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Like basically every other person on the planet, I have been playing with ChatGPT over the last week or so, both because things like this are interesting to me generally and because there are clear and obvious implications for academia as AI writing gets increasingly advanced. There are clearly two main areas in which AI writing will intersect in academia: teaching and research (when did academia come down to not these two things!) At this point in time, I am not concerned about AI essays. Every prompt I put through ChatGPT returned pieces that were too short, lacking in detail, riddled with factual inaccuracies, and either with no references or completely made-up references. I did envision a scenario in which a student might generate an essay using ChatGPT and then ‘fix it’. I played around with this and again concluded that I am not worried about it. Not only do I think it would take longer to turn an AI-generated essay into a passable piece of work, but it would also achieve the aim of the assessment – to get the student to learn something about whatever topic and apply critical thinking and analysis. So much so that I am now seriously considering the implications for using AI-generated essays in this way. Imagine this exam scenario, for instance: Below is a short essay generated by AI software. Your task is to edit this essay for both factual inaccuracies, expand to answer the question more fully, and to add further concrete examples of figurative sculpture in ancient Greek architecture: Figurative sculpture played a significant role in ancient Greek architecture, serving both functional and decorative purposes. Some of the most famous examples of figurative sculpture in ancient Greek architecture can be found on the facades of temples, where sculpted figures often depicted gods, goddesses, and mythical creatures. These sculptures were meant to convey the power and importance of the deities being worshipped, as well as to serve as a form of protection for the temple itself. In addition to being used on temple facades, figurative sculpture was also a common element of public buildings and private homes. In these cases, the sculptures were often used to depict historical events, cultural traditions, or the accomplishments of important individuals. For example, the Parthenon in Athens is adorned with a series of sculpted panels known as the "frieze," which depict a procession of people and animals. Figurative sculpture in ancient Greek architecture was not limited to stone and marble. Bronze and terra cotta were also popular materials for sculpting, and many ancient Greek sculptures were created using these materials. In fact, some of the most famous figurative sculptures in ancient Greek architecture, such as the Bronze Charioteer of Delphi, were created using bronze. One of the key features of ancient Greek figurative sculpture was its realism and attention to detail. Sculptors worked to create lifelike representations of their subjects, often depicting them in natural poses and with accurate proportions. This realism was achieved through the use of various sculpting techniques, such as the "lost-wax" method, which allowed sculptors to create highly detailed and intricate works of art. Despite the importance of figurative sculpture in ancient Greek architecture, many of these sculptures were lost or destroyed over time. Many were damaged or destroyed during wars, while others were pillaged and taken to other countries. However, a number of these sculptures have been preserved and can still be seen today in museums and cultural institutions around the world. Overall, figurative sculpture played a crucial role in ancient Greek architecture, serving both functional and decorative purposes. These sculptures helped to convey the power and importance of the deities being worshipped, and they played a significant role in the cultural and artistic traditions of ancient Greece. The essay starts off fine enough – but by the end, we have been through a rollercoaster that included the Charioteer of Delphi, which is clearly not within the remit of “figurative sculpture in ancient Greek architecture” (the prompt for the AI here was ‘Please generate a six-paragraph essay on figurative sculpture in ancient Greek architecture’). In fact, there’s quite a lot in there to both correct and expand on. A task such as this demonstrates students’ knowledge as much as writing an essay from scratch in exam conditions and is probably better at testing their critical engagement with the material than such an essay. It's also the kind of prompt that could be generated individually – obviously depending on class size – if a teacher were concerned about group work in exams held online. Thus, even with the same prompt, each student would have a slightly different version of the essay to work with. On the research front, I’m also not really concerned about AI replacing research writing any time soon. By virtue of its own databank, it is not sophisticated enough to analyse texts, objects, events, and culture in new ways. But there is an interesting way that it could be used for assisting with limited analysis of data – by feeding that data in and asking it to recognise patterns, for instance. More than that, though, I think it will be a useful tool for those ‘I don’t know what I need to know’ moments in research where you work intersects with another (sub)field and you spend the better part of a day figuring out what it is you need to know about that field to move your own work on. I’m not at all saying that the answer is to ask ChatGPT to teach you, say, Aristotle’s