H is for HERRING (RED)

The eighth in an alphabetical series of blog posts: A-Z: An alphabetical journey through the doctoral experience. 

If analysis is the opportunity to sink into a sea of warm data, then drafting involves a treacherous journey in the depths.  Indeed, this blog comes to you from the treacly depths of thesis chapter drafting. It's inspired by a recent trip to what was once the second most important herring fishing ports in England (look it up if this has piqued your interest!  Or are you procrastinating...?!). It's a a tiny place, a dent in the cliffs, once cross-hatched with cobles, the distinctive north eastern fishing craft.

Herrings score highly in the omega-3 fatty acids stakes, they're a sociable species and commercially valuable.  But what of the proverbial red herring? Mercurial, darting down into the intellectual depths it tempts you with jewelled scarlet scales and its omega-3 overload.  How can you not follow it? And you do, rejoicing, until familiar boundaries drop away and suddenly you're disorientated, directionless on the sea bed.  Just as suddenly, the red herring is no more than a flash of scarlet ahead of you, disspating in the murky waters.  Then it's gone altogether, leaving you thinking - how the heck did I get here?!  Why have I spent the last fortnight thinking this was a productive use of my precious time?!  What has this got to do with my theoretical framework?!

Nothing for it but to somersault and turn back, seek something familiar, start (almost) over again...  

G is for GENDER (and other binaries)

The seventh in an alphabetical series of blog posts: A-Z: An alphabetical journey through the doctoral experience. 

The title of this post is intentionally provocative. I don't believe gender is a binary. This post is inspired by a recent trip to see British actress Maxine Peake playing Hamlet at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.  About which, more in a moment... 

If you were asked to imagine a part-time, mature higher education student what image would come to mind?  I'm guessing there's a pretty good chance it would be a woman?  Statistically, that's well supported. Over 65% of part-time learners are female and as 90% of part-time learners are mature - well, you can do the maths!  But what are the potential consequences of stereotypical assumptions about these students?  Gendered assumptions about their identities, capabilities and needs? Invisibility of male part-time students and a lack of attention to their interests?  Reduction of a diverse group to a set of common attributes?

This is nothing new and not just in higher education.  But the reason it's important is that, firstly, UK higher education seems all too reliant on binary short cuts: traditional/non-traditional; mature/young; full-time/part-time; working-class/middle-class...  and of course, female/male.  These categories fail to depict the rich and complex diversity of each individual let alone whole student cohorts and have consequences in terms of policy and practice. Secondly, my doctoral research (on part-time, mature undergraduates and retention) attempts to challenge typical models of 'an HE student'.  Yet I find myself having to challenge my own tendency to essentialise, to label, to categorise - all for the convenience of reporting data.  Using excuses such as 'broadly' and 'overall' doesn't compensate for ignoring the potential for nuance and contradiction.  

Gender is nuanced, diverse and complex.  Gender is constructed.  Maxine Peake played Hamlet as a principal boy, flouncing and heroic.  She looked like a baby dyke (look it up).  Occasionally her Hamlet was a sulky teenager, gurning and sneering.  I'm happy Maxine got a juicy part to get her teeth into - too rare for so many actresses as excellent as she is.  I'm happy for the Royal Exchange Theatre that they've had to extend the run to meet the demand for tickets.  But somehow, I was disappointed by the production.  It all seemed too obvious. One of the most important tasks in my research is to depict the wide diversity of part-time students for what it is, not a flattened, convenient category but a population defying classification. 

F is for FULFILMENT

The sixth in an alphabetical series of blog posts: A-Z: An alphabetical journal through the doctoral experience. 

I've recently put together something I've called 'a fulfilment strategy'.  It's an action plan for networking, publication and gaining relevant experience during the final year of my doctoral research, in order to make myself as employable as possible.  Although I call it a 'fulfilment strategy' with my tongue firmly in my cheek, on reflection, it's not such a bad name.  

Ever since I started my doctoral research people have asked me 'What are you going to do with your PhD?'  Implying anything from 'How do you plan to make your way in academia?' to 'What the heck use is that?!'.  Because I'd had a torrid few years on the employment front prior to starting my PhD, I'd decided to give myself a whole two year sabbatical from thinking about paid employment.  Up until last month, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, truthfully: 'I really don't know at this point'.  What a gift, at my (middle) age, not to have to think too far into the future.

