The Lego Grad Student
August 28, 2016 4:02 PM Subscribe
"Eating his stolen sandwiches in the stairwell, the grad student contemplates how his life has come to this." The Grad Student: A hollow head struggling to make it through a blocky world.
So relatable.
posted by putzface_dickman at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2016
posted by putzface_dickman at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2016
These are terrific. Something about the frozen expressions seems to fit well with the narrative style.
A grad student thanks you.
posted by Zephyrial at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
A grad student thanks you.
posted by Zephyrial at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
With the sandwiches, you need to act like you are attending the event, not try to grab a sandwich off the plate before anyone else arrives.
Also, though, bear in mind that in reduced budgetary circumstances, the admin may have ordered one specific sandwich for each attendee and will then be on the hook if there are nine sandwiches and ten faculty. Ask me how I know!
posted by Frowner at 4:22 PM on August 28, 2016 [22 favorites]
Also, though, bear in mind that in reduced budgetary circumstances, the admin may have ordered one specific sandwich for each attendee and will then be on the hook if there are nine sandwiches and ten faculty. Ask me how I know!
posted by Frowner at 4:22 PM on August 28, 2016 [22 favorites]
Also try not to take the special sandwich for the speaker with severe food allergies. All, all will be embarrassed when the special meal arranged long-distance weeks before her arrival is discovered to have walked away.
Maybe I should make a lego admin series.
posted by Frowner at 4:23 PM on August 28, 2016 [35 favorites]
Maybe I should make a lego admin series.
posted by Frowner at 4:23 PM on August 28, 2016 [35 favorites]
And suddenly I realize that there was one upside to being the grad student that organized all the things: I knew which sandwiches I could safely steal.
posted by pemberkins at 4:26 PM on August 28, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by pemberkins at 4:26 PM on August 28, 2016 [17 favorites]
"The senior faculty member smiles gleefully as he takes the remaining disposable cups and napkins back with him to the department lounge. It was worth attending that seminar after all."
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:28 PM on August 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:28 PM on August 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
There was a webcam set up in the grad lounge where I went to school pointed at the table where free food would show up and everyone kept a browser window logged into that camera open on their desktop. As soon as one of the admins put the leftover pizza or sandwich rings and salad out on the table, there'd be a shout of "free food" and a thunder of starving grad students stampeding down the hallways.
posted by octothorpe at 4:38 PM on August 28, 2016 [16 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:38 PM on August 28, 2016 [16 favorites]
In my wife's experience, her fellow faculty are far more motivated by free food than the students are.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:44 PM on August 28, 2016
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:44 PM on August 28, 2016
The stealing of free food, leaving admins on the hook when strangers poach stuff they've arranged specifically for a meeting, does not only happen in academia.
Ask me how I know.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:47 PM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
Ask me how I know.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:47 PM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
In my wife's experience, her fellow faculty are far more motivated by free food than the students are.
Grad students are learning, faculty have learned.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:50 PM on August 28, 2016 [10 favorites]
Grad students are learning, faculty have learned.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:50 PM on August 28, 2016 [10 favorites]
I will give you a tip: up to a certain point, an admin may have budgetary discretion about how much pizza is ordered, how many sodas are put out, whether all the sandwiches will be turkey-and-lettuce or something more appealing, etc. You are seldom worse off for making polite inquiries. Also, if you want cups and napkins, I strongly suggest that you ask.
Contrary to all that patronizing secretaries' day stuff, we do not "run the university". (Would our working conditions be as they are if we did?) But we usually have the ability to get you cups and napkins.
The stealing of free food, leaving admins on the hook when strangers poach stuff they've arranged specifically for a meeting, does not only happen in academia.
People are the worst! The behavior of people who have the budget and the ability to get their own lunches over a bunch of low-grade delivery subs will really shake your faith in humanity.
Also, you know what people do? Let's say there's a reception and one has carefully budgeted out all the hors d'oeuvres one can fit on the budget. And one has been working the event all day, and now one is stuck playing barman because budgetary constraints mean that one is skirting policy by serving the booze oneself, and the keynote speaker has just referred to one rather patronizingly as "the help". And one has a faint, flickering hope that at least some of the bruschetta will be left once everyone has a a glass of wine. Failing that, one hopes that at least there will be enough food for all attendees so that no one grumps about it. And then one gets a glimpse of the first ten or twelve people hoovering up like 30% of the food and realizes that while one has ordered for 100, one did not order on the assumption that the first ten people were going to take two heavily-loaded plates each.
And I personally refuse to believe that local grad students in the sciences, whose stipends range from about $29,000 up into the low forties, are so strapped for cash that they need to loot the reception table. The humanities, sure they get about $15,000, loot away.
posted by Frowner at 4:58 PM on August 28, 2016 [12 favorites]
Contrary to all that patronizing secretaries' day stuff, we do not "run the university". (Would our working conditions be as they are if we did?) But we usually have the ability to get you cups and napkins.
The stealing of free food, leaving admins on the hook when strangers poach stuff they've arranged specifically for a meeting, does not only happen in academia.
People are the worst! The behavior of people who have the budget and the ability to get their own lunches over a bunch of low-grade delivery subs will really shake your faith in humanity.
