Do any universities put people forward for ESRC funding with a 2.1

[Shevek]

Its interesting anyway. Its funny you mention the hobbyist thing as I am actually feeling more as though it is something I want to do just for the pleasure of doing it. I would love to have a job as an academic but I think there is value in just doing something that you enjoy and that stimulates you. My other interests are poetry and writing generally which I feel segue into anthropology

Cheers anyway, its nice to get different perspectives.

 

[mrs quoad]

Good luck, Shevek.

I worked out that if I didn't get funding either from ESRC or from a university I would need at least £20,000 to sustain myself through a 2 year period of intenseive fieldwork (this is without factoring in actual fees for the PhD and Masters).

You're aware - fwiw - that many Masters (certainly ESRC research methods masters) would require nothing like that?

 

[mrs quoad]

Its interesting anyway. Its funny you mention the hobbyist thing as I am actually feeling more as though it is something I want to do just for the pleasure of doing it. I would love to have a job as an academic but I think there is value in just doing something that you enjoy and that stimulates you. My other interests are poetry and writing generally which I feel segue into anthropology

Cheers anyway, its nice to get different perspectives.

(fwiw, I realised a day or two ago that this was my concern... When I posted that I felt I was answering the wrong question... I realised that I had a concern that I was answering a... dream that might be more of a dream than a construction with solid, deep foundations... Though when you describe what an anthropologist looks like - ok, that looks like a reasonable summary, in parts... Though very skewed towards the positives, the breakthroughs, the simmering scintillation... When much of it might be redoing the same things others have done 200 times, and understanding what there already is there... Breakthroughs do not come straight away. If they ever come.

A research career is very different to a hobby... I would be alarmed if someone told you it's like writing, or poetry... I love my topic. Love it to bits. It relies on fieldwork. I've followed a prescribed ESRC route. But that's meant 2 weeks of fieldwork in seventeen months... The rest has been a heavily assessed workload, and reading. Today from 6am to eight pm. That's a long day - but it's all day, every day. Reading, reading, reading... The fieldwork - I'm looking forward to it, and it'll hopefully take a year... But it's a short way off yet...)

 

[Shevek]

I have decided I am just going to go for it

Was it Bob Dylan who said the definition of success is someone who gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and inbetween does what he enjoys.
I think I am overanalysing the whole thing. I am going to apply for the MA in Visual Anthropology at Manchester Uni in September and set off on my way

 

[mrs quoad]

Spoiler: possibly irrelevant / ESRC-focussed

Was it Bob Dylan who said the definition of success is someone who gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and inbetween does what he enjoys.
I think I am overanalysing the whole thing. I am going to apply for the MA in Visual Anthropology at Manchester Uni in September and set off on my way

Fantastic!

Just three questions:
Is it ESRC approved?
Is it a recognised first step on the way to a PhD?
Is it a recognised first step on the way to any variety of funding?

G'luck!

 

[mrs quoad]

Spoiler: potentially irrelevant in light of further poking around

A quick look at the site leaves me feeling concerned about the prospects for funding, Shevek.

The MA in visual anthropology seems to be a standalone, non-research masters.

There's no mention of funding of any hue or colour on their front page.

The MPhils they mention seem to be more of a lead-in to their PhD program - but again, I can't find any links to potential sources of funding for graduates listed. Unless their funded pages are elsewhere. That'd surprise me, though. It's often funding streams that attract potential applicants. When I was looking at Manc for a law PhD, they were advertising their funded places left, right and centre.

If a PhD is your long-term intention, then make sure this is the right next step for you...

e2a:

Funding

The School's attracts major external research funding (almost £5m in 2005/06).

Several new Research Centres have been established in 2005/06. Real Life Methods, a node of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods complements several other continuing major ESRC investments. These include the Census Microdata Unit and Economic and Social Data Services (ESDS), the Centre for Research in Innovation and Competition (CRIC), the Centre for Research in Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), the National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS), and the Research Methods Programme.

Hmm.

And from the ESRC list of approved institutions and degrees;

MAN11001 MA (Econ) in Anthropological Research FT1+3/PT1+3

Which seems to be this course. Which lists two ESRC quota awards:

Scholarships/sponsorships: This programme is recognised by the ESRC for receipt of 1+3 awards. Two quota awards were available for entry in 2005.

Firstly, that isn't the MA you were thinking of applying for, Shevek. Secondly, they're either shockingly slack in updating their website, or else they've received no Quota awards since 2005. Which would suggest either an unutterably dire record in terms of completion, a poor Institutional record (in comparison to other funding bodies), changes in funding criteria, or an overall reduction of studentships. Regardless - unless they manage to win a couple of studentships for 2010 (and if they had, it would be bordering on criminally idiotic / negligent of them not to advertise it) then any applicants put forward for funding would have to go through the Open competition.

 

[mrs quoad]

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/funding/search/display/?id=00000202

Visual anthropology's potential funding council is listed as AHRC. Not ESRC.

Unless you're thinking of switching to an MA in anthropological research, you need Vintage Paw.

The applications procedure for AHRC is completely different to the ESRC (and rather more arcane ).

 

[equationgirl]

arcane???? I thought it was verging on the occult these days

Mrs Q is right - make sure you can get on a funded course and it counts along the way to a PhD.

I too loved my subject (mathematical modelling of diabetic wound healing) and was determined to get a PhD, but I did 60 hours a week for 4 years (I worked part time for 20 hours a week on top of 40 hours a week for my PhD) and was exhausted by the end of it. My objective was simply to get my PhD, anything after that I left to the last six months of the fourth year to worry about.

Why do you want to do a PhD?