Having very recently embarked on my final year however, not only am I getting the 'So, what are you going to do with your PhD?' question with increasing regularity, but now it's something I'm asking myself too!  How am I going to capitalise on my increased capacity for critical thinking and writing, my enthusiasm for research in my field, the niche I'm in the process of carving out for myself?  How am I going to justify the significant personal, professional and financial investment I and others have made in these three years?  With the HE sector increasinly febrile and conflicted, with secure posts increasingly scarce and every decent job fiercely fought over, there is no certainty whatsoever that a woman who's just hit 50 is going to acquire any post that fits her skills, talents, expertise and potential, let alone her interests and ambitions!  

But as a friend observed recently: 'these are your halcyon days!'  She was right. She could see that I am already fulfilled - strategy or no strategy.  I suspect the question 'what are you going to do with your PhD?' is not the right question.  I'm doing doctoral research.  I love what I do and I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to do it, whatever it leads to.  Perhaps, the question should be 'what is your PhD going to do with you?' 

E is for EASING OFF A BIT

The fifth in an alphabetical series of blog posts: A-Z: An alphabetical journal through the doctoral experience. 

Twice a week, for my sins, I attend a spin class where I sit on a stationary bike and pedal hard for 45 minutes.  Someone very fit shouts instructions over loud music: stand up, sit down, resistance up, resistance down!  I travel nowhere but boy do I feel like I've covered some ground!  But of those 45 minutes at least 10 are spent 'in recovery' and that's before we stop pedalling at the end of the class. Recovery doesn't mean stopping.  We keep pedalling but the resistance is lowered and the muscles recover before the next, more challenging spurt.  This is, of course, a useful principle to apply to other areas of my life.

Such as my PhD!  I am working to a tight, three-year schedule.  I'm two years in and my third and final year is looming large on the horizon!  I didn't quite manage to complete my empirical research in the time I'd allotted; there's a few transcriptions outstanding; I know there's a mountain to climb in terms of data analysis and writing up.  Time to grit your teeth, buckle down and start climbing that hill you might say. 

But instead, I'm about to immerse myself in Lake District scenery and fresh air. There won't be an academic book, article or work email in sight for a few weeks. Don't be fooled though - I'm slowing not stopping and it's temporary.  My relationship with my research is maturing, more interesting than ever and as one of the Guardian's Anonymous Academics (also a mature doctoral student) has recently written the doctoral work is always running as a background programme throughout the day.  But over the next few weeks, just as in my spin class, I'm going to be significantly reducing the obvious effort in order to allow my PhD muscles to 'recover'.  Slower pedalling equals - I hope! - reinvigorating, creative thinking time.  And useful practice for next year too.  I have a strong feeling that knowing when, how and for how long to ease off is going to be an essential survival skill!

D is for DOTS

The fourth in an alphabetical series of blog posts: A-Z: An alphabetical journal through the doctoral experience. 

Living, as I now do, in Sheffield, dots have figured large in the last month or so (and I would argue that until the Tour de France concludes, it's legitimate to play on Tour de France references!). As the destination of stage 2 of the Tour de France's Grand Depart, Sheffield's houses, hoardings, bunting and cup cakes have featured the red dots of the tour's King of the Mountains maillot a pois rouge. In fact, so used have I become to the red dot, that I committed a faux pas at a conference last week and chattily assumed that the red dotty dress of the keynote speaker was an ironic reference to the King of the Mountains.  It was not. Cue: strange look from keynote speaker....!

Never mind.  The point of this is that, having nearly completed my data collection, I am now sitting on a large pile of data and am about to embark on new phase of joining the dots!  But what will this actually entail?  Pick up an (over-priced) children's puzzle book in a UK service station and joining the dots will mean creating a recognisable shape from a minimal outline.  So far, so simple. But in the world of academia (also overpriced?) joining the dots means finding a common thread binding multiple perspectives and data.  The first implies anticipating the shape of what my data adds up to and shaping the data to represent it.  The second implies heading into data analysis with a more open spirit, allowing opportunities for discovery, surprise, creativity and challenge.  I know which one appeals most.  I just hope I can hold my nerve in the face of limited time, resources, academic discourse... etc.!  

OK, here I go, I've got my dotty shirt on, ready to scale the heights! 

C is for CURRENCY

The third in an alphabetical series of blog posts: A-Z: An alphabetical journal through the doctoral experience. 