Also, you know what people do? Let's say there's a reception and one has carefully budgeted out all the hors d'oeuvres one can fit on the budget. And one has been working the event all day, and now one is stuck playing barman because budgetary constraints mean that one is skirting policy by serving the booze oneself, and the keynote speaker has just referred to one rather patronizingly as "the help". And one has a faint, flickering hope that at least some of the bruschetta will be left once everyone has a a glass of wine. Failing that, one hopes that at least there will be enough food for all attendees so that no one grumps about it. And then one gets a glimpse of the first ten or twelve people hoovering up like 30% of the food and realizes that while one has ordered for 100, one did not order on the assumption that the first ten people were going to take two heavily-loaded plates each.
And I personally refuse to believe that local grad students in the sciences, whose stipends range from about $29,000 up into the low forties, are so strapped for cash that they need to loot the reception table. The humanities, sure they get about $15,000, loot away.
posted by Frowner at 4:58 PM on August 28, 2016 [12 favorites]
In my experience, faculty are all getting older and trying to lose weight so they mostly only look at the free food.
posted by mr_roboto at 5:00 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mr_roboto at 5:00 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Had to stop reading. Flashbacks.
posted by BrashTech at 5:00 PM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by BrashTech at 5:00 PM on August 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
I know I am no fun, but I kinda hate all the "woe is me" grad student stuff. I am a grad student. I worked for about a decade prior to becoming a grad student. There are pros and cons of both — I work harder but on stuff I care more about and have more input into, which means it hurts more when people don't like it but unlike clients I don't really have to listen to them, so ... In conclusion, it is not that hard to be a grad student.
posted by dame at 5:03 PM on August 28, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by dame at 5:03 PM on August 28, 2016 [18 favorites]
My office is down the hall from the staff lounge at a [big academic place]. I have more than once received messages saying "free food in the staff lounge" and in the 10 seconds it takes to walk to the door of my office I find a parade LEAVING the staff lounge all loaded with plates and napkins of food. I don't know how they do it.
posted by lagomorphius at 5:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by lagomorphius at 5:13 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
In my wife's experience, her fellow faculty are far more motivated by free food than the students are.
Our extremely poorly paid grad students as well as our undergrads seem minimally motivated by free food as well. I do not understand this.
posted by eviemath at 5:14 PM on August 28, 2016
Our extremely poorly paid grad students as well as our undergrads seem minimally motivated by free food as well. I do not understand this.
posted by eviemath at 5:14 PM on August 28, 2016
metabolisms change to live on hope
posted by lalochezia at 5:20 PM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 5:20 PM on August 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
"Had to stop reading. Flashbacks." This is literally true for me.
"it is not that hard to be a grad student." This is not.
"And I personally refuse to believe that local grad students in the sciences" ... yeah, neither is that, unless I give a very generous interpretation to that "local" as talking about some very top-level students with very unusal circumstances.
At the start of my grad school career in the sciences I had a stipend that seemed pretty good to me, and was nowhere near that. Over the years student housing expenses doubled several times, it didn't change. Student health expenses were a similar story. The stipend also ran out, after covering only half the average time-to-completion for that degree. Did you know the TA pay and benefits would be below the minimum wage in my state, if said laws applied to grad students? By the end, I had used up my food stamp eligibility and was living off what I could get from the food bank.
Now several things about my experience were unusal. Many were not. Please take care not to accidentally erase the real poverty hiding behind some embarrassed students. It can be weird when the ones who drop out because they just can't afford it anymore were working in the same offices alongside the ones who could somehow get the latest smartphone and ski passes.
posted by traveler_ at 5:22 PM on August 28, 2016 [20 favorites]
"it is not that hard to be a grad student." This is not.
"And I personally refuse to believe that local grad students in the sciences" ... yeah, neither is that, unless I give a very generous interpretation to that "local" as talking about some very top-level students with very unusal circumstances.
At the start of my grad school career in the sciences I had a stipend that seemed pretty good to me, and was nowhere near that. Over the years student housing expenses doubled several times, it didn't change. Student health expenses were a similar story. The stipend also ran out, after covering only half the average time-to-completion for that degree. Did you know the TA pay and benefits would be below the minimum wage in my state, if said laws applied to grad students? By the end, I had used up my food stamp eligibility and was living off what I could get from the food bank.
Now several things about my experience were unusal. Many were not. Please take care not to accidentally erase the real poverty hiding behind some embarrassed students. It can be weird when the ones who drop out because they just can't afford it anymore were working in the same offices alongside the ones who could somehow get the latest smartphone and ski passes.
posted by traveler_ at 5:22 PM on August 28, 2016 [20 favorites]
I got my PhD at a private research university. There was always (good) free food at everything. Now I work at a public commuter college, which is not allowed to purchase food with public money. We are supposed to express gratitude to the foundation when an all-afternoon faculty meeting has a break with green punch and cookies. Those very rare occasions when we get free lunch are usually purchased by textbook reps. Dear students, I know why your textbooks cost so much, and you're not going to like it.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:23 PM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 5:23 PM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
This post makes me realize how much Werner Herzog needs a Lego movie.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:26 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:26 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
I know I am no fun, but I kinda hate all the "woe is me" grad student stuff. I am a grad student. I worked for about a decade prior to becoming a grad student.
Same boat. I think things are really really different for grad students in their early 20s and grad students in their early 30s. Usually grad students in their early 30s have lives outside of graduate school, which helps.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:28 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
Same boat. I think things are really really different for grad students in their early 20s and grad students in their early 30s. Usually grad students in their early 30s have lives outside of graduate school, which helps.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:28 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
At the start of my grad school career in the sciences I had a stipend that seemed pretty good to me, and was nowhere near that. Over the years student housing expenses doubled several times, it didn't change. Student health expenses were a similar story. The stipend also ran out, after covering only half the average time-to-completion for that degree.
