Stefano Pagliari received his PhD from the University of Waterloo in Global Governance; his dissertation focused on international financial reforms. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the City University of London.
Q: What drew you to a PhD Program in the first place? And why Canada?
I always wanted to have an academic career; I wanted to do research, so my path was very much goal-oriented. The main rationale for Canada was that I wanted to work with my supervisor, who was at Waterloo. Quite a few people in my field were based in Canada, and I only seriously considered offers with funding.
Q: What was your funding like?
I had a full fellowship from the university, for three or four years. It was a very generous package; I would not have been able to do the PhD without the funding, and it would have been difficult to do the same amount of work at the same time if I had to find an alternate source of funding. My university also had quite a bit of funding to present at conferences.
Part of the package was that I had to RA for a professor (my supervisor), so I did research for him. I also remember organizing conferences, workshops, and socializing with the academic community.
Q: Did you teach during your PhD?
During the second year of my PhD, I taught an undergraduate module at Waterloo. I was pretty much thrown into a classroom with no experience in the Canadian system, though the class was a small, fourth-year undergraduate option, which made the process easier. I was given the chance to create something from scratch and run it as I wanted; the course changed year to year to allow the person to choose topics directly related to their expertise.
I also had a one-year teaching fellowship at the London School of Economics, which was working full-time as a professional teacher and researcher—a much more realistic immersion in academic life. My supervisor forwarded me an invitation from a colleague, and I already knew them from workshops and my past time at LSE.
In my case, teaching was very helpful, because the teaching experience was instrumental in getting the teaching fellowship, which helped me move on further.
Q: Did you feel like part of a community during your PhD? What about now?
Yes, very much so. It was still a small program when I joined—I think there were eight students. It was very much a tightly connected environment, across both students and faculty. There were a lot of circumstances, chances, events, that were structured and designed for that to happen: formal ones, like seminar series, and informal ones, like dinner at the house of a member of the department.
Now, I feel part of a community in two different ways: the physical place where I work and have commitments on a daily basis, and the broader, more decentralized network of people with similar research interest that I write with and meet at conferences and social gatherings.
Q: How long did it take you to finish your PhD? What were obstacles, and what helped?
It took me five and half years, including the time I was on leave. It was the right amount of time—not too long or too short.
I say this from experience of now working in academic environments where PhD programs are shorter (only four years). Students are frequently struggling: not to finish, but to gain relevant experience during the PhD. I don’t think that if I been forced to finish in four years, as my students currently are, that I would have had the teaching experience and publications that then allowed me to get an academic job right after the PhD.
All the things that made it more difficult were all the things that then made it easier to get a job after. So, during my PhD, I spent a year on the fellowship, getting teaching experience, a lot of side projects, publishing with my supervisor, all segments of time that were carved out of the PhD but that helped make me employable afterwards. Having a guaranteed amount of funding for a certain amount of time allowed me to plan and fit a number of opportunities into this period.
By far, the most important factor for my completion was a supportive research provider. It’s crucial. One of the conditions for my scholarship was that you do some work for a faculty member. In my case, because it was with my supervisor, some research for him turned into research with him, which led to publications. Through being involved in the entire process, I learned how to best do research and write, and the articles fed into my own research; it was a way of getting a bit more supervision, of getting more intellectual exchange.
Q: What jobs have you had since graduating? Were they related to your PhD?
I’ve only had my current job; I received the offer before graduating and started right after. My PhD is not a usual one; I was very lucky in terms of supervision, and I did many things during the PhD that people usually do after, in terms of building a profile, publishing research, etc. I could be recommended by international scholars who knew my work; I could get my name out there. And, of course, my PhD was instrumental for entering this particular academic community, a niche subfield.
Q: Any final reflections on your PhD experience?
I wish I’d known how much time people have during the PhD. In academic life, your time starts to be filled up by all this other stuff, a lot of teaching, a lot of service, obviously worthwhile programs…but the research part becomes just one small segment.
Many thanks to Stefano for sharing his PhD narrative! You can find out more about him at his website.
