The post-doc interview -- some useful feedback

I recently had a skype interview with Monash University’s Learning with New Media Research Group for a post-doctoral fellowship. I was completely surprised by the request for an interview as I thought I was nowhere near qualified for the position on offer. They wanted an ethnographer and I’m a phenomenographer. They needed someone with NVivo experience I still use post-it notes and Excel.

I applied for the position simply for the experience, the understanding that you need to be in it to win it, and an embarrassingly gushy PhD-crush on several members of the interview panel. Professor Neil Selwyn's work helped me formulate the social media component of my method and conceptual framework, and Dr Nicola Johnson (and other's) work guided my consideration of some tricky ethical issues.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the job but I got some great feedback. I thought I would use this blog to share it. Hopefully it will help someone when applying for an academic position.

Neil: We all felt that you interviewed well, and picked up on your obvious enthusiasm/spirit (which can often not come across in interviews where people will be more reserved/less expressive).

My musings: I think it helped that I was simply excited to meet the interview panel. My excitement came from reading the work of members of the LNM research group extensively, formulating opinions about it, and making connections to my own work. It also helped that the conceptual grounding of the research group is very similar to my own. You don’t really want a job where you have reservations about the ethics or vision of a company.

Neil: We were looking for potential to write, so were not concerned by the lack of publications. However, for other posts it might be good to have some specific journals that you will be submitting to (this gives a good indication that you are actually getting on with the writing/publishing process rather than just thinking about it).

My musings: This is one of the questions I knew was coming and was prepared to be defensive. The mantra is always “publish early, publish often”. I have a very limited track record. The reason for this is that I am a PhD mum. My children come before my career. I have not had time to publish, write a thesis and rear two girls. I obviously came across as regretful because…

Neil: Scott [Bulfin] picked up on the need not to apologise for family/real-life commitments.

My musings: This advice floored me because it is the exact opposite of the academic culture with which I am familiar. I have spent the last five years apologising for not being able to make HDR events because I have to pick my babies up from child care, missing out on vital HDR meetings that always seem to be during witching hour, and frankly feeling like my contribution was second to the full-time on-campus candidates. Next time I interview, I’m going to use my part-time, PhD and full-time motherhood  status as a strength rather than a weakness and stuff the haters. I only want to work with people that put their families first anyway. 

Neil: Also, when talking about what you've written, one obvious recent output is the thesis - not many people write an 80,000 word publication so don't be afraid to stress that as a recent piece of writing.

My musings: I think this is an important point. A PhD is individual and collegial. It shows you can work independently and as a team. I didn’t bring up my PhD because I just thought everyone had one. That’s the starting line for a post-doc. Next time I’ll be sure to mention it.

Neil: The only other piece of constructive feedback that springs to mind is that your answers were a little teacher/classroom-focused. This is *very* appropriate for most jobs in Faculties of Education - but for more sociological/social research it can help not to just think of education as teaching/teachers and students/learning.

My musings: This is the key learning I am taking away from the interview. If I want to break out of the high school teacher mould, I need to diversify. I need to start thinking like a sociologist. My PhD was in educational sociology but I still work for schools so the mould is well fitted. The step I have taken to begin the process of changing my mindset is to attend my university's educational sociology SIG meetings.

Have you got any good tips for an academic interview?

Revised birth plan

I am in labour.

I have just received feedback for my first draft. It was positive. Things are looking good and if there are no further complications I should give birth to a healthy baby thesis by Easter (4 months later than anticipated but most first-borns do keep you waiting).

Currently I am experiencing pre-labour. I can see the end of my (very) long pregnancy, the promise of a new life, and the excitement of a new addition to my family name. I'm ignoring the pages and pages of minor corrections and concentrating on the word 'minor'. 

Tomorrow, is active labour.

But today! Today I revise my birth plan. I plan to work five days a week for 28 days. My kids won't get sick and my computer WILL NOT break. My husband (Sam) will continue to hold my hand and rub my back. We can begin to imagine our new life where (first world) creature comforts are no longer sacrificed in the name of a thesis. I already have a job lined up for Easter Tuesday and we are going to ENGLAND for Christmas!

  

Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham - www.phdcomics.com  

Today I am going to sit down and plan my attack. One . page . at . a . time. I am going to contact the Dean's secretary to ensure his signature finds its way to my paperwork on time. I am going to ring my editor.

I've had two kids on this PhD journey. I know things rarely go to plan but this baby is coming out one way or another by 17th April. Sam, just don't stand in hitting distance for a while because...

Tomorrow, the real pain starts.

Is a PhD worth missing summer?

I haven’t written a blog in a very long time. I've been writing other stuff. A big fat thing called a PhD thesis. However, the past couple of days have been like walking through sand. I can actually see my thesis as a finished product but realising it has become gruelling. I want to write but for some reason my brain stops working simultaneously with walking out my front door. So why do I feel this way? Is it because I lie awake too long excited about what I want to say and then cannot function the next day from lack of sleep? Is it the heat (it’s pretty damn hot here right now)? Is it the air-conditioned windowless room I write in? Is it that I am afraid to *put it out there*?

