This week I submitted my first draft for my thesis and heard back from the graduate intern position at AUB.
First Draft:
While I was not able to write a complete draft, I was able to plan it out completely and have a majority of it all written out.
To continue with it I am very clear on what i still need to write, what i need to say and the relevant research to complete each area. The writing of the draft has given me plenty of confidence that i will be able to complete the thesis before the end of August. I still want to write further about my practical research in each section, and be concise as possible. Where once i was concerned about the word count being so great, now i wish it were more forgiving as I have lots i know i can write about. Perhaps if I will have to condense it down too much I will add a facet/page to this research journal to include the 'extended cut' paragraphs that did not make it.
In any case, I am very pleased with how the first draft has progressed from the last submission, and I will continue to develop it until it is completed to a high level.
(I do not have many photos from this period as i was very much working all day for the submission, however this is a photo which I took on a walk, which I was very pleased to have been able to take. I'm not sure how common it really is to photograph a heron in flight, but growing up my mother always told me photographers would hunt herons for photographs as if on a ghost hunt. So i thought i'd include this photo to illustrate this week for me, as a symbol of capturing the ghost)
Career Progression
This week I received word back from the Graduate Internship position at AUB, and I must say i am greatly disappointed.
A couple of months ago I wrote an email to my old course leader Richard Waring about whether the internship is available this year and who would be the best person to talk to about my eligibility. Being a graduate already from the Fine Art course at AUB I did not see it as an issue, but rather an advantage that i would also have a Masters at AUB.
Richard told me the best person to talk to was Lily Robson who works in HR.
I sent her an email detailing my position; that I am currently studying a Masters Course, but that I'm interested in applying for the internship, and if i'm eligible i'd like to know more about the internship.
In her reply she showed me where to apply for the course and offered to personally remind me when the window for the job would go live. I took this as her saying that I would be able to apply for the course, as if I were not I would have assumed she would not show me where to find the application portal or go so far as to personally remind me.
I complete the application process, and had been eagerly looking forward to a response. I had hoped as i said before that my Masters Course might give me an advantage on the role.
This week I finally got a response, however it said that because of being enrolled onto the MRes course, that they would not even consider my application. And they said that one reason was because they would need someone to start working on the 1st of September.
While this was disappointing, I responded saying that perhaps there had been some confusion about the application.
I urged this Gosia Kowalska who said she was from HR, to talk to her colleague Lily Robson, as she had encouraged my application, knowing that I am on a Masters course.
I also said that i would be free to work from the1st of September, the deadline for the Thesis submission is on the 2nd and I certainly plan on submitting before then (especially if i have a job lined up for September.) I said I might also be able to ask my Course leaders Emma And Willem to write a letter of confidence or something similar to say that i will submit and be free to work before the end of August, if this would be helpful.
Lastly I also said, that i will be free and looking for full time employment from the first of September, as though I will not have had a graduation ceremony yet, i will have finished my studies so there is no concern of interfering schedules.
The reply i received stated that as Lily did not explicitly say 'you are eligible' then i am the one at fault and that i am still not eligible.
Obviously I feel very much betrayed by this.
Career Progression Cont.
The internship at AUB was what i felt, the best move to progress my career, as it provided work experience at a university and was in the field (Art) that i am interested and qualified in.
However, after not being even considered for the role, I am forced to look at other jobs. I still intend on applying for funded PHDs in Art History and Visual Culture in February, but i need something to progress myself in the next year.
There are some roles at Libraries that I am interested in, specifically there is the Graduate Trainee Library Assistant at the Courtauld Library in London.
I also intend on applying for research and intelligence positions with the UK Government as there are some excellent graduate schemes. I have found that I really enjoy the research side of things more so perhaps than art itself and so I will look for ways to apply this research skill to a more fulfilling perhaps role.
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