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Academia wages and holidays

  • 21-11-2010 03:22PM
    #1
    Clomail
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7 ✭


    Hello i'm hoping to complete a PhD soon in the humanities and am intending on getting a job in academia. I am wondering if anybody is familiar with the general starting wage for humanities PhD graduates, and what holidays / days off are given throughout the year.

    Thank you.


Comments

  • #2
    looksee
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,483 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    Um...it seems to me there is something a bit - backwards? - about this work plan. Kind of, 'I don't know how long my piece of string is, can anybody tell me?'


  • #3
    Oafley Jones
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,541 ✭✭✭Oafley Jones


    Clomail wrote: »
    Hello i'm hoping to complete a PhD soon in the humanities and am intending on getting a job in academia. I am wondering if anybody is familiar with the general starting wage for humanities PhD graduates, and what holidays / days off are given throughout the year.

    Thank you.

    Lecturing jobs, especially in humanities, are as rare as hen's teeth. I personally know two phds who are packing the shelves in dunnes for the past few years. If you do manage to find something pay isn't great and your contract will ensure that you'll be off the payroll before holidays become an issue.


  • #4
    Tom Dunne
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,212 ✭✭✭✭Tom Dunne


    I am looking for a lecturing position for the past 10 years (in IT).

    Picking up a few hours here and a few hours there, no problem. Anything remotely approaching the ability to pay my mortgage, forget it.

    Hence why I took a lecturing position outside of Ireland.


  • #5
    Dostoevsky
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,023 ✭✭✭Dostoevsky


    Clomail wrote: »
    Hello i'm hoping to complete a PhD soon in the humanities and am intending on getting a job in academia. I am wondering if anybody is familiar with the general starting wage for humanities PhD graduates, and what holidays / days off are given throughout the year.

    Thank you.

    I've a PhD in the humanities. It's all rather gloomy faoi láthair. After a 30-minute interview last week, I was offered a WPP1 post as a research officer for 9 months. I will not be paid for it. Having impecuniously done the PhD, nine months more of poverty wouldn't kill me. Nonetheless, it says much that I went along to an interview for a job which isn't paying me.

    On the other hand, I was called for interview for a one-year lecturing position in Britain last month. I didn't go, largely because I see no security in starting down the "post-doc merry-go-round" road where I might get a permanent post in ten years time. I've seen too many heartbroken regret-filled people who've gone down that road. By the time you've finished the PhD the years matter a hell of a lot more than they did when you started. Time is precious: you'll want to be able to get a mortgage and for that you'll need job stability, and so forth.

    I never had any illusions about this. I didn't do the PhD in the expectation that I'd get into lecturing. The smart money is on getting out of academia asap. This would apply even in Celtic Tiger Ireland. It most certainly applies now.


  • #6
    AnnyHallsal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,118 ✭✭✭AnnyHallsal


    Dostoevsky wrote: »
    I've a PhD in the humanities. It's all rather gloomy faoi láthair. After a 30-minute interview last week, I was offered a WPP1 post as a research officer for 9 months. I will not be paid for it. Having impecuniously done the PhD, nine months more of poverty wouldn't kill me. Nonetheless, it says much that I went along to an interview for a job which isn't paying me.

    On the other hand, I was called for interview for a one-year lecturing position in Britain last month. I didn't go, largely because I see no security in starting down the "post-doc merry-go-round" road where I might get a permanent post in ten years time. I've seen too many heartbroken regret-filled people who've gone down that road. By the time you've finished the PhD the years matter a hell of a lot more than they did when you started. Time is precious: you'll want to be able to get a mortgage and for that you'll need job stability, and so forth.

    I never had any illusions about this. I didn't do the PhD in the expectation that I'd get into lecturing. The smart money is on getting out of academia asap. This would apply even in Celtic Tiger Ireland. It most certainly applies now.

    This could almost be me: one question, what alternatives to lecturing do you think are viable at the moment?

    Clomail, the other posters are 100% correct - no-one just happens upon a lecturing job, especially at the moment. For most entry level lecturing jobs you need to have published at least one monograph, as well as articles, chapters in edited volumes etc. You should start preparing for the lecturing jobs market by publishing as much as possible in respected journals from as early as possible in your postgraduate career.

    Salary, at the beginning will be quite modest, holidays will be plentiful, but will be filled with unofficial admin and pastoral duties, as well as trying to maintain or improve your publications record. Contracts will be short to non-existent. It's a cut-throat environment. Universities are producing more PhD candidates than ever, with departments in the UK and Ireland experiencing cuts everywhere.

    The absolutely most important thing is that you produce relevant, up to date research that is published prominently. Also, network. Make yourself known to the authorities in your field.


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  • #7
    Eoin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,263 ✭✭✭✭Eoin


    La Haine, your post was deleted. It wasn't helpful at all.


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