thoughts on the senses. That prompt generates this: Aristotle believed that the senses were the means by which human beings gained knowledge of the world around them. He identified five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. In his view, sight was the most important of the senses because it allowed us to perceive the most information about the world. Hearing was the second most important sense because it allowed us to communicate with others and learn about our surroundings. The other senses – smell, taste, and touch – were less important because they provided less information about the world. Aristotle also believed that the senses were related to the elements. He thought that sight was related to the element of fire, hearing was related to the element of air, smell was related to the element of earth, taste was related to the element of water, and touch was related to the element of earth. Overall, Aristotle's views on the senses were influential in shaping the way that philosophers and scientists have thought about the senses for centuries. Which is not very helpful at all from a research perspective. But, if one were to ask ChatGPT ‘Where does Aristotle discuss the senses and give a brief synopsis of each’ the answer then is: Aristotle discusses the senses in a number of his works, including the "De Anima" (On the Soul), the "Metaphysics," and the "Nicomachean Ethics." In the "De Anima," Aristotle provides a detailed analysis of the nature of the senses and how they function. He argues that the senses are the means by which we perceive the world around us, and he identifies five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He also discusses the relationship between the senses and the elements, as well as the role that the senses play in our ability to gain knowledge. In the "Metaphysics," Aristotle discusses the nature of reality and how we come to know it. He argues that our senses provide us with the raw data that we use to form our knowledge of the world, and he discusses the limitations of the senses and the ways in which they can be deceived. In the "Nicomachean Ethics," Aristotle discusses the role that the senses play in our moral lives. He argues that the senses can lead us astray if we are not careful, and that we need to use reason and judgment to guide our actions. He also discusses the importance of cultivating our senses in order to live a good life. Now we’re getting somewhere because I can see that – as I’m interested in (hypothetically) the relationship between the senses and knowledge, I know I need to read De Anima. So I ask ChatGPT to expand on Aristotle’s argument about the relationship between the senses and knowledge: Aristotle believed that the senses were the means by which human beings gained knowledge of the world. He argued that the senses provided us with the raw data that we used to form our knowledge, and that this data was necessary for us to have any understanding of the world around us. However, Aristotle also recognized that the senses had limitations and that they could be deceived. He argued that the senses could only provide us with information about the properties of objects that are directly perceivable through the senses, such as their size, shape, color, and texture. The senses could not provide us with knowledge of abstract or non-perceivable concepts, such as mathematical truths or the nature of the divine. Aristotle believed that in order to gain knowledge of these abstract concepts, we needed to use reason and argument. He argued that we could use our senses to gather data about the world, and then use our reasoning abilities to draw conclusions about the nature of the world based on this data. Overall, Aristotle's view was that the senses played a crucial role in our ability to gain knowledge, but that they were limited and needed to be supplemented by reason in order to gain a full understanding of the world. Performing this brief set of queries (which took no more than five minutes to ask, generate, and read) I have a much clearer sense of how to search for the information I want – both in Aristotle’s work and in scholarship. I have thus saved myself a few hours of searching though Google Scholar and the Loeb Online to find even roughly what I needed to advance the argument that I am making about whatever thing that isn’t Aristotle, but which I thought Aristotle’s understanding of senses might help me to flesh out. There’s one other way I think that ChatGPT might be useful for research, and its when you have even less of an idea about what you need to know – and you then ask ChatGPT to write you a detailed table of contents, with sub-sections for a textbook on whatever it is – this gives you almost immediately a great overview of a subject which can allow you to see what it is that you might need or want to know about it. In the example here the prompt was: Please write a sample table of contents including subsections and a brief synopsis of each chapter for a textbook about Aristotle. The result: Here is a sample table of contents for a textbook about Aristotle: I. Introduction to Aristotle Chapter 1: Biography and Historical Context This chapter provides an overview of Aristotle's life and the historical context in which he lived. It covers his education, his relationship with Plato, and his influence on later philosophers. Chapter 2: Overview of Aristotle's Philosophy This chapter provides an overview of Aristotle's philosophy, including his views on metaphysics, ethics, politics, and the natural world. It introduces key concepts such as the "unmoved mover" and the "golden mean." II. Aristotle's Metaphysics