Economica
Dhampyr
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 2,054
- MBTI Type
- INTJ
However, my motivation for writing a killer application just got shot!
I just got back from a meeting with my professor and designated supervisor who told me that if I don't get the internal department grant, he's going to hire me with the external funds that he is currently seeking and very likely will get. Such a position would entail working full time on his research (there's a lot of practical work involved, so it wouldn't be all research, but about half research and half practical work), which means I wouldn't have to teach! This would be perfect for me!
... Of course, the prospect is uncertain; he could fail to get funds, or he could change his mind about using them to hire me. And even if he does get funded and does want to hire me, it probably wouldn't be until the late spring or summer of 2009 that I could start. In the meantime he said he would hire me part-time to work on stuff though, so I could wait and see and earn money part-time elsewhere.
So, I still have to apply for the internal grant and do my best (both because of the uncertainty of the other prospect and as a demonstration of competence) - but now I find myself hoping I don't get it.
Update: I did not get the internal stipend (although I contrary to expectation was deemed 'qualified' by the evaluation committee after one of the professors on the committee fortuitously joined my professor and I on our way to lunch one day with the greeting, "Hello [my professor's name], I have a question for you regarding a PhD applicant...", whereupon I got to spend lunch selling myself), but the news has prompted my professor to tell me that he has the money for half a PhD for me and to enlist the help of some foreign professors who I met and charmed six months ago in finding the money for the second half. They and I are optimistic that between them they'll be able to fund me eventually, and in the meantime my professor has just offered me more-than-full-time research assistant work as the manager
shock of their next (large-scale) collaborative research project, scheduled to come to fruition in April.All in all, it's time for me to exchange worrying about "job search" (The moral of this success story btw? Networking ftw! It's true
) with worrying about "working": I stared into space for a long time the other day after seeing the NYT headline "Imagination, say hello to discipline". (Edit: I just realized the irony of that sentence. 
) So be happy for me if you see me around even less from now on; it will mean I might actually be fulfilling my responsibilities (or that I'm busy plowing through the archives of PhD Comics, but at least that's closer to being work-related! ).View attachment 2917
