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The highs and lows of finishing my PhD
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I hate to share negativity but I had to get this off my chest.

I recently passed my PhD with minor corrections. Having addressed these corrections I resubmitted within two weeks and I was soon greeted with a letter confirming that I had succesfully passed my PhD. I was ecstatic to say the least, but this was short lived as I have been on job seekers for five weeks and I'm faced with the constant worry of securing a job. This worry was reconfirmed today, a day which I can only describe as the most demoralising and depressing day of my life.

At the job centre, I had an interview to discuss my job search progress. I have made considerbale effort in searching for jobs in academia, the public sector and even more temporary lower level jobs just to get me back into work. However, my so-called adviser insisted that I need to focus my attention on lower level jobs. This was not what I took issue with, what I found to be completely sole destroying was the fact that she insisted that I needed to apply for two jobs she had found whilst searching through the data base. The first was a job as a bingo caller and the second a household refuse sorter (yes, someone who sorts through rubbish). Don't get me wrong, the bingo callers and refuse sorters of this world have an important role in society (especially the bingo callers!) but I was close to jumping out of the window at this point. Have I really spent the last 7 years of my life at university to work in a bingo hall...I truly do hope not! I found this rather insulting and I felt it completely undermined the conisderable hard work I had put in to complete my PhD. Perhaps I should have become a bingo caller upon leaving school at 16...I could have been the best bingo caller in the UK by now...if only.
I was also told to remove 'Dr' from my CV. As I'm sure the vast majority of PhD's have done, I have made considerable sacrafice for three years to gain the title of Dr, yet just a week after I am able to do so I'm told I need to hide this! I'm a little confused.