INFORMATION FOR POSTGRADUATES

These pages offer a general overview of the major issues that affect postgraduates:

FUNDING, GOING ABOUT YOUR RESEARCH, ATTENDING CONFERENCES, TEACHING, PUBLISHING.

Inasmuch as any opinions are expressed, they are the sole responsibility of the postgraduate rep. I hope you find the info useful, and please let me know if there's anything you would like to see added or taken away. All feedback welcome! Thanks go to Rebecca Beard, Michaela Gigerl, Katherine Griffiths and Sara Jones for the initial writing of these pages.

Alex Vinall
(WIGS Postgraduate Rep)


HOW TO BE A POSTGRADUATE

 

The best way to find out if postgraduate work is really for you is to ask friends or other WIGS who have been there to tell you about their experiences, but here are a few general words of advice before you start:

  • It is strongly advisable to start with an MA or MPHIL (taught or research) to make sure that you are suited to and enjoy working at postgraduate level before you commit to 3-4 years. An MA is now also a requirement for AHRC funding and will give you a better grounding in your chose field. Be warned, the jump from MA to Ph.D is less than the jump from BA to MA - the jump from BA to Ph.D is massive.

 

  • A Ph.D is an expensive commitment (tuition fees alone are generally £3000+/year) and competition for funding is fierce. You may well have to at least part-fund yourself.

  • Competition for part-time work such as teaching may be tough (not least because teaching has become a CV requirement). Some institutions are better than others at offering Ph.D. students teaching experience, so find out what generally happens at your chosen institution before you apply.

  • On the flip-side be cautious about taking on too much teaching in order to fund your studies - any more than 6 hours/week will be difficult to manage.

  • If you are considering a career in academia, you cannot expect to walk into a steady academic job on graduating. In the vast majority of cases, post-doctoral students can expect a period of 3-4 years wandering from one (poorly-paid) fixed-term post to the next. It can be quite depressing when your friends from school and university are all earning twice as much as you.

 

  • Writing a Ph.D can be a lonely experience and is very different to undergraduate work. Most German departments have only a handful of postgraduate students and many will not live in the city where the institution is situated. A fixed timetable, self-discipline and -motivation are key. This is one reason why your relationship with your supervisor is particularly important (see below).

 

  • You must be sure that you can handle this pressure and that the lifestyle sacrifices you have to make are really going to be worth it. Make sure you pick a topic that is going to retain your interest for 4 years!

    FUNDING

    (a) the whole thing

    If you're still convinced postgraduate work is for you, you can follow up several possibilities. You should start looking a year in advance, as deadlines often come unexpectedly early in the year. Subscribe to the German-Studies mail list (follow the instructions at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/), as one-offs are often advertised here and it is in any case an invaluable portal into the world of German studies in the UK.

  • The most obvious first port-of-call is the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). However, the process by which the AHRC awards postgraduate funding has changing dramatically for the 2009/2010 academic year, as they have moved from an open competition to an institutionally-based system. Basically, this means that selected universities have been awarded funding for a certain number of students in a particular subject and prospective postgraduates will apply directly to the institution. Take a look at the table we have compiled on which universities have received grants for the next 5 years (http://www.wigs.ac.uk/funding.html) and the funding pages of the institution(s) you are interested in. If you're lucky enough to get one of these awards, they will pay both your fees and maintenance for the full fee-paying duration of your course (usually 3 years for Ph.D and 1 year for MA). Generally, you must be a British resident to qualify for the full grant (EU citizens may apply for fees-only), and you must have both an excellent BA degree, an MA if you are applying for your Ph.D and a well-defined research project. See www.ahrc.ac.uk for more information.

  • Increasingly, individual universities are offering studentships (fee waivers and possibly a maintenance grant up to roughly AHRC equivalent) . These might entail up to 6 hours teaching, OR researching somebody else's project, or indeed both, so check the terms carefully before you apply. Nationality shouldn't be a problem, but if you are not an EU citizen you might have to make up the difference between EU and international fees. Check major university websites and/or e-mail the relevant heads of department/admissions tutors; keep a close eye on the German-Studies mail list and the advertisements on www.jobs.ac.uk.

    (b) other bits and pieces

    As a general rule of thumb, if you can get yourself started, you will usually manage to cobble together enough bits and pieces to survive. You can always try to fund yourself for the first year and then re-apply for all of the above mentioned options for the following years. You might also want to consider starting your Ph.D part-time - you can always switch to full-time registration later down the line.