Very early on in my PhD 'career' I attended my first interdisciplinary doctoral seminar.  The rather glamorous academic facilitating it invited all participants to introduce themselves and their research topic before the discussion got started. I remember my jaw metaphorically dropping as as my fellow students rattled off their topics - not only because the terrifying way in which they rattled off complex theoretical perspectives without blinking, but also because at least half of the topics seemed deeply obscure.  Who in their right mind would self-fund a part-time doctorate in 5th century Chinese ceramics?  In comparison, my own research - on the retention of part-time students in English universities - seemed utterly prosaic. Did I imagine it, or did the facilitator raise one immaculately plucked eyebrow as I stammered out my research title? 

Currency.  Something bang up to date?  My research seems pretty damn current to me.  In fact, at times, this doctoral project feels like standing on a railway platform being buffeted by the windy blast of a non-stopping train! Events unfold so fast, my research already feels historical. Criteria used to select research participants is out of date by the time I arrive to interview them. On the one hand, it's rewarding to be so intimately involved with a topic that's in the news, in social media ... on the other hand it's frustrating to have to metaphorically turn away from that railway platform and freeze a moment in time in order to get the thing written. On the other hand (that's three hands...!) two years in, I now understand how your topic, whatever it is, part-time student retention or 5th century Chinese ceramics - winds itself tightly around you and octopus-like, reaches tentacles into just about every aspect of your life.  

Currency.  Something to barter with?  For all I know, there might be a significant shortage of scholars in ancient pottery.  If part-time students continue to decline at current rates, a doctorate in the intricacies of 5th century Chinese ceramics may prove a damn sight more marketable than one in part-time student retention.  My PhD could turn into ancient history before the train's left the station!  

B is for BREVITY

The second in a new series of blog posts entitled: A-Z: An alphabetical journal through the doctoral experience. 

I'll keep this short.  Suffice to say that transcribing fieldwork interviews offers an excellent professional development opportunity in addition to reflecting on content.  Listening to myself asking painfully long-winded, multiple clause questions complete with sub-questions and asides has considerably improved my interview technique!  Notes to self: 

• everyone benefits if the question word (how, what, why, when) is introduced early on;
• don't be greedy - ask a maximum of one question at a time.  The point of follow-on questions is that they follow on;
• cut the clauses! Otherwise you both forget how the question started out.

That's all folks!

A is for AUDIENCE

Welcome to the first post in a new series of blog posts entitled: A-Z: An alphabetical journal through the doctoral experience. 

WARNING: this post is entirely subjective and not in the slightest bit generalisable.

A is for AUDIENCE.  As we all know, a 'good' academic conference is dependent on the coming together of multiple factors: location, venue, regularity of coffee supply, quality of the food/mattresses, how friendly the crowd is ... And the brilliance - or otherwise - of its keynotes.  

Truth is, we all spend a significant proportion of our time at these events, in the audience. How do you behave? Are you a tweeter (tweeting 'key messages' uncritically, every 2 minutes to your 40 followers to prove you're at the conference and haven't gone shopping)?  Or a noter (eagerly recording summaries of keynote presentations in files you'll never find again)?  A zoner (having established the irrelevance of the presentation to you, zoning out and unashamedly checking emails, sending texts, reading papers for forthcoming sessions)?  Or a zealot (spending most of the presentation barely containing yourself until questions are invited and you can shoot up your hand to make - at length- the point you have longed to make for the last 30 minutes concerning a minor issue relating to your own research)?   How often do we simply sit, listen, absorb and reflect, taking advantage of this valuable thinking time?

Of course, the likelihood of us doing that is significantly dependent on the quality of those keynotes.  To that end, calling all Presenters - the key point to remember at all times is that you HAVE an audience and that, other than your reputation, the point of inviting you to present at the conference is for you to a) communicate something b) meaningful and c) relevant.  This means that even if you are personage of significant standing and eminent reputation in your field, with a trolley-load of qualifications, accolades, titles and major research grants, please do not assume this entitles you to: 

a) refuse to use the available and working microphone when asked;
b) ignore the copious good practice advice for presentations and put 20 lines of closely spaced text on each slide;
c) read out those slides word for word;
d) begin your keynote by saying how delighted you are to be invited to speak at such a worthwhile conference but that you want to use the opportunity today to talk about something completely different;
e) pay no attention to time, assuming that your audience (or at least those that can hear you) will be so interested in what you have to say that they will joyfully forgo 20 minutes of coffee/networking/lunch/paper sessions. 

