Plans

[annwfyn]

It's another illicit LJ entry. Shoulder is feeling a lot better today, so I'm taking a risk and brain dumping.

I've been pondering plans this morning. Mostly what I want, where I go next. I'm finishing off my thesis next term, after getting an extension. Theoretically it isn't due in until March, but I think I'd like to get it as polished and close to complete as possible by Christmas.

I've also got a job offer from Person 2 Person - the company that pierot works for. Well, when I say 'job offer', I mean Ian (jez's area manager) saying 'christ, we're short staffed. Sally, did you say you were looking for a job? You know the drill here, don't you?', followed up with a text message to jez saying 'could you find out when your better half could start?' The main appeal of Person 2 Person is that I can potentially work as little as 3 days per week, which gives me a bit of flexibility, and I can get week days off in exchange for working Saturdays. All of the above make a lot of sense while I'm still a part time student. It means if I need to be in a meeting with my supervisor, I can. It means if I need to spend a day in the library, I can. I think my current plan is to work for them until around Christmas, and start seriously job hunting then.

And after my thesis...what do I want to do with my life?

I think that's always been one of my problems. I have a lot of ideas, a lot of opportunities, but I've never managed to commit to one. I've never felt able to go for one thing, and as a result my CV looks horribly patchy to me. I've been an archivist, a fundraiser, a researcher, a video editor, a Minion-Of-All-Occasions for a slightly bedraggled goth with aspirations for world domination*. I'm still pottering, pondering, working out what I want to do next.

What are my options?

• Archivist.
  
  I've found myself thinking very seriously about going back to this. I did find archive work slow and frustrating at times when I was 23. On the other hand, I'm older now, and in a lot of ways I've realised that there was a lot about archive work which I didn't appreciate enough. It was a very polite profession, and I think that does mean a lot to me. No one yelled, no one hassled. There was no expectation to work late, and parts of the work was very interesting. That, and it really suited me when I was writing a lot. It could be a good base to actually do other things from.
  
  I think I've already got the experience to apply for the masters in archive administration, and after I'd done that, the odds are I would get a job somewhere.



• Conservator.
  
  This is another thing I've been thinking about for ages. I did a short training course with the National Archives of Scotland conservation department while I was working there, and found it incredibly interesting, especially picture conservation. The Victoria and Albert Royal College of Art have pretty much said that I should be able to get accepted on to the course they run, and it would be interesting work. I'd need a bit more of a grounding in chemistry, but I think I could get that together.



• Museum work.
  
  I've had interviews for junior curatorial positions. In some ways it seems like a natural continuation of an archaeology masters. On the other hand, I wonder if what it will be is a long slog of many interviews, which will all be heavily applied for and which will all be badly paid. I don't know. I may keep looking and just see if anything does come up.



• Teaching.
  
  I've done it before in my GAP year. I would get money from the government to train again. I'd get long holidays for travelling. On the other hand I've heard some fairly depressing things about teaching these days - about there being little creativity in it, and mostly consisting of administering government set tests and pushing paperwork. I've also been told that the workload does spill over into the holidays, and so the epic amounts of free time in the summer which has always been cited as a reason to go into teaching doesn't really hold true anymore.



• My PhD.
  
  At last count, my supervisor is fairly sure I could get accepted on to a PhD course. Whether I'd get funding, however...
  
  The other thing that keeps running through my head is that I'm not sure I'm really focussed enough to do a PhD. It strikes me that to keep studying like that requires it to be the thing you want to do more than anything else. Is that true with me? Am I really clever enough? I really don't know.

Beyond all that, I think I'd like to keep learning. Even if I don't go on to do another masters, I think I would quite like to keep thinking. I've looked at the OU, at Birkbeck College. I've looked at the sciences. I didn't bother with science when I was in school because it wasn't easy for me. I only bothered with stuff that I got As in fairly effortlessly. I was dumb. I want to learn more. I'd like to learn more about forensic archaeology, and I'm not quite sure how. I just know that I find skeletons deeply cool, and would really like to know more. Either that or something DNA related. I've been using DNA a LOT lately (what with population models, migration theory etc) and I'd like to know more, but I'm not quite sure where to start looking.

So. Those are my plans. It's a bit of a brain dump.

Opinions?



*It isn't phrased quite that way on my CV, but I think it should be.

Comments

[vilenspotens.livejournal.com]

Archivist, museum work and so on seem far more your thing. I always remember you happier when surrounded in dusty research.

Archaelogist? Indy Jones type?

Stay away from teaching hon, it'll break you horribly.

Teaching

[melsner.livejournal.com]

I'd say that teaching would be much more soul draining than being a coordinator in the Cam.

Yepyep

[vilenspotens.livejournal.com]

Good Gods yes.

Re: Yepyep

[melsner.livejournal.com]

although maybe not worse than Storytelling.

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

You never said that to me :oP

Saying that... I've never been happier than when we got the lad to who everything was 'boring and stupid and so was he' to work and ask questions and experiment (which incidentally was this morning) and then he put in the chairs, apologised for another lads behaviour and left. Me and the teacher just looked at each other in suprise.

Teaching is... interesting. It has it's highs (see above) and its lows (we had a 3 lad fight in the middle of the classroom on Monday) but so long as you find a school where it is teaching and not crowd control you should be fine.

I'm looking forward to next year now... I was a little apprehensive before.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Consultant? I think you can use your degree(s) to assist construction businesses when they accidentally puncture 3000 year old pottery. Might pay a little better than any of the above.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oh gods! Consultant archaeology is a cut throat business! I know a fair few people who are involved in it - it's one of those jobs where the no of people who want to do it far far outstrip the supply and the pay is awful!

You really need to love archaeology to do it!

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Teaching is a tough one. Teachers are important. Teachers who love learning, literature, history and knowledge of all types are very important. The best and the brightest should be going to teach. So I should be encouraging you to do it.

On the other hand, it can be pretty thankless, often you cannot brings your love, skills and knowledge to bear due to the bureaucracy and madness of modern education.

And the kids, well, they can be devils or angels, often in the space of fifteen minutes. I know my Mum's stories of teaching have gradually gotten darker and darker over the last twenty-five years.

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

erm... hate literature and history...

It can be thankless, but you do find thanks in places where you wouldn't normally look (see my example above, that in itself made my week!). The paperwork is horrid... but even that can be made worthwhile.

Kids are hell and hormonal. But there is usually a way to get through to them, you just have to find it.

Profession suggestions

[melsner.livejournal.com]

I think you should fight crime.

Or with your interest in DNA and human study and culture, you should become one of the few female serial killers.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

*Cackle*

No useful comments, really, but thanks for brightening up a rather mixed day.

[bringeroflight.livejournal.com]

I'm pondering finding a careers advisor and talking to them about world domination.

I know far too many people who're in the same sort of situation.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, it's not much clearer for those of us with an obvious career path.

[purpleheather.livejournal.com]

My opinions of teaching are really really warped by my experiences, and not in a happy, fluffy way. if you want me to go into it I will, but I've had a year to do the whole bile filled spleen venting thing...

The short term job seems good - my 'short term job' turns out, a year later, to be something I'm really good at, and likely to do for a while yet.

[mouflonmatt.livejournal.com]

Teaching is not just one profession. I think you would be very good at it, in the right environment. Teachers that whine about the lack of your own creativity are mad, it's one of the few jobs where you really can get on with it in your own way. The hard bit is learning to cope with kids that change personality every 3 minutes. If you dont take their problems thrown at you personally you will be fine. Just a sheepish opinion.