A PhD outside the 'tour d'ivoire'

Hmmm...I started this blog almost two years ago now, for the most part, to chronicle in hindsight my years in graduate school and perhaps, in the process of doing so, map out 'new adventures', be in the academe or outside the ivory tower.



Two years hence, I'm a PhD outside the academe and is in the industry practice. Statistically, I belong that two thirds of contemporary PhDs who have not secured an academic job and is in the practice profession albeit the same discipline.

Why am I not in the academe? There are a variety of reasons but foremost would have to be simply my failure to get an academic job is because there just aren't enough jobs in academia. ScienceWoman provided a list of reasons why PhDs leave the halls of the academe. Another reason that is particularly applicable to me is the lack of good mentorship in how to attain an academic job. This is not to say I did not receive good supervision during my candidature. I was fortunate to have two supervisors who are considered authorities in my field of research and were very supportive. More than mentors, they have become life-long friends. But I did not receive appropriate advise on how to prepare for or get an academic job.

Although I am not presented with the same challenges in my current job. I cannot say that I do not like it. But as ScienceGeek would have it, there is that internal struggle of having a PhD and not be an academic. ScienceGeek contends that "this is mostly due to the expectation that a PhD will follow that well laid out route of PhD, post-doc, academic faculty and that anything less is consider somewhat of a failure."

Nevertheless, I consider my PhD as successful and a significant achievement. I don't regret doing a PhD and I still consider it as one of the best choices I ever made.

"What you read today ...

In an earlier post, I mentioned that having the luxury of time to read books is one of life's pleasures. Much as I long for my own iLiad by iRex, the e-Book reader now available through Dymocks in Australia at a whopping retail price of AU$899, I am still of the view that much pleasure can be derived from the tactile experience of turning pages while nose deep reading a book.

Recently, in one of my regular lunchbreak visits to a couple of second-hand / antiquarian bookshops, I stumbled upon a 1953 hardcover copy of Marston Bates' Where Winter Never Comes. Joy! I finally got my own copy.

But why do we keep books? Gary Lines suggests that books are a silent summary of one's personality, intellect, interests and most likely a reflection of influences. Gary Lines contends that books are a person's cheaper curriculum vitae as they don't have to be new.













Anyhow, Where Winter Never Comes (1953) is one of the seminal books that supported the notion that the beginnings of civilization were achieved in the tropical regions. Bates opposed the extreme positions of the environmental determinists regarding the tropical climate as quite hopeless for civilization. Bates argues that most of the human evolution took place in the tropics.

Having made a somewhat thorough literature review on Environmental Determinism as part of my PhD research, I came across numerous works on the subject and have voraciously read books by late 19th century and early 20th century modern geographers. The university library was just an amazing repository of these interesting literature.

I am now on a quest to track down and secure copies of my own of the following:
Civilization and Climate (1915) by E. Huntington
Environment and Race: A Study of the Evolution, Migration, Settlement and Status of the Races of Man (1927) by G.T. Taylor
Climate and the Energy of Nations (1944) by S.F. Markham
Climate Makes the Man (1944) by C.A. Mills

Magnum Opus

In Australia, the magic number in doing a PhD is 3 1/2 years which is the time frame for completion. At the end of this period the objective is for a PhD candidate to complete a thesis that is rigorous and original: "a well-written thesis [that] reveals independence of thought and approach, a deep knowledge of the research topic and has made a significant original contribution to knowledge consistent with 3-4 years of full time research".

The thesis, more often than not, is perceived as a candidate's 'life's work'. It is that work that would practically consume postgrads during their candidature as their thesis is regarded as the definitive outcome. However, I agree with Caroline Hamilton that the thesis should be intended as a gate way rather than an endpoint. I am of the view that more than the end product and the consequent nominals after one's name, the process provides that fertile ground to develop high order skills and deep understanding - "undertaking the PhD develops a habit of mind that is able to synthesise ideas, understands concepts and communicated logically" (Kevin Donnelly's, In pursuit of a dinosaur).

As Garry of Sydney (Pressure on PhDs to meet the grade) would have it: Qualifications give you a start, you still have to perform.

Architectural Science conference

Early last month, I had the chance (yet again, time off from work) to attend the annual Architectural Science Association ANZAScA conference which was hosted this year by the School of Architecture and Building, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria. Though I did not prepare and submit a paper this year, it was a good opportunity to update myself with what is out there on the subject area of architectural science.













Hopefully, the ideas I got from some of the papers presented would result in papers for a couple of conferences next year. Wish me luck!

The Pursuit of a PhD

Two more provocative articles on the value of the PhD have recently appeared in the Higher Education section of The Australian:

Richard Nile referred to the PhD as a dinosaur from a previous age of elite education. Nevertheless, Kevin Donnelly responded that it is a valuable anachronism. Donnelly further commented that with "much of education [being] consumed by the tyranny of revelance and measured by its utilitarian value, an added advantage to undertaking a PhD is that it is primarily an intellectual exercise that may not have any practical application or worth."

