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Eighteen months into research for a PhD is not the usual point at which
to consider a return to the classroom. But there comes a time in most research
students’ lives when, thesis completed, they find themselves at a career
crossroad. Arguably the less difficult decision is to continue along the
familiar research pathway. There is an alternative, an obscure track signposted
‘Life outside academia’.

This is where my return to the classroom comes in. The Science and Engineering
Research Council gives all its second-year students the chance to go back
to school to get a taste of that life in the outside. This year the council
funded 12 schools around the country. Places on the course are free apart
from travel expenses, although only a third of those eligible to apply do
so. The research council says the course aims ‘to give science and technology
students a brief insight into the skills required and situations to be dealt
with outside the academic environment, in both the public and private sector’.

Research students can apparently amass a range of transferrable skills
– data analysis deductive reasoning, problem solving, numeracy, articulacy
.. PhD supervisors will be forgiven at this point for not identifying their
students’ characteristics in this list (we didn’t recognise ourselves either!).
Using a series of role playing exercises, case studies and presentations
these schools aim to show which of these attributes (if any) each student
possesses, and to provide information allowing us to make a more informed
career decision.

The first shock of the course came with the thick package of case studies
presented on arrival .. ‘The second, the realisation that autonomous working
practice must be forsaken in favour of teamwork, that word oft quoted by
potential employers and open to multifarious interpretations.

A gently guiding hand came in the form of tutors with successful careers
in the public and private sector, but the main initiative had to come from
within. There was no great edict, no precedent to follow and, as we were
constantly reminded, no right answer.

Within an hour of registration we were onto our first problem. Stranded
in the desert with 10 other people, and with various possessions at hand,
the task was to put these items in order of priority for your survival.
Arguments ensued over the relative merits of cosmetic mirrors, parachutes
and salt tablets. In the time we took to make a decision we would probably
have fried alive anyway! The moral of this tale .. put ‘the other people’
straight to the bottom of your list (and the salt tablets, apparently).

The course was designed to teach through practical experience. From
our failures in the desert we began to appreciate the problems of group
decision making in a limited time, in particular the necessity to stay relevant
– did we really spend five whole minutes discussing the survival benefits,
or otherwise, of drinking one’s own urine? I doubt that inhabitants of the
picturesque city of Durham host to the first of this year’s schools, were
aware that behind the college gates ninety students were tackling the ‘everday’
crises of the business world. In just six days I passed through a variety
of occupations: sales, marketing, industrial research and development, personnel
and general management.

Having escaped from the desert my group produced an award-winning advert
for a deodorant named Frisky (somehow managed to stay within the bounds
of decency) negotiated cuts in a county council’s capital expenditure budget
to meet the government’s constraints, and had the opportunity to try our
skills as interviewers. I now know that the people posing the questions
can sometimes be just as nervous as those on the receiving end!

The intransigence of Britain over entry into the European monetary system
hit home hard on day 3, when the computer firms we had painstakingly built
up over six months (days 1 and 2) saw their principal market in West Germany
collapse. Fortunately, and purely by ‘coincidence, a trade fair had been
arranged for that evening. This provided an opportunity to offload our surplus
stock and, for me, the highlight of the week. After bidding for the best
trading sites at the fair we conjured up computer-like objects from the
cardboard boxes provided, donned our smartest pair of jeans and set out
to sell! sell! sell!

Our product, the ultimate in ‘green’ computers, proved to be a big crowd
puller. The customers were a bizarre farrago. Selling to purchasers ranging
from ‘the Bishop of Durham’ to ‘Miss Pamella, Kittens Escort Agency’ was
all in a good night’s trading, funny how they seemed to bear strong resemblances
to the tutors .. My firm scraped through its first financial year with
a 33 per cent return on our shareholders’ investment and was awarded ‘the
Guinness award for creative accounting’.

The graduate school was a tremendous opportunity to enhance communication
and presentation skills, to receive informal but informed careers advice
and to sample the problems, challenges and issues of a non-academic career,
all for the price of a return ticket to Durham.

We have returned to the laboratory with the encouragement to take an
active role in our career development, whichever path we choose to take
. and we’ve had a sneak preview of the map!

Kim Rabbits is hoping to be allowed into the would outside when she
has finished her PhD.