    In addition, there is more specific assistance available for graduates after you have embarked on your studies:

  • The British Federation of Women Graduates offers a range of financial support for those already embarked on study:

 

 

  • The Association for Modern German Studies offers 'Gisela Shaw Conference Bursaries' - further details available at www.amgs.org.uk/awards

 

  • The Conference of the University Teachers of Great Britain and Ireland (CUTG) offers assistance for postgraduates to attend the annual meeting and small travel grants for conferences or research trips: http://www.cutg.ac.uk/prizes.html

 

 

 

  • The British Chamber of Commerce in Germany (BCCG) Foundation offers financial support and partial scholarships to young British nationals for study or research in Germany, and to German citizens for awards for study or research in the UK: www.bccg.de

 

 

  • Additionally, be sure to check out what schemes or competitions are run by your own Department, School or Graduate School. Being successful in applying for funding not only helps you out financially, it is also an essential addition to your CV.

  • GOING ABOUT YOUR RESEARCH

    Again, the best advice on going about your research should come from a) your supervisor and b) your postgraduate colleagues and friends, but here, nonetheless, are a few pointers:

    Choosing a supervisor

    Although many graduates are most concerned about managing to fund a place at a good university, you shouldn't underestimate the importance of getting a good supervisor. This is often a make-or-break relationship. Your supervisor will be your first (and sometimes only) port-of-call not just for help and support with your actual thesis, but also for guidance with teaching, publications and job applications. Try to establish how interested and effective any potential supervisor is going to be by checking up on:

  • whether they have (successfully) supervised before.
  • what kind of a reputation they have in their field.
  • whether they have actually worked and published in your specific area of interest.

    It is hard to motivate yourself for three years solid, so someone who's genuinely interested in your work can prove invaluable. You can do a lot of groundwork for this on the web, but make sure you meet him or her face-to-face before you commit.

    If you experience any problems with your supervisor (or with any other aspect of your studies) it is important to discuss this either with them or with your Director of Postgraduate Studies (or equivalent) sooner rather than later. Even one or two months of writer's block will be difficult to recover from and might jeopardise your chances of submitting on time.

    Library stocks

    This one sounds obvious, but do make sure the university at which you want to study has a decent collection of the kinds of books you will need. It will become very time-consuming and expensive if you need to travel frequently for these materials, although inter-library loans are of course possible and journals are increasingly available on-line.

    Archives

    It is likely, in particular if your topic is not immediately contemporary, that you will at some point make a trip to the Literaturarchiv in Marbach, the Akademie der Künste and the Bundesarchiv in Berlin, or any of many, many more throughout Germany / Austria / Switzerland. This is the kind of extra expense for which you may well be able to get some supplementary funding (see above). Some items to bear in mind:

  • You will probably find a laptop indispensable at this stage.
  • If you know you will have to use the archives at some point in your studies, it is a good idea to go early and get an overview of what's there. It also makes a lot of sense to contact the archive before you go to check what material they have available, how easy it is to access, what documentation you need to bring. If they are expecting you, it also makes the whole thing easier (and less daunting) when you arrive.
  • If possible, ask someone who has been to the archive before to give you an idea of the procedures - some of the bureaucracy involved can be mond-boggling and advice on negotiating the system invaluable.
  • Photocopying in archives can cost a fortune. Hence the use you can make of a laptop.
  • Depending on the material you are looking at, there might be privacy and copyright issues you will need to deal with (notably if you are looking at private correspondence). These should be made clear to you before you get access to the material and might include needing to seek permission from letter-writers or their family and a ban on direct quotations. Be aware that submitting a thesis for examination counts as publication.

    Exchanging information

    The more you engage with your subject, the more (hopefully) you will come into contact with other researchers (see CONFERENCES for how this tends to happen). Generally, this is the fun-side of your toil, as you present your ideas to other interested parties.

    However, do be aware of copyright issues: if somebody asks you for a copy of your conference paper / thesis chapter / planned article etc., think about how secure your work will be. You don't need to be paranoid about this, but consider how you would prove the work is yours if it came to the crunch (a supervisor who has read it previously, a public presentation where others have heard it, etc.) Always keep copies of e-mail correspondence.

  • ATTENDING CONFERENCES

    If you have already subscribed to the German-Studies mail list, you will be well aware of the many and varied things that get discussed in one-day workshops, colloquia and major interdisciplinary conferences across the UK, Europe, America and beyond. These events happen at all sorts of different levels. You should definitely monitor what is going on and try to attend some:

  • The WIGS one-day conferences and the UK postgraduate conferences (e.g. the annual National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies hosted by the Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies http://igrs.sas.ac.uk) offer a pleasant way in to the conference-circuit. Often, these events are not themed, so they are an excellent way of presenting your research. Saying something useful in 20 minutes is a definite skill, so the sooner you start having a go, the better! A one-day conference will usually be small, intimate and very reasonably priced.

