't yield anything up, when you've got writer's block. It's very easy to shy away from it because nobody is demanding it today or next week or whatever, and you can avoid deadlines by never committing to anything. So you need to keep doing it yourself and be motivated.


  • Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 5,028 Mod ✭✭✭✭G_R


    Thanks for this, it's really interesting.

    In your opinion, would students be better off in a university setting with 400 odd students in a lecture, or somewhere like DIT which would only have ~50 in a lecture.

    Would the huge numbers be compensated for by the fact that they have a more qualified/experienced (I'm not sure they'd be the right words, but I'm sure you get what I mean) lecturer, or would it something else?


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,812 ✭✭✭thelad95


    I'm not sure how much use, if any you make of moodle but what is your opinion of it? While it can be an excellent method for communication between the class and lecturers without e-mail inboxes being spammed with stupid questions, what do you think of the practise of lecturers putting their class slideshows up? Does this not somewhat take away from the point of attending lectures?

    I presume the system for checking plagiarism that you've mentioned is Turnitin or something similar. While this is an excellent software for checking for plagiarism, would you agree that to an extent, there is a presumption of guilt on the students part? For every student thats trying to pull a fast one, there will be ten students who are trying to get an honest grade so is it fair that every students work is scrutinized? Most of my lecturers want everyone's work submitted through Turnitin.


  • Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 23,238 Mod ✭✭✭✭GLaDOS


    You are employed based on the quality and quantity and breadth of your research expertise, and only secondarily on the quality of your teaching.

    Do you think this is the correct way of doing things? I'm a PhD student myself (In Science) and I reckon you can have fantastic researchers, but that doesn't mean they make great educators.

    On that note, is there targets, in terms of grades or otherwise, that your classes are expected meet?

    Finding this really interesting, hence all the questions :pac:

    Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,930 ✭✭✭✭challengemaster


    I've never seen the infographic, and I'm not sure I fully understand what it's measuring.
    Apologies - It's relating to the careers of PhD graduates from Science. Basically just a visual representation that a tiny proportion of PhD graduates within Science ever stay in academia, and only 0.45% ever go on to achieve professorship.
    A lot of both. Loads and loads and loads of both. I never got the IRC as a grad student, but I got an IRC postdoctoral fellowship. I forget the numbers, but it was a tiny percentage of applicants got the fellowship, less than 50 nationwide across ALL disciplines, including STEM. Which is pathetic for a "smart economy" but whatever.
    Did you find other funding or end up doing a different PhD which was already funded?

    Relating to the latter - Do you think prospective PhD students are often required to forgo the "ideal" PhD due to inadequate funding opportunities?

    Do you agree with the tendency of scholarships/fellowships to be awarded to the most "book smart" candidates (i.e. primarily 1.1 graduates)?

    What do you think the likes of IRC / funding bodies should do to improve the situation in Ireland?

    thelad95 wrote: »
    what do you think of the practise of lecturers putting their class slideshows up?

    In contrast - what do you think about lecturers who outright refuse to get with the times and use blackboard/moodle, and supply lecture materials?

    Do you think this is the correct way of doing things? I'm a PhD student myself (In Science) and I reckon you can have fantastic researchers, but that doesn't mean they make great educators.
    Agreed - I've come across some of these people during my undergrad, clearly employed for research capabilities as they couldn't teach to save their lives.

    How much time do you get to allocate to your research? And do you like or dislike the fact that your academic life is never something that can be left at the door once 5pm comes around?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,959 ✭✭✭✭scudzilla


    What's your favourite type of cheese?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭evolving_doors


    Do you ever listen to music and read at the same time?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,792 ✭✭✭Gandalph


    What is the general consensus among lecturers about students keeping in contact after their 3rd level education, in relation to bugging you about specific topics or matters along your area of expertise...bothersome or harmless? Whether it be guidance, career wise, or just inquisition into related topics that you (lecturers) taught to us (students) and that we share a passion for.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,827 ✭✭✭fred funk }{


    Did you have pancakes Yesterday and if you did what did you have on them?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Do you think that grade inflation is a serious issue in your subject area at undergraduate level?
    To some extent, yes, but probably not to the extent that I used to believe when I started. Younger people, especially new tutors, always seem to mark much harder. Maybe we soften with age. Although actually I got into trouble in the past for not having enough A grades. To what extent that is because the students weren't good enough or I was too tough is debatable, but I do feel that there is a problem with the grading system. One part of university rankings is the number of 1st class honours given out. But the university grades its own people, so obviously there is a simple solution: grade easier. So the universities are asking departments the wrong question. They ask "can you get more A grades?" instead of "what can we do to get more students to A grade level?" (But I should say, they are asking that question too. Academics really are interested in improving their students, we do care and do always want to find ways of being better)
    Have you ever been under pressure to pass or award a higher grade to a student who you felt didn't deserve it?

