Metal Reviews

I will begin full-time work as a software engineer in September.

"Yes Lumbergh, I got the memo."

Congratulations, Seinfeld!

I still don't know what I am going to do.

Become very rich and buy internets.

Congratulations, man!

Awesome man. Good job. I still have almost two years left on mine.

It's definitely hard to decide with an arts degree - especially abstract ones like ours: Political science, and mine - philosophy - even moreso. I recently decided upon journalism for myself (joining the university paper soon), and it's an idea I've been very fond of. Maybe do some googling, look at what people tend to do with their political science degrees (if you haven't already). Options I can think of for you are government, business, journalism, and teaching (if you got a PhD).

Congrats!!

Congrats dude!

Congratulations Seinfield!.

Well, at the moment I'm looking for internships and stuff. The areas I really want to go into are labour relations and development, applied for something at TULO, which is the body that mediates between trade unions and the Labour Party. I'd love to do a PhD, but it probably depends on what I get in the MA. At the moment I'm on course for a merit, which should enable me to do one in the future, but I've got to make sure I don't balls up my dissertation first, which is the make or break one.

Ah, cool. An MA is the right way to go. You really only need the PhD if you want to teach.

Well, there are a few pretty cool things you could do with a PhD. Stuff like research, I guess, and you can get employed as a consultant in the EU or UN or things like that. That would all be interesting, but yeah, a PhD would pretty much send you into academia for most of your life.

I'm headed in this direction as well- though I doubt the UN or EU wants a Roman history consultant ("Hey Mr. Brahm, how should Britain join the EU?" "Well, military conquest seems like a good choice... it worked for Claudius! Don't forget to kill the druids!") Teaching it shall be for me!

Sometimes companies are actually reluctant to hire people with PhD's. For two reasons:

1. They often have to specially pay you more if you have a PhD (which they may not be too thrilled about doing).

2. They worry about you being one of those "eggheads" who argues with his supervisors, acts condescending/rude to his coworkers, and doesn't really do what he's supposed to do. Not to mention the fact that they worry about you being "all academic skills" and "no practical/social skills." Which, unfortunately, is the case with quite a few people with PhD's.

In eleventh grade, there was a Chemistry/Biology teacher who came into my school (I've never had him BTW). He was the only teacher there with a PhD. And yet, from what I've heard, he was horrible. He couldn't teach. He was rude/condescending to the other teachers and faculty. And so on.... Take a guess as to whether or not he was asked to come back the next year.

So, if you want to do a PhD, be cautious. It may help you a great deal in the long run. But it may also hurt you a great deal in the long run.

Well, the thing is there's a lot of stuff that would be awesome to do that I think tends to require a PhD. Getting the opportunity to do serious research into areas of importance, and have what you found out taken even slightly seriously, for one.

Also, if I did teaching, I guees ideally I'd enjoy it more the higher up I taught it. I'd like to teach uni students, rather than younger ones, I think. Nearly every lecturer at my uni has a PhD, in fact I can only think of one that doesn't.

I totally agree with you about teaching the higher-ups. Mainly because, not only will your job be more exciting, but you'll probably be teaching students who really want to learn.

But again, you should really only do a PhD if you plan on going into academics (working as a college professor, corporate researcher, etc.). Otherwise, it probably isn't worth the stress and depression PhD students often have to deal with. I myself was planning on going into academics at one point, but decided not to. So I'm probably just going up to a Master's Degree (which I plan on doing in a few years).

i always had the impression that the UN loves creating BS once-a-year committees for UNESCO and the like.

Congrats and ATB

Today's my first official day. W00t!

Congrats man......software engineer eh?? *nerd alert*

Haha!! Cheers, man! All the best at your work place.