I think  all of the above play a role but you know what I reckon the main factor is? I miss my kids. I’m sitting here in my air-conditioned, windowless room and playing with strategies for untangling my thoughts and weaving them back together trying to meet a self-imposed deadline wrapped up in a much needed living allowance. I’m taking advantage of my husband’s leave and holiday visits from Gran and Gramps to distract Christmas lolly fuelled limbs and needy little sticky faces and from my absence. God, I miss those faces (tearing up a bit).

I’m missing summer days in the pool, smelling like sunscreen, chlorine and salt. I’m missing dripping mango down my arms, smearing frozen blueberries across my face and spitting watermelon seeds across the lawn. Sucking on ice-blocks. I’m missing breathing in the stillness and humidity and the anticipation of a storm. I’m missing the green. God, Brisbane is green at the moment. I am missing having an active role ingraining summer into my children’s DNA. All for a bloody PhD.

Still, it’s only one summer. My children are young. There are plenty of summers left and I still have weekends. Next summer you’ll be able to call me Dr.

Expressing my relationship with my blog

Today I had a good day. I am satisfied with my output and I am feeling more confident. I am again at the meta-cognitive end of my day. The time of day where I feel exhausted from the day of writing up my dissertation, needing to spend my last hour reflecting on the day that was.

Today was spent reflecting on my relationship with the participants, context and data. Thus, pipe in mouth (;-D @thesiswhisperer and @dr_know), I began thinking about my relationship with my blog and that I haven't declared my position in quite some time.

I am a teacher that likes to know how to teach stuff. I tend to absorb any information about the cognitive processes associated with any of my activities. I think about what I am learning and what techniques I could use to teach the learning. There is a lot to be said for the teacher that is not an expert in their field. Staying one step ahead of the students is an adrenaline rush and can be very rewarding, especially when both teacher and student experience a mutual light bulb moment. I had one of those moments yesterday and am still tingling from the experience of learning something new from my students. I yearn for those times and they become rarer and rarer as I re-teach a subject. 

My blogs are about my process of coming to grips with the complexity of writing a dissertation. I do not claim to be an expert or believe my way is the correct approach. Processes I thought were enlightened a month ago, I have discarded or regard with nostalgia. Processes I dismissed have now made a resurgence and again I swear by them. But the reality is, I am still a novice. I am still learning. I need to be flexible.

Many of the changes to my plans and processes have come about because I am a mother. My day is not as straight forward as leaving the house for campus and coming home for dinner and TV with my husband. Two days per week that I write involve feeding and dressing a 2.5 year old (who would hang from the ceiling if it was humanly possible) and a 6 month old baby. I herd them into the car, hopefully dropping them at their day-care Mum's house by 8:30am (on a good day). I am lucky if I can get start work by 9:30am. I am sure other mums can relate. My day is further complicated by my love hate relationship with my breast pump. I hate expressing milk (but love breast feeding my baby) and my day revolves around the timing of pumping. 

The timing of pumping is what has made some writing techniques (like pomodoro) difficult to rigorously maintain. 

Today (and I should caveat this through the emphasis on TODAY), I found an approach that flowed like mother's milk (sorry but it is National Breastfeeding Week). I started my day with 90 minutes of free writing, into my methodology outline, using Tony Schwartz's plan for personal effectiveness (http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2011/01/the-most-important-practice-i.html). This brought me up to my first express. The second session, I chose a book from my field and read chapter by chapter adding ideas, phrases and quotes into my outline. Each time I finished a chapter, I went and fixed a cup of tea. The four hour session then fell into a natural pomodoro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique). By my second express my brain was telling me that the day was done and I needed to spend some time reflecting on my practice. 

So we come full circle. I wonder how I will feel about this plan next week? I may love it or hate it. What do you think about it?

PS: Twitter and Facebook have been awash with tips and encouragement to help me with my writer's block (which, thankfully, has gone for now) and I will Storify all the advice in due course as my way of saying thanks to the "great good place" that is my social media reality.

  

21st May is Check Yourself Day

I recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl . She is a big, bouncing, healthy baby but the same cannot be said for me. Within 5 hours of my daughter's birth, I was in Intensive Care with multiple pulmonary embolisms. I spent 5 sleepless nights in the ICU worrying about my two little girls. I did not wanting to die and abandon them to a life without a mother. This is what happened to me.

My mother died of breast cancer when I was 17. Hence, I am considered high risk for developing breast cancer. Additionally, my father died last year of ulcer related stomach cancer, a disease which may have been avoided with a short course of antibiotics ten years ago. I also had a gestational diabetes scare during my first pregnancy.

It is vital I have all my checks. I should not put them off. I haven't had a mammogram in seven years, and until recently it had been three since my last pap smear. I just received a letter in the mail for a diabetes blood test check.

I have proposed to all my friends on Facebook that we put aside a few hours or a full day on 21st May to do all our checks. The 21st of May is my choice because it is the date my mother passed away.

