Surviving the job

It's been occurring to me lately how badly we prepare lecturers (or perhaps that should read 'how badly we lecturers are prepared') for the reality of life in academia. PhD study just doesn't give us any indication of what it is going to be like. I wouldn't even say that the teaching experience I had really prepared me. All I had to do was take one step in to actually being a lecturer and suddenly it was all different. Not Kansas.

After blogging on and off about composition over the last 10 or so years (and there hasn't been that much for quite a while), I haven't really been clear in my own mind why I was writing when I did, which probably goes some way to explaining why I hadn't written much. So when I was thinking recently that I should write some more, it suddenly struck me what I should be writing about and why.

So I aim to write every day for a year about being a university lecturer in the hope that, by the end of it perhaps, I'll have some solid bits of advice to give anyone entering the profession.

On Facebook recently, I shared this link about what not to do in the office. I was thinking, when reading it, about equivalent practices for an academic and, in part at least, that's what I want to write about. I also want to write about what to do, some reflections on what I've experience so far, and on what I want to do next. There will also be the usual smattering of rubbish about composition, sci fi, dogs, and cooking but, trust me (I am, after all, a doctor [of philosophy]) everything is connected.