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[anonica]

Hi Everyone,

I've just accepted a position in the U.K. and will leave my North American R1 t.t. job in the fall.  Things were going well here and my tenure case was strong, but I had strong personal reasons for wanting to be in the U.K. I've ended up at my first institution of choice-- I can't quite believe my it.  Nonetheless, some North American colleagues are chiming in to tell me that I'm making a "big mistake" and that U.K. academia is much worse than it is here-- poorly paid, more administration, etc.  While i know all the latter are true, I know there are also benefits. I'm interested in hearing from those of you who may have made a similar move and are glad you did, or just those of you teaching in the U.K. who wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  Here in North America we seem to only hear the worst things about being an academic in the U.K.; what are the best?  Why do you enjoy it?  Help me deal with my post-acceptance jitters and self-doubt.  If it helps, I'm in a literature department.  Thanks in advance.

[expatinuk]

Good: students are more focused
Bad: since it's the only subject students study, of course they are focused, but they don't get a holistic view and in many cases don't understand where their subject fits in a bigger picture.

Good: the teaching year is short
Bad: the administrative year is constant... and long

Good: you can be truthful with students about where they stand in terms of ability
Bad: this is changing as universities become more customer focused

[dyst_uk]

I've never heard of extra credit being used within the UK (feel free to correct me).


As far as expat's last point goes, it depends on the subject (NHS students still have their tuition fees paid for them, so you don't get the same level of, 'But we have to pay £3000 now...').

[the_walrus]

Anonica,

I've had the same reaction from colleagues in north america regarding UK academia.  I'm just a product (BA, MA, PhD) of the US system and have gone straight to the UK, so can't say what it's really like to be an academic in the us system, but my impression is that people in the US don't appreciate the fact that people in the UK make sport of complaining.  With one term under my belt, I simply don't see the downside of the UK, and in fact, see basically only positives.

(1)  Regarding salary, I don't understand the complaint about poor pay.  Perhaps this is at the higher levels?  My grad student colleagues who got top-notch R1 tt jobs in the US make between $54k--$57k/year.  I've started in January at £30k, and go to £32k in August.  At the current exchange rates, this is insanely well-paid by comparison.  Even by historically more realistic exchange rates, say $1.7/£1, as of August I'm at around $54.5k.  Now, some will no doubt claim that the cost of living in the UK is high by comparison.  I'm in a great northern city, though, which is affordable by comparison with most of the UK.  Additionally, yeah, the US is cheap if you're in the midwest, etc., but my partner will never agree to live in that part of the country.  Anywhere my partner'd be willing to live in the US does not have the kind of cost of living that makes it possible to claim that the UK (or at least the northern city I'm in) is more expensive by comparison.  So, at least at my junior level, I simply don't buy the claim that british academics are poorly paid.  At least in my case, when I take quality of life alongside salary, I don't see that I'd get much better being places in the US where my partner would be willing to live.

(I probably do pay slightly more in taxes than I would in the US, but I'm not convinced it's *that* much more.  And Iraq war aside, I generally feel good about the taxes that I am paying in the UK, by contrast with the US)

(2)  The teaching load is so, so light.  So, if you're research oriented, the UK is the place to be, at least in my field.  I teach two classes a term, but they only meet for 1.5 hours a week, and UK students don't do homework.  Effectively, the US equivalent of my teaching load is 1 class/term.  Actually, is even better than this, since the terms are shorter than US terms.

(3)  At least for my junior self, I also don't buy the complaints about administration.  Okay, yes, I have less control over my classes, but again, if you're research-focused, then this just means less for you to think about in terms of teaching.  Concerning the UK complaints about admin, again, based on my experience thus far, my impression is that brits are simply better at complaining about administration, and I'm not yet convinced that they have more of it.  Perhaps once I make SL or Prof, I'll understand the complaints better.  But, I don't see how this is that different from the US---in places I'm aware of, admin load is also lighter for junior people and gets worse the more senior you get.  Perhaps I'm just at a great uni, but from my perspective, I just don't buy the admin complaint (other than if you're a control freak about your teaching, in which case, okay, fine, you just need to learn to let go.  If you don't fight the system, I find it treats you quite well in terms of giving you tons of time for your research).

(4)  At least in my field (soft social science), there's WAY more grant money available in the UK than in the US.  In the UK single researchers routinely get grants that amount to the entire yearly NSF budget for my field.