Where did your stipend come from? Ours are either from NIH training grants or scaled to NIH training grants. Surely there is a national database detailing all of this - at least at public universities it all has to be accessible. Is Minnesota paradise after all? I should complain less.
posted by Frowner at 5:28 PM on August 28, 2016
Where did your stipend come from? Ours are either from NIH training grants or scaled to NIH training grants. Surely there is a national database detailing all of this - at least at public universities it all has to be accessible. Is Minnesota paradise after all? I should complain less.
posted by Frowner at 5:28 PM on August 28, 2016
"Where did your stipend come from?"
NASA GSRP--Grad Student Research Program. But on reflection I can only think of a handful of fellow grad students who finished within their RA coverage. Everyone else filled the gaps with TA positions, spouses' incomes, and/or industry jobs.
And having done my undergrad in Minnesota (U of M system) I won't deny it's paradise-like, but it was actually a chemistry TA of mine there who first told me about the sub-minimum-wage thing. It may have changed in the years since, in that state. Not elsewhere though.
posted by traveler_ at 5:40 PM on August 28, 2016
NASA GSRP--Grad Student Research Program. But on reflection I can only think of a handful of fellow grad students who finished within their RA coverage. Everyone else filled the gaps with TA positions, spouses' incomes, and/or industry jobs.
And having done my undergrad in Minnesota (U of M system) I won't deny it's paradise-like, but it was actually a chemistry TA of mine there who first told me about the sub-minimum-wage thing. It may have changed in the years since, in that state. Not elsewhere though.
posted by traveler_ at 5:40 PM on August 28, 2016
I thought I was doing pretty good at $25k a year in the sciences.
Having spent a few years working before going to grad school, albeit in a factory job, grad school is ridiculously flexible yet way more stressful and I can't really get away from it mentally and just not care for a while which I find a lot harder on me than my previous job.
Though I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not that I find grad school a pain in the ass vs a non-academic job, but that I much prefer blue collar jobs to white collar ones. Which is... concerning as far as the future goes.
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:41 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
Having spent a few years working before going to grad school, albeit in a factory job, grad school is ridiculously flexible yet way more stressful and I can't really get away from it mentally and just not care for a while which I find a lot harder on me than my previous job.
Though I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not that I find grad school a pain in the ass vs a non-academic job, but that I much prefer blue collar jobs to white collar ones. Which is... concerning as far as the future goes.
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:41 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
NASA GSRP--Grad Student Research Program. But on reflection I can only think of a handful of fellow grad students who finished within their RA coverage. Everyone else filled the gaps with TA positions, spouses' incomes, and/or industry jobs.
Yeah, NIH fellowships are way better than that program. Honestly, I think it's really dumb and bad that there's so much inconsistency at the federal level. In utopia, all stipends should be local COLA responsive but otherwise similar across fields and funders, of course, because you need just as much money to pay the rent when studying English as when studying plate tectonics, but it seems particularly stupid that two people being supported by different arms of the federal government should have such different degrees of stability and financial security.
posted by Frowner at 5:48 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yeah, NIH fellowships are way better than that program. Honestly, I think it's really dumb and bad that there's so much inconsistency at the federal level. In utopia, all stipends should be local COLA responsive but otherwise similar across fields and funders, of course, because you need just as much money to pay the rent when studying English as when studying plate tectonics, but it seems particularly stupid that two people being supported by different arms of the federal government should have such different degrees of stability and financial security.
posted by Frowner at 5:48 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
In my experience, this is 100% accurate.
I'm looking forward to the sequel, "The Lego Grad School Dropout", which will be even more cheerful than this.
posted by TBAcceptor at 6:00 PM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
I'm looking forward to the sequel, "The Lego Grad School Dropout", which will be even more cheerful than this.
posted by TBAcceptor at 6:00 PM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
And then one gets a glimpse of the first ten or twelve people hoovering up like 30% of the food and realizes that while one has ordered for 100, one did not order on the assumption that the first ten people were going to take two heavily-loaded plates each.
And here we have the reason why my mom (as spouse of someone who was department chair several times in his career, throwing parties for academics is her part time job) stopped doing hors d'oeuvres only receptions. No one understood the concept that that this is not a meal. Not tenured full professors, not post-docs, not fellows, not grad students, no one. Everyone just strapped on the feed bags like a swarm of locusts, late arrivals be damned.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:00 PM on August 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
And here we have the reason why my mom (as spouse of someone who was department chair several times in his career, throwing parties for academics is her part time job) stopped doing hors d'oeuvres only receptions. No one understood the concept that that this is not a meal. Not tenured full professors, not post-docs, not fellows, not grad students, no one. Everyone just strapped on the feed bags like a swarm of locusts, late arrivals be damned.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:00 PM on August 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
Our minimum stipend for funded graduate students is $13,500 as of this year (before withdrawals taxes, fees, and health insurance). My department's stipend was adjusted up to meet this minimum. I teach 70+ student a semester as an independent instructor. I publish independent research. I apply for and occasionally get grants for my research, for conference travel, for professional development. I am expected to attend conferences at least once annually; I self-fund membership in professional societies and sleep 4 people to a hotel room when I am able to attend these conferences. I am damn well going to snag a third cookie given the opportunity.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:05 PM on August 28, 2016 [28 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 6:05 PM on August 28, 2016 [28 favorites]
(I got malaria doing my research! Twice!!! Go ahead and give me a 4th cookie, and maybe the leftover bottle of diet coke after the reception is done!)
