purplecat | The Plight of the Lowly Postdoc

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I read stuff like this and wonder if my situation is just highly discipline dependent, or I'm somehow oblivious to all the pressure. It's unlikely to be department dependent since I've worked as a postdoc in three high-ranking CS departments now.

The comments on the article suggest that it describes a situation that is particularly acute in lab-based science but I tend to be suspicious of comments below the line (not here, obviously, where you are all lovely, intelligent and rational people (fingers crossed that that is not a "summon troll" spell)).

Crossposts: http://louisedennis.livejournal.com/253329.html

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From:

purplecat

Yes this is real. I was lucky to be a lecturer when G was born.

I also had a colleague who had no end of difficultly supporting a PhD student of his who had a baby. I think, in the end, her husband gave up his PhD in order that the family could be supported while she finished hers, but the whole thing was stressful and unsatisfactory for all concerned and my colleague was very angry about it on their behalf.

From:

a-cubed.livejournal.com

This varies immensely. I had a PhD student from Sri Lanka when I was still in Reading. She was on a University overseas studentship. She became pregnant half way through her PhD and received identical maternity leave arrangements to permanent staff with regards to her stipend (paid at the usual percentage rate for staff for thesame length of time) and the time duringwhich she suspended her course. This was based on equity with EPSRC studentship rules - they decided that the university scholarships shuold have the same rules as the research council ones.

From:

purplecat

I'm fairly sure the student in question was EPSRC funded, but thinking back the issue may have been related to breast-feeding arrangements and the time that would need to be taken off in order to comply with WHO guidelines. Certainly a few years later when a different colleague had children the Informatics department was strikingly supportive of enabling her to breast-feed at work and that may have been the up-shot of the difficulties encountered by this PhD student.

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