(5)  More particular to my own situation, I've got great, world-class colleagues.

Based on these considerations and no doubt more that don't come immediately to mind, I continue to believe that my US-based friends from grad school who continue to look down on UK academia are total suckers.  Hell, at this point I half wonder if the brits don't complain so much just because they're trying to scare us off.  Seriously, at least from the perspective of my uni, it rocks. 

(Lest you think me totally uncritical, however, if pushed, I will complain about the nature of the british, and european more generally, PhD.  I think it's too isolating and would like to see more community amongst the PhD students.  Because they don't take classes, this doesn't happen naturally.)

[the_walrus]

Oh, and for my junior self, I forgot to add perhaps the biggest bonus of all:  no real worries about tenure.  The more I look at the US tenure system from the outside, the more it looks like an extremely perverse kind of fraternity hazing.  Really, junior people in the states are forced to kiss a** discipline wide for 7-10 years, during which time they have to really watch how they criticize colleagues, especially senior ones who might be called upon to write them letters.  In the UK, by contrast, I have a much more unfettered version of academic freedom from the get-go.  Yes, I need external letters for SL and Prof, but I won't be under threat of termination.  Much, much less stressful, humane situation.

OH, and another thing:  the maternity policy is INSANELY generous.  I gather that my uni is exceptionally good in this regard, but whatever (I won't tempt you with the details, in part because it may give up my anonymity).  This belies what I believe is perhaps a much more female-friendly working environment than in the US, particularly when you take the whole tenure clock into account (which unfortunately, ticks alongside the biological clock...)  The great maternity policies combined with the whole tenure situation here make for a much, much better situation for women, in my view.

[scotia]

Definitely the lack of tenure angst. It is possible to fail probation (I have had a two colleagues do so) but it is rare and in my institution the department needed to demonstrate that the contracts were not being renewed for strong academic reasons (failure to meet minimum research and teaching criteria). It is not a good career move to antagonize people, but upsetting one individual is not going to lead to termination of your contract.

Grade grubbing is also rare - in 7 years at my institution I can still recollect the names and faces of the fewer than five students who tried it. In the last three years there have been zero instances.

No extra credit - and students who fail a course may be allowed to resit assignments/exams rather than retaking the whole course so they get the shock of failing but rarely reappear in your classroom. In the universities where I have worked students cannot simply retake individual modules if they fail a resit - they have to retake the whole year so there is more incentive to pass.

[science_expat]

Ditto to the lack of a tenure track. Not spending 7 years watching my back and sucking up was fantastic.

No salary compression. We're on a single pay scale and get yearly increments up the scale. This plus cost of living increases means that salaries increase fairly rapidly; mine will increase by £1300 in August. There are bars on the scale that you have to be promoted to overcome but if you're doing a good job it's not that hard.

Again, no grade grubbing and no extra credit.

At least at my place, a management structure that encourages a frank exchange of opinions.

And for individuals not involved in teaching admin (i.e. not course directors, etc...), very little bureaucracy.

Living in Europe. I've developed research collaborations with many European researchers and do a lot of work-funded traveling - last year went to Vienna, Geneva, Rome, and Zurich; this year it's Chambery, Sicily, Potsdam, and Rome. And cheap weekend breaks are easy throughout Europe.

[expatinuk]

I do have to ditto the ease of European collaboration. It's also quite easy to get the EU to fund teaching swaps. You go to X country for X weeks and someone from there comes to your institution. The EU funds these exchanges under the Socrates (now called Life Long Learning) initiative.

I've done swaps in Finland, Romania and Italy. Because of these I've set up research groups involving: Finland, Romania, Austria, France, Estonia, Turkey, Italy, Malta, Sweden.... well you get the picture.

If you do become a course leader the admin is pretty bad.

But, in the 9 years I've been in the UK ... I've had two promotions and my salary has doubled.

[science_expat]

Another thing, not much worry about student evaluations.

If they're truly awful then action will be taken to help you improve. And it should be, IMO.

But as long as the students are generally happy, no one inquires about the 5-10% (usually 1-2 individuals) who think your teaching was awful.

About salaries, mine has increased by a factor of 2.6 over 13 years with one promotion. (Of course the value of my house has increased by a factor of 5 but that's a different story.)

