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| Will she make it? Photo from Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games |
Earlier in the week, BBC 3 broadcast a
programme called Girl Power: Going forGold, which over 9 months followed three athletes as they fought to get
selected for Team GB’s Olympic Women’s Weightlifting squad. Weightlifting is
not a world I’m particularly familiar with, but it was compelling watching Zoe
from London , Helen from Devon and Hannah from Birmingham settling into life at the national training
camp in Leeds . It was interestingly difficult
to predict who would win those coveted Team GB places – whether natural talent,
ability to perform under pressure, single-mindedness or simple number of hours
spent in the gym would win out. But what I kept muttering to myself as I sat in
front of the TV was: “why an earth are you doing this?” Why would you sacrifice
everything else (e.g. your A-levels), move far from home, devote 3/5/10 years
of your life and train 6-10 hours a day, when the odds of getting an Olympic
team place are poor? Six contenders, two places.
But, of course, academia is exactly the
same, and in some respects worse. You invest 4-5 years of your life doing a
Masters and a Phd/D.Phil, possibly struggling to find the money to pay for
this, working long hours, often abroad and far from home… and when the thesis
is done, you hope to be selected for a postdoctoral position. The classic,
coveted Oxbridge post-doc is the JRF (Junior Research Fellowship), and these can
easily attract 300 applicants for each advertised post. For even a one-year
temporary History lectureship, you’re typically looking at 1 winner out of 60+
applicants. Like trying to break into top-level international sport, academia
is high risk and high reward. Up-and-coming weightlifters and historians alike
do it because they are passionate about their work, and believe (rightly or
wrongly) they are talented enough, or lucky enough, to get the chance to compete
at London 2012, or to join the Senior Common Room of an Oxford
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