So that was 6 September and now it's the 14th, a week or so into the academic year. Students new and continuing are settling into the higher education groove and Craiglockhart Campus is humming with activity. Long may it last: students attending lectures, contributing to tutorials, asking searching questions of their tutors and producing some innovative and interesting coursework. That would be great.
On the back burner, where it has been placed out of necessity as other priorities consume everyone's time, are the PhD / DBA plans. I have another meeting in the offing, this time with the course leadership of both programmes in my faculty - they happen to be led by the same person. This could be most significant meeting to decide which route I'd prefer to a doctorate, so I'd best be prepared. To help me get ready I've been sent some information about how Edinburgh Napier sees these two different degrees, for example: DBA: Practice > Theory > Practice > ImpactPhD: Theory > Practice > Theory > Impact Which takes precedence in my mind, what am I most interested in? Would I rather place my topic in an explicitly business orientated set of reference points or opt to take a more theoretical, open and perhaps nuanced approach? Which is more relevant to the people I'd be working with (inside and outwith the university)? What about future career development opportunities? ...lots to think on. My hunch at the moment is that I'd prefer the PhD route. It's a classic doctorate, encouraging the creation of new knowledge without the demand of being able to apply is to business situations quite so explicitly. As I think back to the themes that have dominated my 'ideas' documents, the commentators I'm interested in and the discussions I've had, they seem to demand the less focused commercially approach. That's just a hunch, mind, yet once it's taken root you'll often find a hunch comes back. More thinking to be done, talking to be said.