Chapter 3: The Nature of Reality This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on the nature of reality, including his belief in the existence of substances and his concept of causation. Chapter 4: The Unmoved Mover This chapter discusses Aristotle's concept of the "unmoved mover," which he believed to be the ultimate cause of all motion in the universe. Chapter 5: Substance and Essence This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on substance and essence, including his belief that every substance has an essence that defines its nature. III. Aristotle's Ethics Chapter 6: The Good Life This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on the good life, including his concept of the "golden mean" and his belief that virtue is necessary for happiness. Chapter 7: Virtues and Vices This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on virtues and vices, including his belief that virtues are habits of character that allow us to act in accordance with reason. Chapter 8: Friendship This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on friendship, including his belief that there are different types of friendship and that friendship is an important part of a happy life. IV. Aristotle's Politics Chapter 9: The State and the Citizen This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on the nature of the state and the role of the citizen within it. Chapter 10: Forms of Government This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on different forms of government, including monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Chapter 11: Justice and the Common Good This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on justice and the common good, including his belief that the state should be structured in a way that promotes the common good of its citizens. V. Aristotle's Natural Philosophy Chapter 12: The Study of Nature This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on the study of nature, including his belief that the natural world is ordered and can be studied using reason. Chapter 13: The Four Causes This chapter discusses Aristotle's concept of the four causes, including the material, formal, efficient, and final causes. Chapter 14: The Natural World This chapter discusses Aristotle's views on the natural world, including his classification of living things and his belief in the concept of teleology. VI. Conclusion Chapter 15: The Legacy of Aristotle This chapter discusses the lasting impact of Aristotle's philosophy and its influence on later philosophers. It also covers the revival of interest in Aristotle's work during the Renaissance. Such Tables of Contents will never be cutting-edge research-based books. They can’t be by nature of the databank – but they will give you a good overview of the state of play in a field. There’s clearly a lot more playing and experimenting to do with ChatGPT and similar AI chat and writing tools – but I think there’s some really interesting and exciting potential to be had for both teaching and research in ancient Mediterranean Studies.
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 Coffee is as vital to my work as an academic as... books and stuff. I'm sure many others feel the same. So, here is my in-office coffee set up. It works. It's amazing. I make great coffee every day and it fuels my thinking and teaching and research.
I use an Aeropress to make coffee. For better or worse I use both a metal filter and a paper filter at the same time. I'm sure people have thoughts about this - I don't want to hear them. This gives an incredibly smooth coffee. You should definitely try it. For water, I use a Dualit goose-neck temperature control kettle that I set on 75° for coffee (85° for tea). This is the most amazing kettle I've ever used in my life, and I realise that kettles are kettles but... honestly. It's amazing. I definitely like coffee at an immediately drinkable temperature. The thing I like about this over other temperature control kettles is that you can set it at whatever you want - there aren't preset temperature buttons, there's just a knob that you twist to increase or decrease. My most recent addition to the set up is a 6l fridge - this fits a 1l carton of milk and a decent size bag of ground coffee. You could also fit some small snacks or something in there if you wanted to. I like (oat) milk in my coffee, but also it keeps your ground coffee much fresher and as I don't really want to have a grinder in the office (I used to have one, and it just adds another step that I'm not keen on having in the office). Finally, I have a Sodastream. This was given to me many, many years ago, and I would never buy one for myself today - they have been on the BDS list and although they did close their factory in the West Bank and relocate to 'Israel proper' it's still not a company I would support. If I were going to buy a water carbonator today I would get either the Philips soda maker or the Aarke version. I drink quite a bit of fizzy water, and really like having a soda maker in the office, thought I totally get it's not everyone's cup of tea (no pun intended!) Anyway, that's it. That's my in-office coffee set up. And I wrote this while on a half-cup coffee break (that's where you drink half your cup of coffee on the break and half when you're back at work.) As for coffee itself: I buy freshly ground coffee from Roasting Plant on the Strand (in London). I also buy whole bean coffee from them to take home, where I have an INCREDIBLE Sage Barista Express espresso machine. This is a cut and paste of a Twitter thread, which I want to save here because my tweets autodelete after 3 months.