[monsterx]

Although higher prices tend to eat away the exchange rate advantage, your student loan suddenly looks alot smaller because it is valued in US funny money. If you have student loans valued in dollars, every time the $ drops, the loan payments get smaller.  I suppose this works the other way as well, but I just don't see the US getting its economic act together in the near future. 

The US probably needs to get out of Iraq, first, to get the budget under control, or the exchange rate will keep going down.  So move to Europe and then vote for the biggest idiot around for president in 2008 (there will be plenty of choices in that respect, I imagine), if you have big student loans.

I'm not in the UK, but in another European country, but my point applies to the UK as well £s and €s are both very high vis-a-vis the dollar.

[anonica]

Thanks so much for your responses!  Yes, you're all absolutely right about the cost of living issue, and that's great to know about female-friendly working environment, expat who is.  I am really excited about the shorter teaching term. It's not that I don't enjoy teaching, but those couple of extra months to research are going to be sooooo nice. I do find it hard to believe though that the Brits have cornered the market on complaining.  It's hardly a neglected art form at my current institution, where people have  been known to complain about those rare moments where there's nothing to complain about . Anyway, you've all made me feel a lot better about this move. It's obvious that people are happy and thriving in the U.K. academic environment, no matter what some naysayers might suggest. Now if only someone would pack all my stuff for me and find me a house... ;)

[expatinuk]

Now if only someone would pack all my stuff for me and find me a house... ;)

More like finding one you can afford! Good luck!

[observer3]

I will second all of the positives said by "expat who is." And as noted by another poster, there is the incredible shrinking student loan issue. For the first time in my life I actually earn more in a year than the size of that loan, due to the good (yes, really) salaries here and the exchange rate.

Costs that are high are housing and transport and meals out. But I have found phone (both land/internet and mobile) and electricity / gas to be much cheaper (not water). Nobody can explain to me why that is. I thought I would never survive the cost of London and it is fine. Don't believe all of those who tell you otherwise; if you live reasonably it will work out. Plus my rent has never gone up so I can start to save for house purchase, maybe.

[akademik1]

Others have outlined many of the points I'd also make in response to your query... the best things about working in the UK include generally light teaching, students who tend to be able to write (at least), ability interact closely with continental colleagues, proximity to Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and, decent compensation. Yes, I would emphasize the latter point as there seems to be a misconception in the US that UK salaries are low - over the last two-three years this has really been rectified (even not factoring the recent slide of the dollar) and at this point in my university starting salaries are somewhat higher than those of R1 salaries in the US, and significantly higher than the national average in the US. I should mention I work in the humanities.

I would like to also point out something I've not seen mentioned here... I find that here research is seen as a matter of communal concern; it's not like the US where you are left  generally alone to prove yourself a capable researcher in one manner or another. This is one outcome of the RAE's influence -- colleagues are keen to do what they can to help you publish, to give you time if you need it for writing or research, etc. I worked for a couple of years in the US before coming here, and in the US I always felt that you were expected to go off behind your office door and write brilliant articles and books and do it all on your own. Since arriving here I have had terrific support and assistance from colleagues which has made a significant difference. Put simply, if I was still in the US I would likely not have published half of what I have managed to finish here, including a monograph. Not to brag, but none of my peers from my PhD program who have taken TT jobs in the US even have a contract to publish their first work yet, and my first book has just come out -- it's not because I'm smarter than them (I'm not) but because the framework of working here is so conducive to writing and publishing.

Of course things may be and no doubt are very different from institution to institution in the UK, and there are some drawbacks to the particular publishing culture you have here (sometimes people feel compelled to publish work that needs more time to develop), but overall I prefer it and feel it suits my own goals more than the kinds of pressure the US tenure-track produces for publishing.

And... on the housing market... it's difficult yes, but not impossible. I've just bought a nice flat and most of my colleagues here also own property. I'm not in London but I am in perhaps the second most expensive housing market in the UK, so I'd say it's certainly not hopeless.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I think the US perception of relative salaries comes from 15-20 years back, when  UK salaries were rather pathetic compared to the US.  (I left during this period.)  Right now they are very competitive.

What I liked best about being at a UK University was the frequency of small conferences/workshops, all within a fairly easy drive.

What I would worry about is long-range security; departments have a tendency to get unexpectedly zapped, eg. physics at Newcastle, chem and music at Exeter, maths at Hull, etc. - DvF