Let me conclude by recommending a couple of Nick Hopwood's handy blog posts on the subject:
making academic conference presentations more effective  
is your conference audience really listening?

breathing space

Since I last posted on this blog, I've moved out of my home of the last 6 years, relocated and changed one of my supervisors, following the first year of my PhD. Significant changes, enough to justify radio silence you might think?  So perhaps I don't need to mention the fact that having taken a break for a couple of weeks in the summer, I returned to 'work' and immediately felt saturated with blogs/twitter/linkedin...to the extent that I just decided not to engage again until I felt I had something to say. Amazingly, life carried on regardless.

I suspect that another reason I haven't posted is that I had become aware of a degree of self-censorship about my PhD supervisory issues, wasn't happy about it but didn't know quite how else to proceed.  And I haven't had a lightbulb moment, I'm still unsure.  But I think that in itself is worth saying.

Good stuff is happening now.  Into the second year and the primary research phase of my PhD.  More confidence in my abilities to research my topic.  Opportunities offered by both a new location and a new supervisor.  About to head off to no doubt freezing Sweden to give a paper.  Breathing spaces are valuable.  Perspectives change.

the self-storage principle

I'm in the process of relocating (really not to be advised during a PhD, but life carries on regardless).  As part of this process I'm putting some of my stuff into storage.  This is raising the 'if you can do without this for 6 months, why do you need it at all? type of question, not to mention the 'what the heck is in all the cupboards/spaces behind those brightly coloured doors?  Who is storing stuff here and why? What's going on in those people's lives, that they need to put stuff somewhere and pay for it while they go somewhere else/do something else? type of questions? No doubt those questions have something to do with the fact I'm wrestling with Draft 807 of Chapter 1 of my thesis on quite another subject and welcome any distraction.

I had mini 'light bulb' moment yesterday, when neatly arranging another 3 boxes, two chairs and a tube of posters I just can't seem to send to recycling.  There are some similarities here to the way I'm storing information as part of my doctoral study.   I looked at the 10+ boxes I'd carefully packed and stored two weeks ago and thought - what the hell is in those boxes?!  Then I looked more closely at the cryptic label I'd scribbled on the box and thought, ah, yes....I remember - that box contains the crockery I'm not yet ready to dispose of/the diaries I wasted two hours reading/the photo albums I just don't have the time or energy to digitise. Probably because I'm on draft 807 of my chapter, I'm keenly aware that there's a mass, a partially-digested mass, of information, literature and theory, that my mind is simply too miniscule to keep hold of.  I access it through my (pretty excellent) filing system, or by riffling through the tower of books next to my desk, or by sitting very still and trying to channel that particular author...(not always successful)...

The point I'm trying to make is that it's all there somewhere, a year's effort, even if I've forgotten it's there.  I may not need it now but I might need it later. It's ok to put it in storage. I may never need it, but I don't know yet, so it's ok to put it in storage.  There will no doubt come a time when I collect and sort out my boxes and send half of the contents to recycling/Freecycle/the tip/the bottom of the cupboard.  But the other half I'll unwrap and be surprised and delighted by and know immediately how that particular item (spatula, cushion, DIY manual) fits into my life at that point.  

on pencil sharpening and swimming

Along with the definite whiff of autumn in the air comes that 'back to school' feeling as September approaches.  I'm tidying my desk and sharpening my pencils in readiness for my second year as a PhD student.  In fact, pencils really have become an important part of my toolkit - during my first year of doctoral study I rediscovered my love of stationery: pens, pencils, notebooks.  By the end of these three years there will be a stack of once beautiful but dogeared notebooks full of lists, ideas and scribbled references, tracing the halting and haphazard journey through my PhD.  

During my first year, those physical tools of writing offered a welcome alternative to the sea of virtual wordage which seeped onto my screen on a daily basis, threatening sometimes, to overwhelm me. Earlier this summer Charlie Booker wrote a Guardian article entitled 'Too much talk for one planet' http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/28/too-much-talk-charlie-brooker. in which he bemoaned the 'vast cloud of blah ... events and noise, events and noise' to which he had been contributing and from which he had decided to take a break. I was ready for a break myself  - from the 'events and noise' associated with PhD study (journals, papers, books, updates, alerts, blogs, twitter...).  I spent two weeks living in minimalist fashion in a tent in the South of France.  It took twenty minutes to make a cup of tea (I'm British, of course I make tea in the South of France!) and I developed a new appreciation for the minor miracle that is a chair.  