Here are some thoughts regarding finding out that I’m #autistic, the way I approach my ‘obsession with work’, how that has changed, and why I’m happy about it. These will be… relatively random thoughts. Some preliminaries: those of you playing along at home will know that I was originally (mis)diagnosed with BPD – misdiagnosis of this type is fairly common for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women. I also have bipolar type 1. This is not, I believe, a misdiagnosis. Many autistic people have what is referred to as a ‘special interest’. These aren’t just ‘interests’, but they also aren’t ‘obsessions’ – they are things that bring deep joy and contentedness. I firmly believe that my ‘special interest’ is… ancient Greek history. In some ways I think I am pretty lucky about that – for many reasons, which I could go into, but mainly because it is now my job (paid or unpaid…) to think and read and learn and teach others about ancient Greek history, and that I am encouraged to immerse myself in it. BUT: because it’s work, I have also been encouraged to not immerse myself in it too much. To ‘rest’, to ‘take time off work’. Even when I didn’t want to. And, frankly, that caused me immense anxiety. Some of that anxiety is the normal junior-academic-not-doing-enough-ever type. Some anxiety is related to feeling shame over the fact that I wanted to learn and read and be immersed all the time. I am now working though trying to figure out those two different anxieties and address the former with rest and the latter with rest – but different types of rest. And so, I’ve taken a weird step for a professionally trained ancient Greek historian: I’ve started reading ancient Greek history trade books on topics that I know about but not loads, but which aren’t directly related to my research. Academics are often discouraged from reading trade books (this is changing, there’s loads of great trade books that we could learn a lot from!) because they aren’t rigorous, they don’t cite exactly (many in ancient history do!). In short: they aren’t valuable for research. I don’t care if they’re valuable for research. I have the skills to look stuff up if I want (after all many of the big-name trade-book writing ancient historians are also working academics who publish peer-reviewed academic work too!). I care that they’re interesting. I care that they feed my seemingly unquenchable thirst for that knowledge. And that is, I think, why I have been less anxious – more broadly – since I have started to figure myself out. I am autistic, and I’m the same person I was before I knew that – but I feel like now I have the right version of the manual for my brain, and I get to figure out all the things that felt and seemed wrong over the years. And frankly – I think my acceptance and exploration of my autistic brain makes me a better academic anyway. Ingredients
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You can serve this cake at any time, but it is best consumed alone in a dark room in the middle of the night when you are having a panic attack about facing the Person Who Is Bullying You the following day even though you have done nothing that person could possibly comment on. Enjoy! Like a lot of early career academics, I've read a lot of quit lit, but I honestly never thought I'd be on the verge of writing my own. But things have changed a lot in the last (academic) year and I wanted to chronicle that in some way even though I'm not ready to write 'quit lit'.