    In a sense, yes. English is a subject in which grading is a source of constant concern, and on core modules the whole teaching team will meet up when exams come in, and grade a few anonymous papers together, debating what we would have given. We then begin correcting and submit about five samples to the coordinator and he/she will give you feedback. The whole thing is about ensuring a common grading standard as far as possible. So you might be told a student you graded a C might be worth a B-. Or vice versa. There is scope to argue your case. But the main pressure to pass someone who got a fail comes from students themselves who turn on the tears in your office.

    At coordinator level it's not so much about individual students, it's about trends. After grading is finished all the coordinators are brought into a powerpoint presentation where you are shown graphs of all the grades in each core module, and queried about why your fail rate is what it is, or if the distribution of grades is too far off standard, or if you have a crazy number of A grades (usually for having too few).
    How do you think that the current crop of undergrads compare academically to those back in your day?

    Pretty much the same IMO. I used to think they were getting worse, but I think everyone feels that way ("the kids these days..."), and that it's getting easier. But I recently found some of my old undergrad essays which in my memory were fantastic. I would say they were very generously marked in retrospect, especially in first year.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Is English really a subject and should it really be taught in university, given that we all speak English anyways?

    Yes, and yes.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Thanks for this, it's really interesting.

    In your opinion, would students be better off in a university setting with 400 odd students in a lecture, or somewhere like DIT which would only have ~50 in a lecture.

    Would the huge numbers be compensated for by the fact that they have a more qualified/experienced (I'm not sure they'd be the right words, but I'm sure you get what I mean) lecturer, or would it something else?

    I think that the size of the large lectures probably doesn't make a huge difference because a lecture is a lecture regardless, it isn't normally a two-way discussion (although now you mention it if I am giving a smaller lecture I will often open it up to discussion, which I only seldom do in a large theatre). The real problem is when the tutorials get too big. I've had tutorials with well over 20 students and it's impossible to involve everyone in the discussion at that stage. Students who are shy and want to be asked rather than volunteering a response will be overlooked, and ones who want to hide and ride out the class without doing anything, will be able to do so.

    I know what you mean about the quality of the faculty. I think the quality of the lecturers in my own discipline is relatively uniform across the departments in Ireland. Some colleges have a better atmosphere as regards research and collaboration, and overall morale right now than others, and I guess the teaching situation has to reflect that to some extent. But aside from some snobbery about some of the bigger departments, I don't really think the quality of teaching is necessarily all that much better. Also the really big names, which would traditionally have gravitated towards UCD and Trinity, are nowadays pretty well spread out, for all sorts of reasons. In Irish studies, for example, the big issue now is probably losing those big names to American universities, rather than to the big Irish ones (pay is uniform across the colleges for one thing so they can only lure someone away from elsewhere by offering a promotion that the other college is currently unable to do). My inclination, if I was really serious about one subject, would be to pick a place where there are smaller classes and more attention paid to individual students and you're more likely to get to know the lecturers. I've worked in small, medium and large departments in Ireland, and that would be my opinion.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    I'm not sure how much use, if any you make of moodle but what is your opinion of it? While it can be an excellent method for communication between the class and lecturers without e-mail inboxes being spammed with stupid questions, what do you think of the practise of lecturers putting their class slideshows up? Does this not somewhat take away from the point of attending lectures?

    I like Moodle (it's actually better than Blackboard, which is a paid-for system that some colleges use). When I was an undergrad this stuff didn't exist and it was much more cumbersome to acquire readings lists, get updates on changes or deadlines and what have you, and especially to get readings. That was also related to the lack of online resources a decade ago, like JSTOR, but nowadays we can give out PDFs of important articles at zero expense, and also students don't have to try and find articles in journals on shelves in the library too often, which was ridiculous in my day (there being only one copy of the journal and hundreds of students).

    I still get spammed with oceans of questions to my email, but I'm starting to follow the rule that I won't reply to any question that can be answered with reference to the course schedule or other things on Moodle. The big problem was that when Moodle first came along, some departments thought they could get away with using it to replace tutorials and face to face interactions. That proved disastrous and luckily they are retreating from those kinds of approaches.