Putting a day aside and inviting your friends means that applying for leave, arranging child care options etc., becomes infinitely easier. Thinking of it as a social event should also make those "uncomfortable" tests a little easier to handle.

I have booked my doctor's appointment for 10:30am.

I have set up a Facebook page to advertise the event, where people can upload photographs of how they spent the day or give tips for negotiating the logistics: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Check-Yourself-Day/564608510230690.

Please feel free to join me in this event. Share it with your friends. Retweet it. Arrange a day which better suits you, but above all things, PLEASE get your checks.

I know this blog is not really about my PhD but in a way it is. I am only able to do my PhD full time after I come off maternity leave, because of the funds left to me in my father's will. Believe me, I would sacrifice my whole degree just to argue with Dad again but the fact I was doing a PhD made him so proud. It will become his legacy.

The best laid plans

Forgive me cyberspace for I have been slack. It has been...ummm...several months since my last confession. The writer's mantra of write and write often has sadly been ignored. And will probably continue to be ignored for the next couple of months.

Today I squeeze in a blog for the following reasons:
1. You may have heard there is a massive heatwave in Australia. A/C is very expensive but it is free at university. I am taking advantage of the cool and the desktop computer at my institution, escaping the heat.
2. My second daughter is two days overdue. She was due 8th January and I am trying to fill time. I decided that planning to work on my PhD for a day in the A/C at uni might bring her on. FALSE! Oh well. Maybe the new trampoline in the front yard might work....
3. Its time I wrote again. I am not going to get the opportunity (or be too baby-brain-dead) the next couple of months and I haven't written  a phrase since I left my curriculum writer's job for maternity leave just before Christmas.

The best laid plans....

The plan for the coming year is to finish this PhD. You may think I am mad to be a stay-at-home Mum and scholar at the same time but below I am laying out my best intentions:

Early childhood literature suggests that if your children do not see you writing, then they are less likely to enjoy or learn writing. Scribble and colouring develops writing skills and toddlers are more likely to do these activities if their parents participate with them. I am planning on setting my two year old up with colouring books and paper and we will share highlighters or crayons. I will review and refine my data analysis while my darling daughter imagines pink and yellow dinosaurs. I will hang butchers paper next to her chalkboard and we will draw on the walls together.

I went to a conference where a deputy principal explained how she managed her promotion over maternity leave. Her approach was to do her professional reading during night feeds. For me, tweets, blogs and literature will be read and lectures watched in the dead at night. I am determined to not allow my mind to turn to mush this time around.

I watched the tweets during Academic Writers Month and was inspired. I will probably not be able to write every day but possibly the two days per week my 2 year old is in in child care. Even if I just do one activity from this list:  http://getalifephd.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/seven-ways-you-can-write-every-day.html?m=1

Those of you with children are probably nodding your head sagely and saying "Riiiiiigghhht. We'll see" and I know why. I may only get one thing done on the above list but that is still one step closer to finishing my PhD. Without the plan, I may do nothing.

Part Time vs Full Time PhD

I fear this post will smell a little like a Hollywood starlet that insists she likes her curves before losing 20kg and feeling better than ever...

I am currently enrolled in a part time PhD but would love a scholarship that allows me to study full time but like the Hollywood starlet, I think the decision about the type of enrolment for a PhD depends on the roles you prefer to play.

I am first and foremost a mother. I fell pregnant with Ivy during my first year as a PhD student and presented my confirmation defense with swollen ankles. Issues about methodology and data collection were re-thought to fit with my new lifestyle. I collected my data off a social media site, which I could do from home (sometimes babe on breast). My methodology of analysis (phenomenogrpahy) suits periods of rest (good red wine). Both of these decisions were made, not because they were what I was passionate about (that came later) but because they suited me.

Secondly, I am a wife. Marriages are more important than PhDs. I would give my study up in a second if my patient husband needed me. I can always go back to study. Enrolment as a part time student gives me an expansive eight years. The flexibility associated with a part time PhD is invaluable. 

Thirdly, I am a career woman and mortgage holder. The financial well-being of my family is more important than my ability to call myself a Doctor. My PhD is patient. It waits for me to finish teaching each semester, greeting me with a grateful smile every time my students leave for their practicum. The advantages of networks and mentors in university teaching will be invaluable when I finally submit. The PhD will get done. Meanwhile, I massage my career.

Lastly, I am a PhD student. I love my study like a hobby. When I was overwhelmed by motherhood people suggested I give up my PhD and focus on something that would make me happy. My response was always that I want my PhD. Study is my little escape from the pressures of motherhood and mortgage repayments. I am aware I am a nerd.

The twist to my little story is that I am again pregnant, in write-up and crossing my fingers for a scholarship on 22nd June.  I plan to study full-time, chip away at my mortgage with my living allowance, have my thesis at draft stage and give birth by early January. For 6 more months my daughter will go to child care more often and I will study on weekends. Though it may seem my roles will reverse, the short time of tipping the balance will allow me wallow in my family for a few months before beginning a career as an academic.

If I don't get the scholarship, see above.