And finally, the usual caveat: quit lit isn't ever about an academic quitting academia. Sometimes it's about realisations that academia isn't right for you - perhaps that's some of where my feelings are headed - and sometimes it's about a system that gives up on early career academics - that's definitely a part of my story. Sometimes, too, it's about the ways that personal circumstances create a cumulative effect on the work that a precarious academic can do. That's also a part of my story. And sometimes it's about the way that other people interject into one's academic career to derail it, whether purposefully or otherwise, and that's also part of my story. There isn't ever a single reason: 'I couldn't get a job' or 'academia wasn't right for me'. There's always a multitude of things that combine like ingredients to bake a cake of failure (or a cake of opportunity, or perhaps they are the same thing). I don't think it's a secret that I've been struggling this (academic) year. Things haven't been great, and that's been really affecting me in ways I was not quite ready for. One of the things that's happened is that I have two important things that need revisions completed on ASAP that I haven't been working on. My career feels like it's stalled. My book needs to be done, like, now. The article revisions are now overdue (though I am not holding up other people's work, it's for a general-submission journal). So that's what I'm trying to do. To remember to be in love with my research. I do love it, I just have to get though the panic attack to realise that. I am currently working on the revisions for my book and for an article, so I wanted to write down a few things about how I tackle revisions. It's probably one of the most important things that we do as researchers, and something that is a constant in the lives of academics from the undergraduate thesis onwards. How we get revisions changes, though, from the revisions that we get from supervisors who are (hopefully, generally) supportive and want to work with us to make sure our work is the best it can be. Peer reviewers ostensibly want the same things, but that doesn't always happen (I've commented multiple times on Twitter about the review I got that included the ego-boosting phrase "You know nothing about Greek religion"). I've also commented on giving peer reviews before, which I don't want to do here. I want to think about what I do when I get a review.  I think the first thing is to read though the reviews. I find this incredibly difficult, but it has to be done. Go to a nice place - maybe a cozy pub or café you love, somewhere you feel good. When I read though the reviews I have my laptop or a notebook and for each point I write it down in my own words, as I understand it, in one of two columns: 'things to do' and 'things not to do'. It's okay to decide not to act on a comment you receive, but you will need to keep a record of these so you can write down the reasons why in your letter back to the editor. If you are going to submit elsewhere I think it's still a good idea to keep a track of things you don't want to act on, because these are things that may come up in another review. Anything that's just nasty (see the above comment that I received...) or off the mark, or just plain unconstructive, feel free to ignore.
When you start your revisions do so from the list of things to do that you made, with each point written in your own words. I personally find this way less stressful that having to go back to the reviewers comments again and again, particularly if they were framed in a non-constructive or mean way. In some ways this becomes just like working though your own editing. That's where I am right now with my article. With my list of things to do, written in my own words and ploughing though them as quickly and thoroughly as I can. I'm currently flip-flopping back and forward between the book and the article, not sure which is more important to get finished. I think the article, as it will be a quicker process. Answers on a postcard, please! I'd love to hear your strategies for dealing with peer reviews! Let me know below! Happy Editing! Ellie.
This blog post comes from two places - first, the fact I am writing my first cover letter of the job season and second, a series of tweets I sent yesterday that I've been thinking more about. Here are the tweets:
I have spoken before about my chronic illness, and my finishing my PhD as a single parent, and the hardships that those things brought upon my work, my career progression, my ability to work (effectively) three full time jobs: the one I was paid for (that is, the teaching), the one I had to do in order to get my publications and research in order to get a permanent job, and the one I had to do to ensure the tiny human in my care was... well... cared for. You might notice that this does not account for any time I may have to manage my illness, care for myself, or have any kind of a life that didn't revolve around either the academy or my child.
