Thursday 10 March 2016

PhD submission

Two weeks ago I submitted my PhD!


It's been a crazy couple of months and I am glad everything is done now. My viva is currently scheduled for April, but unfortunately my external examiner dropped out due to health reasons so my supervisors and I are currently looking for someone else you might be suitable.

After feeling very deflated at BERA, I started to turn my mind more towards my local community. Founding and running the MK Food Revolution (and its food festival FEAST) has been immensely rewarding. I am about to open my own shop in Wolverton and look forward to collaborating even more on a local level over the coming months.

Although my PhD has not been directly relevant to my work of the past months, I have used lots of skills I improved over the last three years: perseverance, organisation, documentation and many others. I also still work as an online postgrad tutor for Leeds Beckett university and education consultant for NotDeadFish in London to top up my income. I have also produced a few resources for NotDeadFish and look forward to working with other film organisations in London soon.

Not having an academic post (or rather: being paid to write) means that I have not had a chance to invest more time into publications. I would like my work to be read (by anyone who wants to, not just academics at universities which pay for journal access), so I have approached a few film education organisations to see whether they would pay me to produce a summary for them. After 3 1/2 years of a minimum (or no) salary unfortunately I can't afford to work for free any longer.

In the end, the PhD showed a change in motivation and attainment of the Film Literacy groups, but unfortunately I was only able to use it as a case study of one particular area, rather than the comparative study I had hoped to produce. Too many factors inhibited the collection of comparative data and pointed towards the uniqueness of Bradford as a whole. I am proud of the work I have produced but have also become much more realistic about the needs of such an extensive study (and its collaborators).

I will continue adding to the blog when I have news about PhD-related publications- wish me luck!

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