    The lecture slides issue is related to that. On the one hand it can be useful because it means students shouldn't in theory be just scribbling down the slides instead of listening. In practice many students think that it gives them carte blanche to switch off in lectures, and they get surprisingly narky about any delay in the slides going up. Personally I write the slides fairly last minute and use them mainly as prompts for myself for the lecture, so I think their usefulness is overrated for anyone studying a course I'm teaching, but try explaining that to the students...to sound like an old codger again, "back in my day..." we looked at transparencies in class, not powerpoint, and if you missed something on the (often hand-written!) slides you wouldn't ever see it again. It wasn't the end of the world.
    I presume the system for checking plagiarism that you've mentioned is Turnitin or something similar. While this is an excellent software for checking for plagiarism, would you agree that to an extent, there is a presumption of guilt on the students part? For every student thats trying to pull a fast one, there will be ten students who are trying to get an honest grade so is it fair that every students work is scrutinized? Most of my lecturers want everyone's work submitted through Turnitin.

    Turnitin, or SafeAssign. I don't think there's a presumption of guilt. If you did it the other way round it would be worse, because if you then suspected someone, and contacted them to submit electronically, it would sound like an accusation. One which might prove wrong. There's also the fact that often it detects plagiarism that is clearly deliberate but that we probably would never have picked up on without the software. We have to scrutinise everyone so that the honest students will get a fair crack of the whip, IMO. If a cheater gets a B grade because we didn't check everyone, that screws over an honest student who got a C, because it devalues everyone's grades. I know what you mean about the feeling that you aren't trusted, but the amount of plagiarism students were getting away before electronic submission was compulsory (including plagiarising other students, which the software picks up on), must have been astronomical.

    For us, submitting electronically is compulsory, departmental policy, so the lecturer has no discretion. There are other reasons for electronic submission, such as ensuring that if the hard copy goes missing (as will happen in a huge department sometimes), we know that the student did submit the essay on time, and we have a copy of it.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Do you think this is the correct way of doing things? I'm a PhD student myself (In Science) and I reckon you can have fantastic researchers, but that doesn't mean they make great educators.

    On that note, is there targets, in terms of grades or otherwise, that your classes are expected meet?

    Finding this really interesting, hence all the questions :pac:

    To some extent the move for researchers rather than teachers is driven by sector-wide policies of wanting to become research institutions. Buzz words like "research-led teaching" pressurise the institutions, and there is more glamour (eh...probably not the right word...) attached to great researchers, whereas great teachers can often not really have much reputation beyond their classrooms. In terms of attracting grad students, especially international ones (grad school is where the money comes from), and drawing down research funding, big names and big projects are what it's all about. There are relatively few opportunities for teaching to draw down funding and awards.

    Which is a long way of saying that I don't think it's really perfect, because you can get some awful teachers as a result, or people who regard teaching as a massive inconvenience rather than part of what they do and are. I've noticed that some big universities like Berkeley and so on are now making much bigger efforts to promote great teaching, like creating new high profile chairs that are awarded based on someone's teaching profile rather than their research.

    The emphasis on research is sometimes overstated though. For an interview, you will have to write a teaching philosophy statement, and usually provide a few course designs that you could implement. Most interviews will have a research segment and a teaching one as well and if they think you can't teach you won't get the job. Junior faculty positions especially can have this emphasis, since often those jobs are relatively dogsbody positions where you'll be teaching way outside your research area, filling in for positions of need or where someone is on research leave. I haven't taught in my area of research in a couple of years (but will be this semester).

    On your latter question, as I was saying there is constant concern about grades not being high enough. Funnily enough it is often external examiners, who come to Ireland from abroad, who are saying that we are far too harsh and should be giving more 1st class honours. Pushed to an extreme that can be a problem. American visiting students are often crushed when they get a B, because for them, nearly everyone gets an A or a B all the time, and a B is a severe warning. A C, you could be looking at losing scholarship funding. It's hard to explain to them that a B is a very good grade here. But in terms of targets, there's nothing systematic, at least not that I've been subjected to.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Did you find other funding or end up doing a different PhD which was already funded?

    I was on a local authority grant, I wouldn't have been able to complete the PhD without that. Supplemented it with whatever teaching I could get, was lucky to get some nice paid research jobs and working in museum-ey kind of jobs at cash registers some summers, and was willing to live hand-to-mouth a lot of the time, Koka noodle dinners and that kind of thing. I actually loved it all, except the anxiety about money, which made it hard to concentrate on research.
    Relating to the latter - Do you think prospective PhD students are often required to forgo the "ideal" PhD due to inadequate funding opportunities?