Stefano Pagliari received his PhD from the University of Waterloo in Global Governance; his dissertation focused on international financial reforms. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the City University of London.
Q: What drew you to a PhD Program in the first place? And why Canada?
I always wanted to have an academic career; I wanted to do research, so my path was very much goal-oriented. The main rationale for Canada was that I wanted to work with my supervisor, who was at Waterloo. Quite a few people in my field were based in Canada, and I only seriously considered offers with funding.
Q: What was your funding like?
I had a full fellowship from the university, for three or four years. It was a very generous package; I would not have been able to do the PhD without the funding, and it would have been difficult to do the same amount of work at the same time if I had to find an alternate source of funding. My university also had quite a bit of funding to present at conferences.
Part of the package was that I had to RA for a professor (my supervisor), so I did research for him. I also remember organizing conferences, workshops, and socializing with the academic community.
Q: Did you teach during your PhD?
During the second year of my PhD, I taught an undergraduate module at Waterloo. I was pretty much thrown into a classroom with no experience in the Canadian system, though the class was a small, fourth-year undergraduate option, which made the process easier. I was given the chance to create something from scratch and run it as I wanted; the course changed year to year to allow the person to choose topics directly related to their expertise.
I also had a one-year teaching fellowship at the London School of Economics, which was working full-time as a professional teacher and researcher—a much more realistic immersion in academic life. My supervisor forwarded me an invitation from a colleague, and I already knew them from workshops and my past time at LSE.
In my case, teaching was very helpful, because the teaching experience was instrumental in getting the teaching fellowship, which helped me move on further.
Q: Did you feel like part of a community during your PhD? What about now?
Yes, very much so. It was still a small program when I joined—I think there were eight students. It was very much a tightly connected environment, across both students and faculty. There were a lot of circumstances, chances, events, that were structured and designed for that to happen: formal ones, like seminar series, and informal ones, like dinner at the house of a member of the department.
Now, I feel part of a community in two different ways: the physical place where I work and have commitments on a daily basis, and the broader, more decentralized network of people with similar research interest that I write with and meet at conferences and social gatherings.
Q: How long did it take you to finish your PhD? What were obstacles, and what helped?
It took me five and half years, including the time I was on leave. It was the right amount of time—not too long or too short.
I say this from experience of now working in academic environments where PhD programs are shorter (only four years). Students are frequently struggling: not to finish, but to gain relevant experience during the PhD. I don’t think that if I been forced to finish in four years, as my students currently are, that I would have had the teaching experience and publications that then allowed me to get an academic job right after the PhD.
All the things that made it more difficult were all the things that then made it easier to get a job after. So, during my PhD, I spent a year on the fellowship, getting teaching experience, a lot of side projects, publishing with my supervisor, all segments of time that were carved out of the PhD but that helped make me employable afterwards. Having a guaranteed amount of funding for a certain amount of time allowed me to plan and fit a number of opportunities into this period.
By far, the most important factor for my completion was a supportive research provider. It’s crucial. One of the conditions for my scholarship was that you do some work for a faculty member. In my case, because it was with my supervisor, some research for him turned into research with him, which led to publications. Through being involved in the entire process, I learned how to best do research and write, and the articles fed into my own research; it was a way of getting a bit more supervision, of getting more intellectual exchange.
Q: What jobs have you had since graduating? Were they related to your PhD?
I’ve only had my current job; I received the offer before graduating and started right after. My PhD is not a usual one; I was very lucky in terms of supervision, and I did many things during the PhD that people usually do after, in terms of building a profile, publishing research, etc. I could be recommended by international scholars who knew my work; I could get my name out there. And, of course, my PhD was instrumental for entering this particular academic community, a niche subfield.
Q: Any final reflections on your PhD experience?
I wish I’d known how much time people have during the PhD. In academic life, your time starts to be filled up by all this other stuff, a lot of teaching, a lot of service, obviously worthwhile programs…but the research part becomes just one small segment.
Many thanks to Stefano for sharing his PhD narrative! You can find out more about him at his website.
Discussion