Since my return, it's taken almost two weeks to reluctantly dip a toe back into that sea of words.  But the new year is upon me and I need to get swimming again. On that note, enough of this reflective blah, time to dive in..!   

damn good all over

I've just emerged from a six week writing bubble, working on drafts of my first two thesis chapters. They were submitted to deadline and I've re-entered regular life - temporarily at least.  Drafting each chapter was challenging in different ways. I find writing about themes and ideas comes more naturally than writing about numbers and facts so at times, the context chapter felt dry as dust.  But while writing the theory chapter flowed more easily, I was continuously assailed by the fear I was only scratching the theoretical surface.  

The day after submitting the drafts, I was rewarded with two stimulating posts on different blogs: Pat Thomson on emotional research and Arlene Stein on intellectual craftsmanship.  Both spoke to different aspects of my recent writing experience.

Pat Thomson's post considers the place of emotion, including anger, in research and how this can motivate the researcher to produce engaging, compelling work.  I feel fortunate, a year into my PhD to be more not less interested in my topic (part-time, mature undergraduate retention).  I'm researching it at a time when part-time enrolments in HE have dropped 40% thanks to the funding reforms.  What's happened has made me pretty angry and especially when I read the words of those writing after Dearing in 1997, who felt hopeful about the potential for the HE system to encompass lifelong and flexible learning.  The sometimes dull, sometimes fascinating work of uncovering the context of my research - and my own industry - has fed my motivation further.

Arlene Stein's post addresses the instrumentalising of intellectual activity, the pressure to 'produce', leading to 'the production of routine work that fails to inspire oneself or others'.  She advocates a return to craftsmanship - an engagement with our work, seeing writing as craft requiring technique and playfulness.  My struggles with sense, flow and even elegance have been part of the crafting process, an engagement with my research, my topic so that others might engage with it too.  

Both posts addressed motivation and engagement - key ingredients in this doctoral process - in different ways. What both made me realise is that whether I'm writing about numbers, facts, themes or ideas, compelling, well crafted writing is absolutely necessary because both chapters are doing the same thing: telling the story of my research for a purpose.  Arlene Stein quotes C. Wright Mills' from The Sociological Imagination  - and perhaps I'll put this up on my wall:  'I am trying to make it damm good all over'.

life on campus

For the last three days I've been cocooned within the leafy surroundings of one of England's 'plate-glass' campus universities, a product of the Robbins era and very much a major player in the contemporary higher education scene.  The campus was devoid of undergraduate students but teeming with the people that make the university business model work...conference delegates.

Conferences are changing...these days at least 50% of delegates have their heads in their iPads during keynotes and presentations, another 25% are checking their phones as if their sanity depended on it.  Are we bored, lonely, curious, or simply unable to leave the office? This conference had live tweets beamed onto the big screen during the introductory speeches.  It provided a distraction when the speeches flagged or disappointed, but really, is this polite?  

The best thing about the last three days has been reconnecting with the other students on my scholarship scheme.  We're based at institutions around the UK and last met in November at an induction event. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and it was good to catch up, eat together, drink together (some more than others!), compare notes, share woes, welcome new members.  We're all on the same track, deadlines biting at our heels, juggling study, work, personal lives.  There's something to be said for a bit of group solidarity now and then. Keep it up guys!

Related posts

Campus what campus

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Temporary remedies for worker-ants

Earlier this week, Nick Hopwood posted 10 things you should know about a PhD but may not have been told.  On reading the post I located myself somewhere between 1. (you and your work are crucial to the future of humanity and the world); 2. (you're in an astonishing position of privilege); 5. (yes it is hard) and 6. (you will continue to feel like a fraud).  It hasn't been a comfortable position to be in!  So in the spirit of Nick's '10 things' here are a paltry three I've come up with as a remedy for my current discomfort:

1. Scale down.  Getting limited satisfaction from small stuff can gradually ease the sense of disappointment and impending panic (what's the point?  I've wasted six months reading the wrong things? etc).  A week of small stuff means my desk's tidier, I've got my references up to date AND I've managed to work on small tasks which will, at some point, contribute towards the whole: drafting small sections in timed sessions; checking out bang up to date journal articles on my topic....If I haven't done what I'd ideally like to have done this week, I have, at least done something.