    This is really a bit of a STEM question, because in English your PhD topic will be largely something you came up with yourself (moulded in consultation with your supervisor, but certainly when I applied, living abroad and with nobody around to help, I actually just dreamt up a whole proposal. It sounded really good, but most of the ideas were abandoned and replaced with a new project in my second year, so it wasn't a good way of doing things). I think this way of deciding on a course of research can lead to some shambolic PhD theses, because by definition when a student comes up with it, they are not advanced in their field. I know a few people who carried out projects that were already fairly laid out, especially people who got Leverhulme fellowships in England, and they never regretted it. But I think for a new doctoral candidate, the excitement of designing your own research agenda would be dampened if you found yourself being told "this is what you're doing". But you're far more likely to be carrying out research that people really want done in that scenario.
    Do you agree with the tendency of scholarships/fellowships to be awarded to the most "book smart" candidates (i.e. primarily 1.1 graduates)?

    As someone who was refused twice for an IRC graduate scholarship, I disagree with a lot of their tendencies! But my own petty bitterness aside, I think there's an art to writing those applications, and if you have that art mastered, you'll do well. Plenty of fantastic students I know have not gotten funding, and plenty of people who probably didn't use it very well were funded. So...clearly there is a problem with evaluation processes.
    What do you think the likes of IRC / funding bodies should do to improve the situation in Ireland?

    Well, to continue with my last point, the evaluation process is clearly far from perfect. That's true of any industry of course. The students who are funded very often end up struggling badly when the funding dries up and they haven't finished their doctorate. That is a mentality issue, in my opinion.

    One problem the IRC has is that it is badly underfunded. They don't have that many scholarships to give out, but they also clearly don't have enough staff to deal with the massive number of applications. Decisions are clearly put in the hands of external readers who have a host of prejudices thataren't properly checked. To give my own example, I was rejected for a postdoc by the IRC because someone felt that my subject was completely overcrowded with publications already. This was quite simply nonsense, the person who said it (I don't know who they are) was obviously not from my subject area at all, but was making a pronouncement on it that he or she wasn't qualified to make. I know of people who have submitted the same application twice and been accepted the second time without changing anything. I'm sure everyone has stories like that. But they all boil down to resources.

    (I don't think I've answered your question very well, I don't think I understand the IRC at all well enough tbh).

    In contrast - what do you think about lecturers who outright refuse to get with the times and use blackboard/moodle, and supply lecture materials?

    I know one lecturer, extremely high profile, who had a typewriter in his room and no email address, until he was poached away by a US university who weren't willing to let him not have email. There are very few industries where that kind of caprice would be entertained for so long. I think every teacher should do whatever makes them the best teacher they are, and to some extent new technologies can be a hindrance to that. But if your students are used to relying on these technologies, and feel lost if you don't use them, then you have to ask if you are being the best teacher possible, or if you are just too lazy and selfish to adapt to the changing needs of students now. For a young lecturer I'm actually quite technophobic, I can see all of the exciting things people are doing now with their classroom and digital humanities. But I can also see how fiddling around with new technologies all the time is going to be counterproductive for a 65 year old Shakespeare scholar who is perfectly brilliant without all that stuff. So it's hard to generalise, but a total luddite is, at this stage, probably a harmful presence in the running of a department now.
    How much time do you get to allocate to your research? And do you like or dislike the fact that your academic life is never something that can be left at the door once 5pm comes around?

    I am trying desperately to keep one day a week (on which I have no teaching) solely for research, and avoiding doing administrative stuff like answering student emails etc that day. Whether I stick to it is another matter. During reading weeks, and the holidays, I get loads done. It's the great George Hook-sponsored myth about academics that they work a few hours a week and have vast holidays. That's true in one sense, but I work many more hours a week during a holiday than during the term. The "holidays" are essentially just time where you are researching instead of teaching. It's much easier to visit archives and so on in that situation.

    The latter question, I both like and dislike it. When I'm home I'll usually just watch telly and cook dinner and what have you, but sooner or later I'll pick up a book and read it, and I virtually never read anything that isn't for teaching or research. But, obviously, I love reading novels, so it's great to be able to relax at home and do that, while still feeling like I'm getting something done. The problem, though, is the feeling that you're always behind where you should be, that no matter how much you've done, you haven't done enough. I guess that is what you mean by not being able to leave it behind at five. There's often a nagging sense of guilt when you aren't working.

