ferthepoet

Hi all this is sort of a vent, but I'm doing a Ph.D in law in Australia, and my desire is to become a university professor here or in another first world country, but I don't know how realistic that is, my specialty is international human rights law, and I'm also very qualified in international law in general but only have two years work experience in a general practice firm back home (panama a small country in latin america) and a few publications back home but none in one of those "respected journals" from first world countries..... I'm only 6 months in and the research work is going well but all I heard is how you need publications, grants, teaching experience ect if you want to be hired in an academic position and I don't have any of that, not sure how I can get it either. Moreover they all say you should be able to teach first year courses since you are not likely to start teaching international human rights law in a postgrad program fresh out of your phd but unfortunately Im not qualified to teach first year courses as those are all domestic law courses. I am very depressed (for a variety of reasons) , could not find a job back home so the dream of being a professor and thinking at least some income from scholarship was better than nothing make me decide to take the Ph.D, but now I dunno if I should drop it and go back home and deal with reality, a Ph.D I feel is an academic degree with no worth in the private sector, so probably the more time I spend out of "real" work the harder it would be for me to go back to me... Its sad because Im really enjoying the research but I don't know whats the point of doing it if there is no chance of landing an academic job afterwards

Does anyone knows what are the consequences if after accepting an scholarship offer from one university and before starting the program one changes his mind due to receiving another scholarship offer or a good job offer..... I am torn because I need to respond to an scholarship offer in Australia next week but I might later get news about other stuff I might be more interested on

I am a 27 years old from Panama I have recently received a Ph.D scholarship offer from Monash University in Australia I was originally looking forward to it but now I am scared about taking it.... I am overwhelmed about moving so far from home and scared about not being able to find a job after finishing... I have two masters an LLM in International and Comparative Law from IU Indianapolis and an European Masters in Human Rights and Democratization, I worked for a small law firm for two years in between my masters. I would liek to get a teaching job upon completion of the Ph.D. but I don't know how realistic is this.... I do not have formal teaching experience although I have had some experience given presentations in specialized seminars. I would like to know if you think the Ph.D. from Australia could realistically help me get a teaching job and if so whether only in Australia or if it would have any worth outside of it. I have also applied to Canadian Universities McGill and Queen's I would prefer to go there because of the closeness for home but since my academic record is not extraordinary I'm not sure how realistic is to hope to get scholarship offer from those universities and I'm afraid of passing up the Australian opportunity and ending up with nothing...... I have no job at the moment and its not looking good in my country for me finding a job any time soon