posted by ChuraChura at 6:06 PM on August 28, 2016 [27 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 6:06 PM on August 28, 2016 [27 favorites]
there's actually a level below "free food in
the seminar room" foraging, which is hunting through the department fridge for food you think had been abandoned but which is still edible.
ask me about being homeless, hungry, and getting your doctorate!
posted by ennui.bz at 6:08 PM on August 28, 2016 [8 favorites]
the seminar room" foraging, which is hunting through the department fridge for food you think had been abandoned but which is still edible.
ask me about being homeless, hungry, and getting your doctorate!
posted by ennui.bz at 6:08 PM on August 28, 2016 [8 favorites]
How are you still hungry? You ate a whole chicken at the stress buffet!
posted by sexyrobot at 6:20 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by sexyrobot at 6:20 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm lucky enough that funding hasn't been an issue yet, although I'm in a discipline that's in generally pretty poorly funded.
And yeah, I feel you ChuraChura. Right now I am in a bitterness storm about how poorly supported field work is in my discipline, a problem that is both ideological and institutional. My department is pretty supportive, but they have limits they're working within.
I don't know how I would survive on your stipend. With roommates, rent in my town is now about $12,000 a year. My rent has gone up $200 a month since I arrived, and my stipend certainly hasn't kept pace.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:42 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
And yeah, I feel you ChuraChura. Right now I am in a bitterness storm about how poorly supported field work is in my discipline, a problem that is both ideological and institutional. My department is pretty supportive, but they have limits they're working within.
I don't know how I would survive on your stipend. With roommates, rent in my town is now about $12,000 a year. My rent has gone up $200 a month since I arrived, and my stipend certainly hasn't kept pace.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:42 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
I can afford it because I grew up middle class and was able to build myself a savings account as a kid that I didn't have to use to go to undergrad, but man. It sucks, and it's part of the elitism and exclusivity of academia and I'm not brave enough to protest the system by leaving it this deep in.
All this to say, LEGO grad student kind of hits home.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:49 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
All this to say, LEGO grad student kind of hits home.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:49 PM on August 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
Contrary to all that patronizing secretaries' day stuff, we do not "run the university".
No, but at the same time students make a very poor decision when they choose to treat admin staff as undeserving of respect and politeness. I got huge support from my admin staff just by being polite and friendly, including getting a year of very generous funding that I didn't know about until one of them decided to put my name on the list for consideration. Departmental admin staff have the power to make your life much better or much worse, so I don't know why so many of my fellow students treated them with disdain.
Had to stop reading. Flashbacks.
I made it all the way through, but there were a few that brought back vivid memories. The one about stepping out of your adviser's office and meeting the eyes of the person on their way in was one of those for me.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:17 PM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
No, but at the same time students make a very poor decision when they choose to treat admin staff as undeserving of respect and politeness. I got huge support from my admin staff just by being polite and friendly, including getting a year of very generous funding that I didn't know about until one of them decided to put my name on the list for consideration. Departmental admin staff have the power to make your life much better or much worse, so I don't know why so many of my fellow students treated them with disdain.
Had to stop reading. Flashbacks.
I made it all the way through, but there were a few that brought back vivid memories. The one about stepping out of your adviser's office and meeting the eyes of the person on their way in was one of those for me.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:17 PM on August 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
One of the advantages of going back to school after working is that I realized just how important, and how underappreciated the admin staff was. In the end, I think I got along better with the admin staff than most of the faculty.
posted by mollweide at 7:31 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mollweide at 7:31 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
desperate to avoid the reality of wasting the best years of their life, the grad student constructs and photographs elaborate lego dioramas...
That sounds exactly like one of his captions!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:07 PM on August 28, 2016
That sounds exactly like one of his captions!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:07 PM on August 28, 2016
Ahahahaha stipend.
Here in Australia, most graduate students are only funded if they have a (competitive) scholarship - which is not allowed to cover the whole of your candidature. It is about A$30,000 though if you qualify. You cannot claim welfare. You do not qualify for many student concessions (In Victoria, for example, you do not qualify for a concession ticket on public transport). You risk your candidature if you work more than 15 hours per week.
If you're a Humanities or Science research type, you must contend with compulsory university-wide programs 'breadth' designed for MBAs and coursework PhDs, and government interference in your departmental and institutional research priorities, which are not limited to funding, but may lead to questions being asked in parliament. In Fine or Creative Arts, you have an entire institutional and political structure dedicated to removing your discipline from the university, defunding and deregistering undergraduate degree programs and entire departments, constant hiring freezes that lead to your teaching opportunities being limited to a week or two a semester, if not a year, for which you have to register and re-register, or invoice for (thereby foregoing workers compensation, superannuation, unfair dismissal and other protections)
Being a research student is like this constant pissing match of how hard we have it. A real-life Four Yorkshiremen sketch. It really, really shouldn't be. We need a damn union.
posted by prismatic7 at 9:48 PM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
Here in Australia, most graduate students are only funded if they have a (competitive) scholarship - which is not allowed to cover the whole of your candidature. It is about A$30,000 though if you qualify. You cannot claim welfare. You do not qualify for many student concessions (In Victoria, for example, you do not qualify for a concession ticket on public transport). You risk your candidature if you work more than 15 hours per week.
