Reading through my e-mail this morning I was struck by the responses
on advice to graduate studies. I am in the unhappy position of
providing a living example to aspiring graduate students of the dangers of
pushing on despite the odds, as I have been lecturing in a one-year
contract but will have to leave the university (and New Zealand)
after my contract expires in November. I am the only member of
staff under thirty five - while my colleagues can easily remark that
thirty five isn't old, to a graduate student in his or her
mid-twenties staring down the barrel at a decade of uncertainty, I am
plenty old. None of my graduate students have bothered to ask me my
opinion of their options in academia - I guess my own example has proved
instructive.
Damian Powell.
University of Canterbury
Christchurch NZ