But is the PhD really obsolete and the degree not worth the 4 or so years of rigorous intellectual work? Should one look at this pinnacle of university study and its pursuit as a waste of time not to mention expense?

At the moment, I belong that two thirds of contemporary PhDs who have not secured an academic job and is in a practice profession where having the qualification is seen as "elitist and not to be promoted" (Althea Enid Silk & Colleen E. Whythes, The Academy). But I do not believe that my not having an academic job means that my PhD is a failure. I agree with one of the comments to Nile's post that intellectual and professional benefits can be reaped from a doctoral education even when there is no "direct fit" between the field of research and one's later career path. One other comment suggested that perhaps the PhD is outmoded but there is just no better method of getting research training and that this training is not often recognised and valued.

Certainly, the PhD education has likewise provided me with those "generic capabilities" which I think renders that prestige even outside academia. I still think that I am one of the lucky few who had the opportunity and the privilege to pursue a PhD. As Laurie Johnson suggests, "a side issue that is easily overlooked in the current climate is the idea that doctoral qualifications provide brilliant people with an opportunity to make a genuine contribution to furthering knowledge within a field of specialisation. This is a part of the argument that should never be allowed to drift too far into obscurity..."

I liked how Ian of London summed it all up: "It’s called the pursuit of knowledge because it is the pursuit, not the knowledge, that counts; and ultimately, at a national level, it is the pursuit that pays. As for PhD students themselves, those lucky few who stay in the academy or related areas will ‘get’ a secure low professional wage. So the reason to undertake a PhD is not to make money: it is simply an apprenticeship in a life-long process of disciplined learning. That is the privilege it gains you."

Ian further qualifies:
"A PhD is about practising disciplined reading (meaning both that you need to make yourself read unappetising books in a library for hours every day for years and that you focus your interests within particular communities of scholarship); about working intensely with primary materials (be they manuscripts, historic government records, numbers, etc.); about learning to synthesise and reference that reading/experimentation/field-work in a formal manner that stands up to traditional forms of scrutiny (conference papers, articles,monographs; all anonymously peer reviewed); about bending, breaking, and/or revolutionising those rules within the same forums; about learning to develop with an un-matched level of intensity over an extended period one’s own ideas in the context of other people’s ideas. All up the PhD (a doctorate of philosophy) is all about practising, practising, and practising again, how to read (life) and how to write(about it). I don’t think those skills are outdated, or by any means unbeneficial to society generally, but no one should pretend they are lucrative. So the other key skill a PhD demands students practise and develop is the delineation, budgeting, and justification of a research project."

Now, one should feel ever so lucky to include this as part of one's life experiences.

*comic strip from Piled Higher and Deeper, 8 June 2005

Interesting research

An interesting and amusing post (very popular post garnering 380 comments) in Dilbert’s Blog on intelligence and sex explains somewhat the possibility of intelligence and intercourse (i.e., mainstream definition) as mutually exclusive. Smart people equates to having excellent imagination, thus having “a partner just slows things down”.

Scott Adam’s contention: the dimwitted get so much action is that they tend to be more attractive than smart people. That’s not a coincidence. It’s genetics. Hot/dumb people are more likely to mate with other hot/dumb people and produce hot/dumb kids. Here’s a headline you’ll never see: “Nobel Prize winner for physics thanked his supermodel parents for all of their support.”

Ergo, people of average intelligence have more intercourse – but it doesn’t necessarily mean that in the “la petite mort” competition, the smarter people are getting the raw end of the deal. Scott Adams argue that it may just be possible that those of above average intelligence are winning by “about ten to one”. As they say, involvement in scholarly discourse can also initiate the release of endorphins. There’s immense gratification in being able to have an original contribution to scholarship.

A case in point, researchers working on studies of the relationship between intelligence and intercourse are definitely getting so much satisfaction.

Off to Geneva, Switzerland

My first international conference after finishing the thesis and being awarded the degree. Off to Geneva tomorrow to present my paper at the 23rd International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) 2006 to be held at the University of Geneva (5-8 September).

Nervous wreck and at the same time very excited...

A Researcher's Prayer

Grant, oh God, thy benedictions
On my theory’s predictions
Lest the facts, when verified,
Show thy servant to have lied.

May they make me BSc,
A PhD and then
A DSc and FRS,
A Times Obit. Amen.


Oh, Lord, I pray, forgive me please,
My unsuccessful syntheses,
Thou know’st, of course – in thy position –
I’m up against such competition.

Let not the hardened editor,
With referee to quote,
Cut all my explanation out
And print it as a note.

-Proceedings of the Chemical Society, January 1963, pp 8-10
(Quoted in A Random Walk in Science, an anthology published by the Institute of Physics in 1973)
* comic strip from Piled Higher and Deeper, 28 January 2005