Every September, each little PhD candidate in my department who doesn't already have federal funding makes a pledge to him/herself. Some years, it's "This year, I'm going to try my hardest to win [shirk]. I'm going to attend every workshop possible. I'm going to start my Program of Study now. I'm going to meet with the grantscrafter. I'm going to get some conference proposals sent off now, so that they can be mentioned in the PoS."
Some years, the pledge is "This year, I'm not going to let it matter so much to me. It isn't going to take over my life. I won't let it be a measure of my self worth, and it won't bother me if I don't win." I've made each pledge at least once.
And yet we all look the same on those last few days before it's due. We're all a little bleary-eyed. We're all sitting in meetings with the grad chair, trying to figure out ways to make our applications stand out. Several of us are in our pyjamas until noon on the due date. My friend Andrea's combing over the instructions after having clicked "verify" on her application, panicking about perhaps having missed something. My poor friend Lee is trying to re-work his Program of Study, after having several people poke holes in it. I've spent the morning obsessing over keywords and making death threats to my printer. I also printed off the whole thing three times before I was happy.
And two of the three of us vowed that this would be the year that we would stop caring so much.
I really don't look forward to the winter, when the university decides who gets sent on to the national competition and who doesn't. You see, that's actually the most difficult hurdle at my university. We make it so difficult to make it to the last round that roughly 90% of our students that go on to the national competition win funding. I honestly don't know anyone in my department who made it out of the university level (here) and then didn't win. And so early January's the tough time, and the really awkward time when we discovered who went on to the national competition and who didn't.
And so I'll say it again, like I really mean it. This year, it's not going to be so big of a deal. I have other funding options, many of which are more suitable! It doesn't matter that this is the last year I can apply, and the funding now would only be for a single year. It's silly how the Canadian system puts so much stock in this one funding agency, to the point that there are professors and departments in this country that (unofficially) use [Shirk] as a measure of a grad student's worth as a scholar. (Note: my department is mostly fantastic about this. I'm talking about the system in general.)
3 comments:
We all maintain that [shirk] still looks fat in those pants.
And, [shirk] has a booger hanging from it's nose and I'm not telling.
Holy crackers, I am so happy I don't do [shirk] any more. To be honest, the whole bloody-awful process is the main reason I have no interest in pursuing a post-doc.
A few of my own tidbits of experience:
- I never won a [shirk] or even made it past the university-level assessment in January, although an experienced [shirk] assessor told me that my PoS was the best he'd ever read.
- At my university, getting sent on is nigh on impossible, like at yours. It's especially hard for those of us in English literature. English lit probably has a leg up on, I don't know, maybe classical philosophy. But that's it. They'll send on anyone and anything before they consider an English lit proposal.
- Having said the above, several of my colleagues have in fact been sent on to [shirk] HQ. One got a super-[shirk] and then jumped ship for Dalhousie. I know of at least one who was sent on and never got a [shirk], despite the fact that he absolutely deserved one (amazing scholar, very significant research he's doing). And a friend of mine got one in her last eligible year, setting her up beautifully for the post-doc she wants to pursue!
- So sometimes there's happy endings.
- Just not for me. Sigh.
Oh Kate. I knew you'd understand. Last year, my PoS caused the resident grant-writing expert to very literally burst into applause. And I didn't make it past the university level. Apparently, it's difficult for the humanities at my university because the social scientists frequently dominate the committee, and it's this constant fight to make them look beyond grades. My fabulous grad chair goes to the meetings armed with charts that demonstrate how they can't just directly compare the grades from the different departments. A+ averages just don't exist in History and English.
It's also this constant struggle to take out anything that could even resemble jargon and somehow make our research sound relevant to non-experts.
I know plenty of people who have gone on to the national competition and who haven't won, as well. (I'm one of them! UofR sent me on, and then I didn't win. That was when it started looking fat in those pants.) But the weird thing about my university is that we have a ridiculously high success rate for those who get beyond the university competition. It's surpassed 90%. Of course, my new irrational fear is that maybe this year I will get past the university level and then not win [shirk] and thus bring down my university's average.
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