Jack C.
About me
| Jack C. | |
| Social Policy and Social Work | |
| Social Policy and Administration | |
| Research Postgraduate | |
| Derwent | |
| 2009 | |
| China |
My employment
| Lecturer | |
| School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University | |
| China | |
| Education | |
| 2008 | |
| £110000 | |
| £200000 |
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A day in the life of a Lecturer in China
My career history
I finished my first degree in China in 2001. I had a job in a logistics company but was not optimistic with the future of my career. So I went to York in 2002 for my Masters degree and stayed there for my PhD in 2003. My PhD had taken in total nearly five years. I joined my current organisation and worked as a lecturer shortly after I submitted my thesis in 2008. It has been three and half years now. I think I will continue to work as a university teacher for at least another decade. I might, just might, have something interesting to try in my 40s when, if, I am tired of teaching then.
Where I hope to be in 5 years
I hope by the time I get a tenure, I can enjoy more freedom in publication, quantitatively.
My advice to students considering work
If you have no financial hardship, firstly, spend your money on those that can bring new techniques and knowledge to you and also enlarge your network related to your future career, e.g. going to conferences, lectures inside or outside York and make friends. Secondly get yourself involved in research projects, you need that experience very much! If you are not a rich student, you need to work while studying, take up jobs related to your future career, especially those can enhance your capability related to your future jobs. e.g. if you would like to be university lecturer, being a Teaching Assistant or Research Assistant would be a very good start when studying at York.
My advice about working in my industry
If you are not a mainland Chinese, the next one or two years might not be a good timing to try to work in China. If you are really keen in doing so, you need to make friends with some Chinese students first, preferably those in the same trade.
What I do
My job included both teaching and research in the very beginning and because of my experiences in York, I was appointed as director for international collaboration last year, so have some admin things to do as well. I teach on average 8 to 9 hours each week during term time and am required to get at least two research papers published every academic year by my organisation (which is a norm in most places in China now). Some young colleagues would like to earn more then they will need to sacrifice their weekends. By the way, some say that there is no weekends in most good universities in China. By and large, I enjoy my job except for the heavy workload. But workload is everywhere anyway.
Skills I use and how I developed them
With my PhD from York, it would not be possible for me to get my current job. In the past, the research topic of one's thesis was not particularly important, but it is not the case anymore, especially since 2011 when a larger number of PhDs are coming back to China.
Degree skills:
I think academic writing was a very important skill for my future career as my organisation is very keen on getting young staff to publish in English. I think my weakest link was my research skills. I did learn a lot but as an overseas student did not have as many opportunities to practice them.
Extracurricular skills:
The most helpful one for me is my teaching experiences. I had been a Teaching Assistant for four years when I was a PhD candidate at York. Chinese universities very much value those who can deliver lectures in decent English. I kept reading newspapers and watching the BBC news everyday when I was at York because that gave me topics to share with my students.
What I like most
I have a high degree of job satisfaction from teaching some top students in China -I can change their minds, also from making comments on social issues on behalf of the ordinary people by attending talk shows and writing op-eds for newspapers.
What I like least
What would I change? Public holidays should be respected, which is a big problem in China, even for university lecturers in good organisations the labour law is not really providing sufficient comfort. I don't think this is shared everywhere in the world.
Next steps...
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