If you're a Humanities or Science research type, you must contend with compulsory university-wide programs 'breadth' designed for MBAs and coursework PhDs, and government interference in your departmental and institutional research priorities, which are not limited to funding, but may lead to questions being asked in parliament. In Fine or Creative Arts, you have an entire institutional and political structure dedicated to removing your discipline from the university, defunding and deregistering undergraduate degree programs and entire departments, constant hiring freezes that lead to your teaching opportunities being limited to a week or two a semester, if not a year, for which you have to register and re-register, or invoice for (thereby foregoing workers compensation, superannuation, unfair dismissal and other protections)
Being a research student is like this constant pissing match of how hard we have it. A real-life Four Yorkshiremen sketch. It really, really shouldn't be. We need a damn union.
posted by prismatic7 at 9:48 PM on August 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
There's something about the standard minifig faces used in these, with the closeness of the eyes and mouth - unlike the faces used in Lego Academics - that I find very appropriate. Perhaps because they remind me of Lame Selfie Bee (three links for three tags, fire, hell fire, previously).
posted by BiggerJ at 11:41 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by BiggerJ at 11:41 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
I organised a conference recently, catered by our on-campus caterers, where you select a food option and then pay per head. I discovered that if you order scones for morning tea, their calculations per head are that each person will have half a scone, and one cup of coffee or tea. The reality turned out to be that most people have two or three scones, and three cups of coffee/tea.
There was great unhappiness in the ranks ten minutes in to the first break.
In the afternoon, there were mini-muffins, so small that you would put a whole one in your mouth at once, even if you are the polite sort of eater. They assumed one muffin per person. Most people had five or so.
I don't know where you grad students are getting your leftover food, but it's not at our university.
posted by lollusc at 12:01 AM on August 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
There was great unhappiness in the ranks ten minutes in to the first break.
In the afternoon, there were mini-muffins, so small that you would put a whole one in your mouth at once, even if you are the polite sort of eater. They assumed one muffin per person. Most people had five or so.
I don't know where you grad students are getting your leftover food, but it's not at our university.
posted by lollusc at 12:01 AM on August 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
Frowner, first, thank you for being an admin, and for probably bring a very good one. I'm forever indebted to some awesome admins who have saved my skin on several occasions.
I wish it were the case that there was some kind of national repository of information keeping track stipends for grad student employees across the country, but there is not. In fact it's very difficult to get that information when you find you need it, when for example you are negotiating a new grad union collective bargaining agreement and you have to explain to executives who make thirty five times your own stipend that what they pay grads is not "competitive" or "generous" or "livable". For the same amount of work, stipends across the country range from $8000 a year with no tuition benefits to $35000 a year with effing Cadillac health insurance. But many grads are the first generation in their family to attend academic grad school, and they have no idea what's out there. They'll take what they can get, operating in almost complete ignorance of any sort of "market" reality, in the belief that getting a PhD will pay off because how could it not, and also in the belief that you have to starve in order to be allowed to worship the temple of learning.
For folks in this thread who are saying "past, grad school is awesome!" And not understanding why some people have found it so soul crushing--experiences are as varied as stipends. For every advisor week sees his job as being a chance to nurture and mentor the future generation of his field, there's an advisor who thinks his grad students belong to him body and soul (especially the female ones). A graduate students experience is highly sensitive to environmental contexts like that, precisely because the nature of the work is so personal, isolating, and ego obliterating. There is no going home and not thinking about work, and if work is mental health eroding, then it sucks. (I have a great advisor and awesome lab mates, but I've helped folks who had the other advisor...)
Anyway. Lego grad is my heart.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 5:50 AM on August 29, 2016 [10 favorites]
I wish it were the case that there was some kind of national repository of information keeping track stipends for grad student employees across the country, but there is not. In fact it's very difficult to get that information when you find you need it, when for example you are negotiating a new grad union collective bargaining agreement and you have to explain to executives who make thirty five times your own stipend that what they pay grads is not "competitive" or "generous" or "livable". For the same amount of work, stipends across the country range from $8000 a year with no tuition benefits to $35000 a year with effing Cadillac health insurance. But many grads are the first generation in their family to attend academic grad school, and they have no idea what's out there. They'll take what they can get, operating in almost complete ignorance of any sort of "market" reality, in the belief that getting a PhD will pay off because how could it not, and also in the belief that you have to starve in order to be allowed to worship the temple of learning.
For folks in this thread who are saying "past, grad school is awesome!" And not understanding why some people have found it so soul crushing--experiences are as varied as stipends. For every advisor week sees his job as being a chance to nurture and mentor the future generation of his field, there's an advisor who thinks his grad students belong to him body and soul (especially the female ones). A graduate students experience is highly sensitive to environmental contexts like that, precisely because the nature of the work is so personal, isolating, and ego obliterating. There is no going home and not thinking about work, and if work is mental health eroding, then it sucks. (I have a great advisor and awesome lab mates, but I've helped folks who had the other advisor...)
Anyway. Lego grad is my heart.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 5:50 AM on August 29, 2016 [10 favorites]
Grad students who are organizing events and are uncertain about food, payment, IT, etc: ask an admin! Or a program staffer, or whatever you've got. I cannot stress this enough. We almost certainly know all the local catering options and how they work, or if we don't, we know who to ask.
A principle: you will need more food than you think. Another: everything costs more than it appears to. A third: if you are using any kind of university money, find out in advance what kind of documentation is required, because it varies tremendously and much of it is a real pain to get afterward.
Another useful point: sandwich trays. Many small local cafes do pretty good, reasonably priced sandwich trays - they cost more than Jimmy John's, but less than box lunches.
