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Hi! I'm Michael.
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Welcome to this week's useletter.
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The newsletter that's useful. Focussed on your future not my past.
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Good morrow my loyal readers!
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This week has had me a little frustrated.
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You might remember a fortnight ago I was preparing myself to take on a PhD…
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This fortnight has me preparing... well... slightly differently.
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It's not quite so cut and dried, but for now...
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the UNSW Graduate School of Research has found I do not have adequate research experience to support my admission [to PhD study].
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All this after the School of the Built Environment were satisfied with my application and I was subsequently awarded an Arch_Manu scholarship to undertake the PhD.
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Note: I want to be 100% clear here, this was not SBE's fault. They were clear that the application still needed to be signed off by the GRS. And I don’t think any of us thought my application was going to be declined. I’m not the only exasperated one here.
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The relevant thing here, especially to an audience of architects...
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Is there's disconnect between what the University considers to be research (that's academic research) up against professional research, (that's research undertaken in the course of undertaking and developing professional work). They're not considered to be equivalent.
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And unfortunately I’m not the first to have suffered this indignity, and likely not the last.
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It's not the end of the line just yet. There's an appeals process and we're exploring other options, such as doing the research as a Masters instead. Thus after an initial funk, I'm feeling positive about what might be possible.
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But, to the job at hand here and now...
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As you might appreciate, there’s been introspection following the news. So I’m sharing a few of the random things that I'm (hopefully) learning from this experience.
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PS: Need my help? I’m available! For now!
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Takeaway PhD takeaways
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Putting all your eggs in one basket is a risky strategy, always hold onto more than one basket.
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Once the approval from the School of Built Environment came through, I discarded all baskets, save the one filled with PhD eggs. I knew I wasn’t over the line. I knew I needed GRS approval. But it was easier to hide from doing the hard work that maintaining other baskets required.
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Good decisions don’t guarantee good outcomes
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Following the bad news, for just a moment, I'd concluded applying to do a PhD was a terrible decision and a wasted time. It wasn’t. It was a good decision based on all considerations and available information. There was simply factors beyond my control, and I couldn’t have foreseen. Leading to a bad (unwanted) outcome.
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Focus on the things you can control
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Ranting and raving about the unfairness of the world (or at least the GRS) gets me nowhere. It's not a good use of my energy. What’s more useful and helpful (constructively and emotionally) is to focus on the things I can control. Considering appealing, looking for other avenues, and so on. The actions I'm taking, with the help of others, look to be heading towards a positive outcome.
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It’s always worthwhile registering what’s grabbing your thoughts and attention. For me, in this turmoil, it's a serious feeling I might need to entirely change direction. Look for creative projects where my broad skills might add value and be valued. Find an entirely new trajectory rather than return to a previous one. Mostly questions were coming up for me, How do I rethink what my work looks like? and What do I truly value in my work and how do I get to that point? These are worthwhile questions for us all.
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Endings are new beginnings
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Not so much a takeaway as a mantra I’m choosing to embrace. And one might follow from what I’m noticing. But if all goes well, there'll be no end here, just yet!
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Hope there's something useful in this for you.
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recent useful blog posts...
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It might be time for the architecture profession’s leaders to starting learning form the ground up.
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There’s two main ways to stand out. Be different. or Be better. Copying is the route to unexceptional.
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Or…
do architects do too many of the wrong things?
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“These are life’s little learning experiences,” he said. “You know what a learning experience is? A learning experience is one of those things that says,
‘You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.’"
- Douglas Adams
[The Salmon of Doubt]
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