    But recently I've been getting better on that front. My partner is an academic as well so it would be easy to get sucked into a never-ending work cycle but we're trying to make a point of having a life outside of that. I remind myself often that, at the end of the day, I'm a literature scholar, not an oncologist. In the grand scheme of things what I do is not life or death, or particularly vital in any emergency sense of the word (it is important, I think, and I could argue that point all day, but you get my drift). If literature, to me, is something that should be knitted into the fabric of our lives, then it only makes sense to me if I have a life into which I can knit it. Currently I have no children, no house of my own, no dog... So we're relatively footloose. But I play sport at a fairly competitive level, and on a day where I'm training or playing a match, I'm happy to leave the English stuff at the door and get into a different mentality. It's about telling yourself that, even though you have dedicated yourself to doing this subject, to make it your life, and even though it engulfs everything in your life and really isn't just a job, it is not your life. I'm getting better about that, and I'm probably less obsessed than I used to be. I've also always had lots of good friends who couldn't care less about literature, and will remind me every chance they get that I'm not a real doctor. So that keeps it all in context.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    scudzilla wrote: »
    What's your favourite type of cheese?

    Emmenthal. That kind of sweet nutty taste and the smooth texture. The business.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Armelodie wrote: »
    Do you ever listen to music and read at the same time?

    I find myself getting distracted by the music if it's something I already know and like. Anything with lyrics (I'm a big fan of American and Irish folk music) and I can't read as I'm listening too closely. I'd listen to Aphex Twin (the SAW stuff or Richard D James Album, rather than Come to Daddy) because it isn't too interruptive. But usually I prefer silence. Or, for some reason, 24 hour news.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,007 ✭✭✭reap-a-rat


    I find myself getting distracted by the music if it's something I already know and like. Anything with lyrics (I'm a big fan of American and Irish folk music) and I can't read as I'm listening too closely. I'd listen to Aphex Twin (the SAW stuff or Richard D James Album, rather than Come to Daddy) because it isn't too interruptive. But usually I prefer silence. Or, for some reason, 24 hour news.

    Who are your favourite artists on the Irish folk scene at the moment? Do you have time for attending gigs?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4 Decline


    Really interesting AMA!

    Is it difficult to make English and literary studies 'relevant' today? Many students are encouraged to study subjects and degrees that offer them greater or perhaps more obvious employment opportunities, has this resulted in a decline in those studying English? And, if so, are English departments changing in some way in order to attract more students?


  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 10,974 Mod ✭✭✭✭artanevilla


    Is it easy to mark papers and assignments objectively, ie, if you get on well with a student are you more inclined to be generous with marks?


  • Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 8,490 Mod ✭✭✭✭Fluorescence


    Great AMA so far! I'm really enjoying your answers.

    What do you feel is the main benefit of studying English at undergraduate level? As someone who became disillusioned with the course after two years, I am quite curious to hear your thoughts on this.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,061 ✭✭✭keith16


    Great idea for AMA.

    During my time in college I have had some very poor lecturers and some outstanding lecturers who make things very engaging. I think that's quite a tough skill, would you say it's a key requirement in becoming a lecturer?

    Secondly, I have often thought that I would someday like to lecture. I have never done a masters / PhD. Does this automatically preclude me? Or could I lecture on the basis of having built up industry specific expertise over a long career?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭I'm A University Lecturer, AMA


    Gandalph wrote: »
    What is the general consensus among lecturers about students keeping in contact after their 3rd level education, in relation to bugging you about specific topics or matters along your area of expertise...bothersome or harmless? Whether it be guidance, career wise, or just inquisition into related topics that you (lecturers) taught to us (students) and that we share a passion for.

    I wouldn't still be in contact with that many former students. Early on (when I was still young enough that there wasn't a major age gap) I had one class that I ended up hanging out with three or four of the students after the course ended.

    More recently it would be students thinking about doing a postgrad, and especially ones who went on to study at the college I was still teaching. By and large I really like staying in touch and giving guidance about career and stuff like that, especially because people can be naive and badly informed about it for reasons I've already outlined.People I've taught have gone on to do PhDs themselves and been brilliant, including people who I have since done conference panels with and so on, to the point it would be insulting to call them "former students" or anything. I have a couple of ex-students who I regard as friends of mine.

    The other side of it would be giving references to students when they apply for jobs etc. For some reason, outside of academic references (I'm quite junior so I normally recommend they go to someone more senior and impressive for that), the people who ask me for references tend to be people I don't remember very well, and have to pull out their record cards. But it's both a duty and a pleasure, far as I'm concerned to do all that stuff.


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