I myself am not above asking people directly to start with one serving and wait until everyone has a plate before getting seconds. I try to have enough food that this is not necessary, but I really hate it when people show up late, eg after clinic, and there's just crumbs and a sad olive slice.
One additional suggestion: if you are expecting to be reimbursed, ask if the university can pay upfront. I have learned from this thread that we are if not actually a Cadillac program, still definitely a good, old-fashioned Buick program, and we do pay a lot of people's conference travel, etc. I always prefer to pay upfront rather than reimburse - not only does it keep the money in your pocket, but it is less work on our end. But sometimes people bring in a heap of receipts for things I could have paid for, and then if there's some delay in the reimbursement due to university process, grant budgets, etc, they're still on the hook and I feel sad.
Most people whose admin gigs are not terrible - and mine certainly isn't (knock on wood!) - do adminning in part because we like helping people and solving weird little problems. Bring us your weird little problems!
their calculations per head are that each person will have half a scone
Our campus catering assumes vast amounts of food per head. Sometimes they call when I've only ordered a gallon of coffee and one tray of cookies for a meeting, to make sure that I understand that this may not be enough. And their cheese trays could feed an army.
Note to self: complain less.
posted by Frowner at 6:16 AM on August 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
A principle: you will need more food than you think. Another: everything costs more than it appears to. A third: if you are using any kind of university money, find out in advance what kind of documentation is required, because it varies tremendously and much of it is a real pain to get afterward.
Another useful point: sandwich trays. Many small local cafes do pretty good, reasonably priced sandwich trays - they cost more than Jimmy John's, but less than box lunches.
I myself am not above asking people directly to start with one serving and wait until everyone has a plate before getting seconds. I try to have enough food that this is not necessary, but I really hate it when people show up late, eg after clinic, and there's just crumbs and a sad olive slice.
One additional suggestion: if you are expecting to be reimbursed, ask if the university can pay upfront. I have learned from this thread that we are if not actually a Cadillac program, still definitely a good, old-fashioned Buick program, and we do pay a lot of people's conference travel, etc. I always prefer to pay upfront rather than reimburse - not only does it keep the money in your pocket, but it is less work on our end. But sometimes people bring in a heap of receipts for things I could have paid for, and then if there's some delay in the reimbursement due to university process, grant budgets, etc, they're still on the hook and I feel sad.
Most people whose admin gigs are not terrible - and mine certainly isn't (knock on wood!) - do adminning in part because we like helping people and solving weird little problems. Bring us your weird little problems!
their calculations per head are that each person will have half a scone
Our campus catering assumes vast amounts of food per head. Sometimes they call when I've only ordered a gallon of coffee and one tray of cookies for a meeting, to make sure that I understand that this may not be enough. And their cheese trays could feed an army.
Note to self: complain less.
posted by Frowner at 6:16 AM on August 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
Count me as another 30something grad student who's been following this Twitter feed and not really feeling it resonate. The free food scrounge I get - my younger colleagues subsisting on our pretty good stipend still qualify for subsidized housing/childcare/etc. I have a working spouse and a decade more life experience, and I've been the depressed PhD student who dropped out of grad school, so I try to check my own privilege pretty aggressively, and point people towards free mental health resources or just meet them for a cup of coffee and venting where I can. I guess I'd have appreciated this during round 1 of grad school?
But damn it all if I'm not having a blast this time around. If I had to credit one thing besides the extra decade of perspective, which makes it easier to a) see people as people, whether they're senior faculty or admins (love our department admins) or the folks who come pick up our lab waste, and b) has apparently given me a great radar for faculty who don't want to be treated/treat me first and foremost as a person. I saw my entire job in year 1 as "find a mentor who's smart but not an asshole," and I wish I'd had the ability to do the same when I was 23. Because I can't imagine trying desperately to avoid my current advisor like Lego Grad Student; my advisor's a pretty great human being, and there are plenty of other things to talk about if either of us are temporarily all burned out on thinking about science.
posted by deludingmyself at 6:29 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
But damn it all if I'm not having a blast this time around. If I had to credit one thing besides the extra decade of perspective, which makes it easier to a) see people as people, whether they're senior faculty or admins (love our department admins) or the folks who come pick up our lab waste, and b) has apparently given me a great radar for faculty who don't want to be treated/treat me first and foremost as a person. I saw my entire job in year 1 as "find a mentor who's smart but not an asshole," and I wish I'd had the ability to do the same when I was 23. Because I can't imagine trying desperately to avoid my current advisor like Lego Grad Student; my advisor's a pretty great human being, and there are plenty of other things to talk about if either of us are temporarily all burned out on thinking about science.
posted by deludingmyself at 6:29 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
To build off of ChuraChura's comment, my stipend (on Long Island) was $15k when I started grad school, and went up to $17k by the time I graduated. I paid for all my fieldwork expenses out of pocket, as well as most of my conference travel.
Many events with food were potluck, since the department didn't budget much for providing food at events. (I spent rather a lot of money on food to bring to department potlucks, since inevitably most people would sign up for soda or cookies, and *someone* needs to bring a main dish...)
For other events, food was purchased out of the graduate students' annual "club" budget from the Graduate Student Organization - so we would go buy the food and eventually get reimbursed by GSO. So yeah, when I ordered the bagels and picked up the bagels and paid for the bagels out of my own pocket, and waited several months for reimbursement (if I got reimbursed at all), I didn't feel too badly about taking an extra bagel.
posted by pemberkins at 6:52 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Many events with food were potluck, since the department didn't budget much for providing food at events. (I spent rather a lot of money on food to bring to department potlucks, since inevitably most people would sign up for soda or cookies, and *someone* needs to bring a main dish...)