2. Let some air in. The atmosphere between you and your supervisor(s) can become very rarified.  Allow yourself and your ideas to breathe.  Get fresh air circulating.   Talk to others in your field whose opinion you respect, absorb the implications of different perspectives, rehearse your ideas in different circles.  Freshen your thinking and your conviction about your research and your right to do it may well strengthen.  And there's nothing better than literally taking some air.  Get outside and walk.  

3. Get off the beaten track.  If your confusion and sense of inadequacy are becoming entrenched, try a detour.  Cross discipline, read someone/something new, go and hear someone speak/sing/play and enjoy their competence in what they do.  Sometimes detours give us unexpected views of the roads we were travelling on or remind us why we chose that route in the first place.  

I'll let you know how it goes....

seventy steps of shame

My PhD supervisor's office is on the third floor of an old building without a lift.  I counted the other day - there are 70 steps up, with a particularly steep flight of stairs between the second and third floors.  I've developed a habit of pausing, twice, on my way up so as not to arrive breathless and sweaty in their office - I'm sure they're heartily sick of visitors' complaints!  I suspect however, that my stair-climbing routine is not only for their comfort, but also something to do with the complex, tacit and occasionally uncomfortable powerplay at work in the supervisory relationship.  After all, if I arrive literally unable to speak, my voice can't be heard.  

Developing my own voice within my writing has been something I've been working on this year - and the work continues!  Ensuring my voice is heard in the shaping of my empirical research is a whole new - and quite honestly - unexpected - project and I have a feeling I'm just at the start of it!  As with many things 'PhD', these territorial scuffles are a part of the journey for which the directions are imprecise, everyone will have their version of the 'right' way to get from A-B. 

Back to that staircase....I may have a strategy for going up those stairs, but going down them can be a different matter.  Last week, they became the 70 steps of shame after a bruising supervisory session.  Bruising you understand, only to a fledgling academic intellect and a fragile ego.  Ten days later and I'm still assessing and working through the impact.  I'm assailed by all those feelings doctoral students experience - I'm not good enough, I can't do it....I recognise that the downer has come as such a shock because only a month earlier I'd finally felt I was making some real progress, getting a grasp of the literature, developing my own voice in my writing.  No doubt you'll tell me this is all part of the journey too, detours and dead ends are essential!

a different light

I've been staring rather hard at the view from my window recently.  I'm moving from rural Gloucestershire to urban Yorkshire at the end of the summer. So I'm trying to imprint on my memory the sight of spring in the garden and across the valley.

One thing which always beguiles and sometimes startles me is the sudden transformation worked by the sun emerging from cloud or the simple and temporary brilliance of the evening sun on the fields and the trees.  It's like a light being switched on - an illumination.

My experience of my doctoral research can be like that (ok, not that often!).  Suddenly, through reading, or writing, my perspective shifts, opens up and ideas, concepts, metaphors connect.  I realise the connections have been there all along, but invisible to me, just waiting for the clouds to clear or the sun to move, imperceptibly, to another spot.  

I want to capture these moments of insight, just as I'm trying to hold the sight of the fields, trees and shadows in my memory.  If I don't get them down on paper/on screen, then like the way the sunlight travels across the fields and the leaves, they can be all too transitory.  

imposter syndrome

I'm at the HEA Social Sciences Cluster Conference (#HEASocSci13) which has as its theme: Teaching Research Methods.  I experienced a painful case of imposter syndrome this afternoon when I attended the opening keynote by John MacInnes (University of Edinburgh) who also happens to be the ESRC Advisor on Quantitative Methods Training.  I'm drawn to qualitative rather than quantitative research.  I'm the girl who ran, weeping with relief, from the room at the end of my O'Level Maths exam (yes, that long ago) and wept with relief again when I was informed I'd scraped a C.  In my mind I never had to think about Maths again.  I'm also the kind of person whose eyes lit up on reading a news article last week on how mild electric shocks to the brain have been shown to improve mental arithmetic skills.  Forget research, life in general would improve measurably (but by what % I hear you cry) without having to constantly revert to a) fingers and thumbs b) pen and paper to work out the minutiae of my personal finances.  No doubt I fall into the 'statistically illiterate' category whose skills are barely basic and certainly don't reach the heady heights of being 'confident at manipulating fractions and decimals to express proportions', attributes John MacInnes listed as as essential for social scientists learning quantitative methods.

