Category Archives: Study

Study and what to listen too?

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I have always studied and worked listening to music. It provides a background to block out other distractions and it’s a technique I have used since my school days.

My year 12 was completely dominated by Born to Run!

Through Uni, the first time, it was Dylan, Springsteen, Melanie, Supertramp, 10CC and so on.

When I completed my Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance in the early 2000s, it was a combination of old favourites Dylan, Springsteen, Rick Wakeman and newer music REM, White Stripes, Silverchair, and Muse. My children made sure I was listening to what was current as I would usually say I like that and then buy the complete collection – it was a good plan on their behalf! I also filled in a lot of gaps in my music collection across those 3 years.

I am back to study again and after a few weeks of late nights and full weekends with my head in a text book and searching the University library databases it’s all been with the headphones on. I started with the downloads of Springsteen’s Australia and new Zealand concerts, at about $10 per concert they are great value. But even as a Springsteen obsessive that isn’t going to be enough to sustain me. My iTunes library has also had a fair working over as has the recently released iTunes Radio, Spotify and to a lesser extent Pandora.

Whilst I like the concept of the Radio Buttons on iTunes, Spotify and Pandora they tend to see the same songs come up on the play list a little to regularly for me and they can be a little distracting. I prefer to listen to the whole album, the complete collection or whole concert rather than jump around. So apart from Springsteen and the Radio Buttons there has been a little Tori Amos, James Taylor, Carole King and this weekend Joni Mitchell.

As I was taking a break I started to think about what new music there might be to listen too. Surely I can’t sustain the next 2 years and beyond with music from my own youth!

Suggestions will be welcome!

Quite possibly the craziest thing I’ve ever done!

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This wasn’t an impulse, but after a week if feels like about the craziest thing I’ve ever done.

Enrolling at Uni whilst still working fulltime seemed straight forward. I’ll use a days annual leave this semester and then revise my working arrangements for next semester. I can fit the other seminars in around lunch and that should work just fine. So I thought!

Week One and I’ve had a full day at Uni, finding my way around only after my daughter, a third year student, came to show me around. The Workshop was daunting, I couldn’t turn my computer on or save a file without help; that was before I even considered the Workshop content! Then the three hour Seminar – I was exhausted only to be go confronted with a large reading list. That was just Monday!

Then it’s been late home from work every night, followed by a work event every night bar Friday where I thought it would be good to spend time with my wife and daughter. After we’d had dinner it was just relax in front of the TV and a movie, Cast Away which I hadn’t seen for years.

At least now I’ve got a long weekend to do my Uni reading, write my monthly article for The Adelaide Review and catch up on some work.

It all seemed easy last year when I experimented putting Herminia Ibarra’s fabulous book, Working Identity into practice with a couple of undergrad subjects at Uni. The reality of commencing Honours with an eye to a PHD is quite different – this is serious in fact crazy.

I’m entering the Twilight Zone

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I feel like I’m entering the Twilight Zone, a place where I will be in two worlds both of which in their own ways will be all consuming.

The first is my job and the second is one I’m both excited about and very nervous about – University!

I’m used to the ups and downs of my life in professional practice as well as it’s demands. It’s been my life for the last 35 years, but University is different. Whilst I completed some post grad study about ten years ago it was quite straight forward as was dabbling in study last year, just a subject a semester.

It already seems that I need to operate in a parallel universe. Scheduling my time is already a nightmare but would be so much easier if I operated in two universes. For example, I could be in both Sydney for an important client meeting and on campus learning about the approach to research at the same time.

If I operated in parallel universe I could attend to my work emails, proposals and client demands in the evening whilst also preparing for next week’s seminar.

It would all be so much easier with effectively 48 hours in one day, but alas that isn’t going to be the case; I’ll be stuck in the twilight zone flipping between two equally demanding universes.

Is this one bite too much?

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I am notorious for taking on challenges. I’m never happy unless I’m busy.

Following a weekend in late 2012, organised by firm on life after professional services I read a book called Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra at the recommendation of one of the facilitators. Thanks for recommending it Tim!

The central plank of the book is to experiment before committing. As I put that thought into practice last year I took a couple of undergraduate subjects in Media. It involved sitting in lectures, attending tutorials and writing essays. I did really well – hopefully not a false positive!

As I continued to experiment I also struck up a dialogue with the Commerce School of a local university about how I might go about undertaking some research.

I also started to write articles for The Adelaide Review, all the time continuing with my full time work.

I took plenty on and certainly wasn’t bored!

As the year went on, I found I was really enjoying my study and was looking to further it. Why not do some Postgraduate study in my field I thought. So I started a conversation with the Commerce School and they were enthusiastic. I was too – hopefully not another false positive

Next step, how to go about it. A Masters by Research and then PHD maybe? Seemed pretty good until we talked more and I realised I had no research skills of an academic nature. I had considerable research and writing experience but business is different to academia. This was likely to be a limiting factor. Then came the suggestion of undertaking Honours which could lead into a PHD.

I applied had an interview and was accepted into Honours – another positive step. I thought that was job done and it would have been if my potential Supervisor hadn’t taken early retirement! This was a potential issue as having a supervisor is essential.

The challenge now was to find a Supervisor.

Over Christmas I wrote a submission. This is when I learned something which I now understand is a key issue, that being, how important having a Supervisor interested in the topic is.

Over the next couple of weeks I had a series of meetings with potential Supervisors, eventually finding one who was interested in a topic which I had initially discussed with the Commerce School in October.

So I now have a supervisor and idea for a research question . With that the journey begins!

The question is have I bitten off more than I can chew?

Photo: An Australian university campus’ Image: An Australian university campus (AimanB; Flickr.com/ Creative Commons)