For other events, food was purchased out of the graduate students' annual "club" budget from the Graduate Student Organization - so we would go buy the food and eventually get reimbursed by GSO. So yeah, when I ordered the bagels and picked up the bagels and paid for the bagels out of my own pocket, and waited several months for reimbursement (if I got reimbursed at all), I didn't feel too badly about taking an extra bagel.
posted by pemberkins at 6:52 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think there's a level of meta-critique going on here too, where the grad student's self-pity and catastrophising thought patterns are part of the joke.
Having said that, there are so many places this could go. I'm looking forward to:
The Lego Foreign Post Doc:
Six months after getting his visa and moving to the other side of the world to take up his post, the Post Doc realises that his life outside of work consists solely of 10.30 p.m. trudges through the snow to the Tesco closest to campus.
posted by Sonny Jim at 6:59 AM on August 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
Having said that, there are so many places this could go. I'm looking forward to:
The Lego Foreign Post Doc:
Six months after getting his visa and moving to the other side of the world to take up his post, the Post Doc realises that his life outside of work consists solely of 10.30 p.m. trudges through the snow to the Tesco closest to campus.
posted by Sonny Jim at 6:59 AM on August 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
And this is not to say I don't love my research - obviously I do, or I would have figured out a different thing to do with my life. But, the experience of graduate school can also be isolating and draining and challenging to explain to my family and non-academic friends and I do spend a lot of time second guessing my research and my self and my interactions with my advisors and important people in the field. I don't think it's because I'm woefully immature; I don't think that I treat people terribly; I'm pretty sure I'm not just too young and privileged to know otherwise. I think grad school is just a weird thing, and it's amusing to see a LEGO guy in the same boat. I just got back from a mega conference and I had a great time and I froze up when I had the opportunity to introduce myself to a few important scholars and I went back for a third cookie.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:02 AM on August 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 7:02 AM on August 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
Just to clarify - the issue with the cookies, sandwiches, etc, is not the unspeakable gluttony of eating until you are full but the sad fact that two sandwiches for you may mean zero sandwiches for Clelia because her clinic ran late, and the even sadder fact that one kited sandwich for you may mean that the post-doc candidate with the food allergies gets no lunch at all.
If there is one thing I have observed, it is that grad students and others who don't do anything with the budget process often perceive the department as a sort of dragon with a vast hoard of gold/sandwiches/cookies/staff time which is being unjustly withheld. At a private university with a large endowment this may well be true, but at a public university, the department often just doesn't have the money. We can't go to central and say "we would like to send a grad student to do field work, give us $10,000 over and above our annual budget".
Is money mis-allocated at universities? Sure, all the time. Is it mis-allocated at the department level? Sure, sometimes, but not as often as you'd think. Even here, in the land of the really fairly good stipend and the program-provided pizza lunch, there's a real scramble to pay for stuff.
A lot of the arguing over how to spend money isn't frivolous and dumb - it comes down to, for instance, when you have two or three really good candidates for a fellowship and no alternative source of funds. You've got one fellowship and three people, and maybe if you scrounge around there's enough discretionary funds to support two of them, maybe; but in any case, at least one good candidate won't get funding. Those meetings are not fun, and it's not because faculty are being shitty and playing favorites. (I mean, sometimes I'm sure it is, but the meetings I've been in have been rather grim.)
In a healthy program that is adequately supported, most faculty most of the time want their grad students to get a fair shake. I've seen people who are not, perhaps, the world's most stellar mentors on an interpersonal level really go to bat for their students at an institutional level.
The biggest problem for public universities is declining state commitment, itself rooted, IMO, in post-sixties backlash. (Hatred of the idea that young people were coming out of the university with progressive ideas, hatred of the fact that the university was becoming less of a white straight elite guy place, etc.) The underpinnings of our program are NIH grants - state commitment to training researchers and clinicians. Without those, we'd be paying people $8000 and making them buy their own pipettes because we would have zero dollars.*
*There's some faculty salary issues - tenured faculty make a lot - and some adjunctification, but in programs like the one I work for, when you look at the numbers even knocking faculty salary down quite a bit would not make up for NIH support if we lost it. The underlying problem is declining state support.
posted by Frowner at 7:31 AM on August 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
If there is one thing I have observed, it is that grad students and others who don't do anything with the budget process often perceive the department as a sort of dragon with a vast hoard of gold/sandwiches/cookies/staff time which is being unjustly withheld. At a private university with a large endowment this may well be true, but at a public university, the department often just doesn't have the money. We can't go to central and say "we would like to send a grad student to do field work, give us $10,000 over and above our annual budget".
Is money mis-allocated at universities? Sure, all the time. Is it mis-allocated at the department level? Sure, sometimes, but not as often as you'd think. Even here, in the land of the really fairly good stipend and the program-provided pizza lunch, there's a real scramble to pay for stuff.
A lot of the arguing over how to spend money isn't frivolous and dumb - it comes down to, for instance, when you have two or three really good candidates for a fellowship and no alternative source of funds. You've got one fellowship and three people, and maybe if you scrounge around there's enough discretionary funds to support two of them, maybe; but in any case, at least one good candidate won't get funding. Those meetings are not fun, and it's not because faculty are being shitty and playing favorites. (I mean, sometimes I'm sure it is, but the meetings I've been in have been rather grim.)
