Postgraduate and Beyond

I've known for a while the plan after Uni is to go straight into an MA when I am done in the circle of hell known as ******* University. They recently put on a Careers and Alumni conference which we had to attend and whilst there was a startling lack of people working within the field of history, there were a couple of MA students.

Man they were old.

It seems like it is a fairly rare thing to be able to do your MA straight after your BA, unless you can fund it privately. Which I most certainly can't. I will have to apply for funding from a Research Council or some other benevolent organisation if I want to go and do this, as being a poor Geordie lad I don't have a vast pool of gold bullion on which I sleep.

I also have a morbid fear of being in the situation I find some of my friends are in. The kind of situation where you finish your degree and then unleash yourself onto the world of entry level office jobs, begging for any scraps that might get thrown your way. No way man, no way.

I've also been told that if I want funding from an RC I more or less have to get a first. Now, that isn't a huge problem as so far, I'm a fair way there already, but it is an annoyance I could do without. On top of that, I have to find an MA that does something I want to do (I'm looking at Cambridge because of their Early Modern programme), then cross that with somewhere I can afford to go.

I don't even know when I have to start applying for these things, as I am still in the second year.

So this is a plea to anyone who might read this blog, (and I thank you for doing so) If I am still updating next year and I am talking about how excited I am at starting my new job in a Siemens call center, hunt me down and kill me. You'll be doing me a favour.

(Coming Soon: Review of 'Thomas Wolsey: late Cardinal, his Life and Death' by his usher, George Cavendish)