GOGSoc MkII

It's time for the Grumpy Old Graduate Society. Post here if you want to join and for GOG chat. (I edit to put in a list of the members when I get the chance).

Would be nice if it was a sticky!

Honourable Members

ChemistBoy
Chicken
Da Bachtopus
Ethereal
Expression
flexiblefish
hobnob
nikk
PQ
scarlet ibis
sweetcherry
swiftuk
the_alba
The Boosh
walshie
yourjoyismylow
Ygraine

Associates (Those who are grumpy but not yet graduates)

steerpike

Honourary Members

Chuck Norris (First Class Honours in Pain)

Oh, as for the conference. If you think you can get something out of it go. The networking will do you some good, is all I can say!

Okay, well in that case - don't worry about the lack of contact (yet). I know very few tutors who would prioritize maintaining contact with a student who hasn't officially started yet (unless the two of you had some kind of agreement?); indeed, in my experience contact dribbles to a halt over the summer anyway, even if you're entering an anxious fourth year of your PhD. I've had no communication with my current supervisors since early June, and don't expect it to resume for another couple of weeks at least (AND I have my 'upgrade' looming very soon). If you suspect that he's the hands off type generally though, and that the unresponsiveness will continue into your first year, then it would be an idea to ask him outright how much contact time he prefers with his grad students, and to articulate your preferences, and to work out a compromise. But my main feeling is that you needn't be worrying about this now, because it would seem quite unusual (to me and the tutors / grads I know at least) to be in regular contact before you've started. As for your prep research - try not to get ahead of yourself. You generally have your whole first year to devote to sleuthing and preparation, so there's no hurry, and tying yourself up in knots now won't help. Nor will accumulating too much information before you have a tighter sense of what direction you're heading in - and this is bound to meander a bit in the first year (this bit of advice may be subject-specific however; obviously I don't know much about how to go about a history thesis, and you undoubtedly know a great deal about this, so please ignore if it's irrelevant). It's good that you're so enthusiastic, but as you say, if your 'shedload of work' turns out not to be as useful as you'd hoped, it can be disheartening and lead to a premature slump in motivation. I had this problem, and I think my first year has been kind of choked by it.

As for theoretical differences between you and your supervisor - everyone has this problem to some degree. My ex-supervisor and I got on wonderfully, but there were many times when our different theoretical positions, or even just basic understandings of the topic at hand, crashed head on. This is where your Oxford-honed ability to argue your case comes in handy! Of course, it's a difficult balancing act in the student-supervisor relationship to respectfully disagree with your supervisor's position, stick to your guns about it and, despite their seniority, prowess and (initial) superior knowledge (if not of the subject itself then at least of the ways in which one goes about writing a long thesis), to persistently and courteously ignore, or at the most, footnote all of their arguments, while somehow still deferring to them, depending on them, and not putting their nose out of joint. In the end,it goes back to the email my supervisor wrote me: "the real game is one in which you use your talents to courteously, almost imperceptibly turn the tables and begin teaching them. Once they get to be YOUR students we give you a Ph.D." This will happen whether they agree with you or not, so long as the thesis is sound. Gone are the days when you have to agree with the marker to ensure a First; this is YOUR thesis, not your supervisor's. Mine had a habit of saying 'IF this were my thesis, I'd do this instead of that...' - so I suppose whenever your supervisor disagrees on a theoretical issue, just mentally prefix whatever he's saying with 'If this were [his] thesis ... but it's not'. Obviously don't do this with all his disagreements (!), just those that stem from any fundamental theoretical differences you have. And that's not to say his disagreements won't be useful - c.f. Boosh's post - just that you have to separate the useful, productive arguments from the distracting, potentially derailing ones.

To go to conference or not to go to conference - that is the question

They're closed off and present research on the 'development of stripey socks in Victorian London: a research enquiry' or something equally obtruse.

The training I got for my MA has more than prepared me for long writing - that was 40,000 words so I think in that sense I have the awareness of structuring long pieces it's just this collaborative scheme comes with a certain amount of baggage and I've had nothing to explain their expectations which is really annoying me. I know precisely how I want to go about the thesis and already have in mind its structure and the main 'actors' in it but I have real concerns regarding the project they envisaged when submitting the thing to the AHRC to win the collaborative funding in the first place. That project is massive and has no historical thread through it. It's a bland collection of data.

I've not been invited to any interesting conferences (yet) and probably won't, given SOAS...

I'm with OH - conferences suck balls and I hate them more than anything else in the world. If you're that keen though, what's stopping you - you don't have to wait to be invited. Gatecrash!!! (or answer a call for papers, or pay your fee and spectate).

Go I would say.

All this talk of conferences makes me feel left out. I've not been invited to any interesting conferences (yet) and probably won't, given SOAS...

Wow, that holds a myriad of complications - are you basically working for two seperate masters then?

Yep. The University for the standard PhD and the Royal Commission for Ancient & Historic Monuments, Wales for the collaborative element. I'm a data cataloguer for the latter. It's completely stupid. They want me to gather information on the historic sporting environment of wales - which is so vacuous I don't understand what they're after - and then turn that random set of places and newspaper clippings into a PhD!!!

You're really not missing that much But if I go this one I've been promised food - always a good thing

And you're depending on this for funding, I take it? Tough break.

Cool. Possibly even more obscure than mine (damn you!)

Food... or a buffet? [T is pronounced there, obviously ]

Actual food

But nothing's more obscure than Joyce.

Nah, Joyce is way more famous than Welsh playgrounds!