Thursday, August 03, 2006

Doomed before I begin

I'm going to a course today on how to get a postdoc.

It's probably an ominous sign for my future prospects that I've been trying to get into this course for a year, and the eight times it ran during that period it was booked out within an hour of opening for enrolment.* Each time it was advertised, I'd send them an email, and receive a reply saying that they had already had hundreds of other students enquire and I was too late.

Perhaps this is the first lesson for postdoc applications: get used to that feeling.

_________

* Most courses for postgrads at our university take a couple of weeks to fill up, if they ever do.

5 Comments:

Weekend_Viking said...

I gave up on the likelyhood of ever getting postdocs a long time ago. I currently have about 20 applications proceeding for jobs in the mining industry. They pay twice what most of the academic jobs I've had do. I am most keen to rape the Australian's continent of its mineral resources for them. I will smile as I do so. And twitch occasionally.

Nicola said...

Oh, dear. I read that as "I'm going to a course today on how to get a prostate." I suppose even a postdoc is easier to get than that.

StyleyGeek said...

Weekend_Viking, you're not helping. Some of us don't have that option.

Jana, I wouldn't be so sure. The course was mightily depressing.

Inside the Philosophy Factory said...

Perhaps there is no course and their ad is an object lesson?

StyleyGeek said...

Nope. Sigh. There was a course. But I think I'd have been happier if there wasn't.

I really didn't need to know that of the annual ARC postdoc applications, around 18% overall are approved, but that figure drops dramatically if you are (a) female or (b) not an Australian or (c) in the Humanities or (d) in the first year out from your PhD.

See StyleyGeek not have a chance.