  • Major conferences, interdisciplinary conferences: these can be considerably more daunting. They are generally themed, although the theme can be rather wide-ranging. A good conference will gather together exciting, well-known speakers who bring an eclectic mix of approaches to the topic in hand. These sorts of events can be inspiring, as you have a high-calibre audience and can get a real sense of how ideas are disseminated and developed in the established academic community. On the other hand, they can also disappoint. Multiple parallel sessions can over-divide the audience, so that you would actually be better served by a smaller, one-day affair. If you need accommodation, you're looking at quite a bill (£100+).

  • Be discerning: In all conferences, papers are often very mixed; some conferences themselves are simply ill-conceived. You can get a sense for this by casting a critical eye over the programme: do the titles seem coherent, does the schedule look realistic, is the topic really worth the expense in both time and money?

    You should definitely attend at least a few conferences throughout your postgraduate career, and you should make yourself present papers at some, not least in order to try out your ideas on people other than your supervisor. You can also use the occasion to scout around for a good external examiner. But do pick and choose, and don't underestimate the amount of time that 'tweaking' a chapter to fit a 20 minute paper will take. Don't travel vast distances unless you can really justify it.

    TEACHING

    This has become an important issue, not just for financial reasons. Increasingly, prospective academic employers want proof of teaching experience on your CV, and you can always expect teaching-related questions in interviews (unless the position is solely research-based). To look convincing, you must have gained some experience, however small. This, of course, works both ways: not only do you need to convince your employer that you're the one for the job, you also need to convince yourself that a further academic career is the one for you (and there are many other possible career paths for people with Ph.Ds!). Here are the various different ways of going about it:

  • Pro-rata undergraduate teaching: Many universities offer some pro-rata teaching. Generally speaking, language work and grammar are the initial ways in, and, unless you are on a teaching studentship, you will probably be reliant on your supervisor to help you get this teaching in the first instance. Sometimes you can co-run a class or seminar series with a more-experienced member of faculty. These opportunities vary enormously from university to university, and may condition your choice of where to study.

  • Fixed-term positions: Sometimes temporary positions come up to cover sabbaticals of one or two terms. If you get wind of one of these, it is certainly worth considering dedicating a term or two of your time to getting an in-depth experience of what teaching is really like. On the other hand, you must be on top of your own work first, as the amount of time needed to teach new topics should not be underestimated.

  • Other possibilities: Don't discount other types of teaching. Summer schools, A-level tuition and TEFL jobs all help. Check the classifieds, the Goethe Institute, and the WIGS part-timers page: www.wigs.ac.uk/parttime.html.

    PUBLISHING

    By the time you are writing up your thesis and applying for jobs, it is a real bonus if you've managed to get something published.

  • The easiest way to do this is via conferences. Many larger conferences will publish a volume of conference proceedings. If you've presented your research, your paper may well be accepted for inclusion.

  • You should also keep an eye on the occasional calls for papers (cfp) circulated on the mail lists regarding articles and chapters in books. If your research is an exact fit, it is certainly worth submitting an abstract.

  • You can and should also make your own approaches to journals. During the course of your research, it is highly likely that bits and pieces will fall out of the thesis that could be turned into an article instead. You may also have an MA thesis or an undergraduate dissertation you could work up. German Life & Letters are well-known for being open to young academics, and the Modern Language Review is also approachable. For all journals, you must expect a long wait (2 years between submission and publication is by no means overly-pessimistic). Be sure to check the style conventions for each particular journal when submitting a piece. Editors get very irritated by pieces that don't fit their formatting, and it implies that you are simply block-mailing everywhere - not an impression you want to make.

  • CUTG runs an annual postgraduate essay competition. The winner is published in their proceedings. See www.cutg.ac.uk/essay.htm

    What to publish where?

    There is a hierarchy to all of this. Generally, conference proceedings are considered the least prestigious, while peer-reviewed journals are the most (all articles are read by a board of established academics before being accepted). There are intermediary positions: some conferences publish a selection of papers in special editions of journals, or in a peer-reviewed series. As a general rule, getting published at all is a good start, but beware of underselling yourself. If you are on your second or third piece and can afford to wait a bit, it is probably worth being a little choosy.

    Finally, please do feel free to contact me if you need any more information or have any questions about any aspect of postgraduate study and I will do my very best to help!