ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to increase awareness of the unscripted terrain new academics are expected to navigate upon 'ascension' to the guarded ranks of academia. It discusses areas critical to being an academic, yet unaccounted for in supervisors' institutional mandate or supervisees' preparation for a possible future academic role. Emphasis is placed on areas important to the overall development of an academic such as teaching, engaging in community outreach and publishing. The chapter presents these as blurred terrain for supervisors, as they are not often explicitly identified at the institutional level as part of the supervisory process. The transition into being an academic is as much a conceptual transition as it is a change in actual role. Academic isolation is a well-known problem for many postgraduate students; most research students believe that they are not acknowledged as colleagues by staff in their schools.