Several years on from that, I've reached a point where I am exhausted. I have been in various full-time teaching-only roles for the past several years and, if I'm honest, I just want a break from it so I can build up other parts of my CV. No doubt some will say that this is proof that I think I'm too good for teaching or that I don't value or enjoy teaching. In fact, I love teaching and I think it's hugely worthwhile and therein lies my problem. The past few years I have worked above and beyond in order to deliver innovative, engaging classes and this has left me precious little time to get my research and publication on track. Why do I bring this up, though? Because I want to highlight some very serious issues in the way that permanent academic jobs tend to be won and lost. And, in so many case, it's in research (either not enough of it, or what's there isn't good enough). Teaching is something that is ticked off as experience rather than by quality. This is, I think, demonstrated in the way that teaching and research requirements are articulated in job adverts. So, when I have a limited amount of energy to give, and I want to move toward my goal of a full-time, continuing (i.e. permanent) academic position of course I will, in part, want to stop doing one of the things that's taking so much time and energy. That can't be parenting, and it also can't be research. That's a simple calculation based on my energy levels and my long-term goals. It is not a value judgement on any of the activities I am currently engaged in. And, of course, this directly links back with mental health and ill-health. Mine, here, is obvious. I have a serious but well managed set of illnesses that demand some work, time, and energy on an ongoing basis. But more generally academia is demonstrably bad for the mental health and well-being of early career academics - whether in teaching-only, research-only, teaching-and-research positions, or are not currently employed in academia (which may occur for a whole host of reasons from being too ill to the simple fact that there are far fewer academic positions than qualified candidates). The mental well-being needs of each of these groups will be different, not because the positions or pressures are different (indeed the pressures are pretty generally something like do all the things) but because people are different. I assume that my musings on mental wellness and early career academia are not over, but, at least for now, I am going back to my CV and cover letter, trying to get ready for the job season without scrawling across applications in desperation: "I've had a pretty tough time of things and please keep that in mind when judging me!" Well. Yesterday I started thinking about completing my goal for the month, which is to write a new career/publication plan. I couldn't really be bothered starting from scratch and I had seen that jobs.ac.uk had some career planning toolkits on their site, so I thought I'd review them. You should watch the video before reading the rest of this post.
 You are in a small sanctuary, near the banks of the river Acheron, in the Western Peloponnese. A priest comes to fetch you. ‘It is time’, he says, leading you through the darkness. Stop. Breathe in deeply. What can you smell? The fertile soil, wet and black. The moss that covers the stone temple. You think you can just hear the river, gurgling away in the background – leading the souls of the dead down, down, down into the Underworld. That is why you are here.
As you enter the temple feel your body getting heavier. Relax your head, and neck, relax your shoulders. Feel a fog of tiredness wash over your mind. You are about to commune with the dead. You do not know how long you will spend living in the darkness of the temple, but you know it will be at least a week. You enter a long corridor. On your left, three arched doorways lead to the three small rooms you will live in. Here, in the impenetrable darkness you will prepare. You find your first meal in the room through the first arched doorway. Pork, broad beans, barely bread, shellfish. These are the foods of funerary banquets. You lift a cup to your lips – expecting wine, you start back as the sweetness of honeyed milk fills your mouth. This is a banquet for the dead – and you begin to realise the seriousness of where you are and what you are doing. You are putting yourself in a state between the worlds. Days pass. You don’t know how many. You are disoriented. The mild toxicity of the broad beans begins to affect you. Slowly at first, but then one night – or day, you don’t know which, it’s all night right now – you feel your brother’s strong arms around you, in a cold, dead embrace. You start to believe that you have died, and you are at your own funeral. The banquet truly is yours. Breathe in, deeply. Smell the dank, wet stone. Smell your own sweat and tears and mud and excrement. A man enters? Is it the priest? He brings a sheep, presses some smooth stones into your hands. He guides you down a deep passage that seems to never end. He tells you to throw one of the stones in a pile, and then takes you into a room to wash your hands. You take the sheep. The man tells you to dig a hole and hands you a knife. You are disoriented, but suddenly you snap back as the sharp metallic smell of blood fills you. You have slaughtered the sheep. Your hands are covered in blood and as you cut the sheep up the smell of half-digested sludge and offal overwhelms you. Now there is smoke, you don’t remember setting the fire – it must