I'm not proud of any of this by the way.  But I am content with making the most of the strengths I do have.  I'm a poet and I write fiction (when I'm not writing research papers).  So the speaker's reference to 'the statistical imagination' caught my own.  We must, he said, help students to appreciate the 'excitement of data', to 'learn to see the world in terms of variation and distribution'.  I think I probably already do, in my own way, I just instinctively express my understanding of it in words, rather than numbers.  

part-time matters

Yesterday saw the launch of Part-Time Matters, a campaign highlighting the benefits of part-time study to the UK economy, society and the individual.  Backed by a range of stakeholders in part-time higher education including universities, their mission groups and the NUS, the campaign has launched in response to the dramatic 40% decline in part-time applications to higher education following the 2012 reforms to higher education.  Universities UK has already started to conduct a review into the reasons behind the drop.  

The publicity around part-time higher education is not simply timely, it is overdue.  My doctoral research into retention and part-time, mature students, has revealed the dominance of full-time as the 'authentic' model in institutional, policy and media representations of higher education,  despite one third of all higher education students studying part-time.  There is a tendency to lump part-time students in with 'disadvantaged' groups despite their varied profile. 

Why does part-time matter?  As the campaign argues, part-time higher education brings economic and employment benefits to students/employees and employers; it widens access to higher education and it has a positive impact on personal development. I think it matters too, to our higher education institutions and all their students.  Part-time students bring life experience, employment skills and knowledge, alternative perspectives and astonishing motivation and commitment to their study.  This matters, diversity matters, part-time matters.

Are you studying part-time or know someone who is?  Do you teach part-time students?  What do you think are the particular challenges and benefits of this mode of study?

'at home' in higher education?

My reading about retention of students in higher education is taking me in the direction of belonging and from belonging into identity and place.  So I've become particularly alert to the ways in which people use space to create place, to establish connections between the people they are or would like to be, the things they do and the places they inhabit.   

This was illustrated for me yesterday when, in a brief respite from case study research design, I went to visit several makers participating in Stroud International Textiles Festival Open Studios Weekend   Part of the delight involved in these weekends is discovering places on your doorstep you never realised existed.   Of course during Open Studios weekend, the studio becomes a shop window, the artistic process is self-consciously available for public consumption.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed imagining the private creative process taking place within them on a daily basis.   Yesterday's visits revealed two makers' studios tucked away up a narrow, tree-lined path.  One was little more than a lean-to with a view of the garden; the other was a purpose-built garden 'room' with a green roof.  Both were compact, distinctive workplaces. 

It got me thinking about my own 'studio' (derived after all, from the Latin studere, to study): essentially a desk in the spare room, a noticeboard and a shelf of books.  It's the nearest I can get to the garden room with the green roof.  But this workspace has become an important part of my development as a doctoral researcher.  It keeps that part of my life distinct, it's an acknowledgment of the importance of place to the development of a learning identity.  

These observations feed my thinking about the larger questions about learning and social spaces; about the ways in which student populations use campus space - inclusively and exclusively; what it means - and who is allowed - to feel at home in higher education?

a matter of life and death

Last week, I felt I'd reached something of a milestone in what I'll call my PhD career.  This week that milestone is forgotten and the future trajectory obscured by life events.  I'm reminded all too abruptly of how studying as a mature student and perhaps particularly as a female mature student, is vulnerable to disruption by events beyond your control.  My elderly mother had a(nother) fall and though not seriously hurt, has simply failed to recover.  This week - and the Bank Holiday weekend - has been dominated by encouraging a reluctant elderly person to eat/get up/dress/bathe, ensuring they take medication on time and daily, weighing up their additional care needs, whether further medical attention is required.  The physical, mental and emotional energy this demands makes starting on what feels like a new phase (writing my Lit Review chapter, planning methodology) impossible for the time being. 
And then today, in piercing sunshine, softened by glorious blossom, I attend the burial of my ex-colleague who has died of cancer in her mid-forties, a year younger than me.  She is buried in a wicker coffin, beneath a graceful stand of trees in South Bristol Cemetery.  Saying farewell to her feels like an invitation to make the most of now, a glib phrase most days, but not today. 
In between the death of a quirky middle-aged woman who died with dignity and the life of an admirably stubborn elderly woman clinging on to life, my PhD seems at once insignificant - and so much more.