have been the priest. In this small passage way the smell and the smoke and the bile in the back of your throat have no-where to go. They linger, settling on you, surrounding you, obscuring the way out and the way forward. The man pulls you to your feet and directs you into a winding, twisting series of passages. You turn the wrong way and hit a wall. You stop, and weep. Breathe in. What can you smell, in the darkness? The metallic taste of blood clings to your hands. The smoke is still billowing up behind you. Your own panic begins to rise in your throat. You hear someone – or something – coming up behind you. You move on. Finally, you enter a great hall, the air is clearer in here. Before you enter, you remember – somehow – to throw the barley in your hand onto the ground. You throw the final stone into the room and you enter. Sinking to the ground, a figure appears in front of you. You can’t quite see it properly. You blink, hard, several times. The figure moves towards you. Who is it? You can’t tell. You try to speak – but the words don’t quite come out the way you imagine. Your brain spins. You breathe in. Blood. Smoke. Sweat. Shit. Whispers in the dark that you cannot make out. The figure moves, shifts, swaps, slowly levitates. A different figure comes out. You are disoriented. You think you ask the questions you came to ask. You think you get an answer. You’re not really sure. You fall into some kind of black oblivion. Some period of time later, a man – the priest – enters the room and helps you up. He asks if you got the answers you wanted. Confidently, you say yes – and that feels like it’s true. In your sleep you had a vision of the future and you know what you must do. The priest helps you out though a different door, and leads you to a room – bright, clean – and lays you on a bed. He helps you wash, gives you clean clothes. He lays you down and tells you that you’re back from the other side. You must stay here to cleanse that miasma of the dead away from your skin. Breathe in. Sweet, bright flowers. You hear the river in the background, gurgling the dead into the Underworld…
Two weeks ago I asked classicists on Twitter for their advice to incoming classics students:
Sometimes I get asked if I'd 'recommend' having a baby during a PhD. That's a difficult question for me to answer for a few reasons. First, I haven't done a PhD without having had a baby in the middle of it. I don't know what that experience is like. Second, the right time to have a baby is always when you want to have a baby - if that's mid-PhD then you will make it work. Like I did:
I started my PhD on Monday 6th September, 2010. I had Kiddo on Friday 11th October, 2011. My PhD viva was on Friday 14th November, 2014. I graduated on Wednesday 22nd July, 2015. Having a baby during your PhD and finishing "on time" is possible. It's doable. I did it. Would I recommend it? Probably not. There's a lot of time that goes into a child, and a lot of time that's needed to go into crafting an academic career for yourself - if you (like me) get a teaching only position out of your PhD, how and where do you find the time to do the publishing required to get a permanent job, for instance? And there's a difference, too, between having a child and having a child and a chronic mental illness. The latter necessarily makes the former harder, and together they make crafting the academic persona much, much harder. Trust me when I say that there is no instance in which a mental illness does not make a pregnancy, birth, and parenthood more difficult, and no instance in which a mental illness does not make crafting the academic persona more difficult. So... Some days I feel like a total superhero. I want to shout from the rooftops: I did it, I survived! Hoorah! Most days, days like today, I berate myself for thinking about how much easier my life - and particularly getting into my chosen career - could have been. I do feel jealous when people who haven't had the kinds of set backs I have get permanent jobs. Of course, if we're all honest about it jealousy is another huge part of the early-career run-around, so I don't think that's a particularly wild statement to make. But it's being hung up on how unfair the whole thing seems. Not that academia was ever fair. I would never give back my child, obviously. She is a joy. But being a person who survives in the world with bipolar (type 1), or BPD, or chronic dissociation is hard enough. Keeping up with a bright, excitable, energetic, wonderful, six-year old when one feels completely removed from the world*... that's tough. Trying to finish my book - a book I have been trying to finish since I finished my PhD - as well as writing two grant applications (because - lets be honest - my 10 month job will come to an end before I have time to sneeze) and trying to get my two 'new research' articles through seemingly-endless revisions. When I think about how much further behind I am because of my illness and my Kid I don't get angry. I feel a resigned hurt in my chest that these are the things which probably will cost me my academic career. But there's nothing much I can do about that but just keep plugging away. *This is how I described it to my husband in a text message this morning: "I feel like an astronaut. I mean, in actual space. Like inside a life support cage in a totally alien and unknown environment where I have really limited vision and no understanding of the change of gravity so I can't really walk properly". |
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