In a healthy program that is adequately supported, most faculty most of the time want their grad students to get a fair shake. I've seen people who are not, perhaps, the world's most stellar mentors on an interpersonal level really go to bat for their students at an institutional level.
The biggest problem for public universities is declining state commitment, itself rooted, IMO, in post-sixties backlash. (Hatred of the idea that young people were coming out of the university with progressive ideas, hatred of the fact that the university was becoming less of a white straight elite guy place, etc.) The underpinnings of our program are NIH grants - state commitment to training researchers and clinicians. Without those, we'd be paying people $8000 and making them buy their own pipettes because we would have zero dollars.*
*There's some faculty salary issues - tenured faculty make a lot - and some adjunctification, but in programs like the one I work for, when you look at the numbers even knocking faculty salary down quite a bit would not make up for NIH support if we lost it. The underlying problem is declining state support.
posted by Frowner at 7:31 AM on August 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
at a public university, the department often just doesn't have the money
I understand this; the issue in my own graduate department was the frequency with which grad students were asked to contribute out of pocket in lieu of department funding for a given event. I spent several years as the person asking other grad students to donate to food funds, honorarium funds, etc etc etc, and then covering the difference between donations and our budget needs out of my own pocket because at the end of the day I was the person who'd get yelled at if we didn't get things done as expected. I'd prefer we just changed expectations for department events (e.g., "we don't have money for food at x event any more, please eat beforehand") instead of asking the grads to pay for it. I loved our department admins (they are heroes and saints) - it's the faculty that had unreasonable expectations.
posted by pemberkins at 7:44 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
I understand this; the issue in my own graduate department was the frequency with which grad students were asked to contribute out of pocket in lieu of department funding for a given event. I spent several years as the person asking other grad students to donate to food funds, honorarium funds, etc etc etc, and then covering the difference between donations and our budget needs out of my own pocket because at the end of the day I was the person who'd get yelled at if we didn't get things done as expected. I'd prefer we just changed expectations for department events (e.g., "we don't have money for food at x event any more, please eat beforehand") instead of asking the grads to pay for it. I loved our department admins (they are heroes and saints) - it's the faculty that had unreasonable expectations.
posted by pemberkins at 7:44 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Our minimum stipend for funded graduate students is $13,500 as of this year
That was my stipend at grad school as well, to within a few Canuck dollars. Of course, that was 1990. With the scholarships, I felt very lucky with $17,000.
posted by bonehead at 9:07 AM on August 29, 2016
That was my stipend at grad school as well, to within a few Canuck dollars. Of course, that was 1990. With the scholarships, I felt very lucky with $17,000.
posted by bonehead at 9:07 AM on August 29, 2016
I find these funny, but they aren't that reflective of my own experiences. For me, it was beginning grad student - "Free pizza? I'm there" to dissertation mode grad student - "Free pizza? From WHERE?". I was also blessed with a PI who was willing to foot the bill for coffee on a semi-regular basis, so long as we were willing to make the pilgrimage back and forth from the coffee shop to bring it to her. (Which we did, several times daily, whether she paid or not, because coffee.)
I had a lot of fun (along with the stress, occasional crushing disappointment, and hard work). I wish more people had that kind of experience, to be honest. Even though I had a pretty good gig myself, I witnessed enough horror stories to sympathize with the scenes here. Too many students end up in a work factory lab where they are used to pump out data and then discarded if they can't hack it. I try to be nice to the students I work with (even if my editorial comments provide them some occasional crushing disappointment!), and I am happy to buy coffee (got to pay it forward!). I don't want to be the prof causing PTSD in the current crop of PhD students...
posted by caution live frogs at 9:16 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
I had a lot of fun (along with the stress, occasional crushing disappointment, and hard work). I wish more people had that kind of experience, to be honest. Even though I had a pretty good gig myself, I witnessed enough horror stories to sympathize with the scenes here. Too many students end up in a work factory lab where they are used to pump out data and then discarded if they can't hack it. I try to be nice to the students I work with (even if my editorial comments provide them some occasional crushing disappointment!), and I am happy to buy coffee (got to pay it forward!). I don't want to be the prof causing PTSD in the current crop of PhD students...
posted by caution live frogs at 9:16 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
That was my stipend at UBC as well, to within a few dollars. Of course, that was 1990.
...that's my stipend right now, at UBC. In 2016.
posted by btfreek at 9:17 AM on August 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
...that's my stipend right now, at UBC. In 2016.
posted by btfreek at 9:17 AM on August 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
Although after hitting post, I feel compelled to be fair and say that that's the base stipend, before TAships (our TAs are unionized). And, in my department at least, the base stipend is standardized so PIs can't pay you less because you're getting extra revenue from teaching. Which is not the case for other departments, as I found out from my friend just a couple weeks ago (!!) -- like was said above, I really wish there was some sort of repository of this kind of information available to students.
posted by btfreek at 9:36 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by btfreek at 9:36 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
To be clear, that $13.5k was the total amount we got from the university, TA wages + supervisor stipend. Each were roughly 50% of that total amount.
posted by bonehead at 9:43 AM on August 29, 2016
posted by bonehead at 9:43 AM on August 29, 2016
Okay, that makes a lot more sense, considering how much cost of living in the area has increased in the intervening years. My department has the issue of simply not having a lot of TA spots -- I'm lucky in that a) I enjoy teaching and b) faculty know me as decent at it, so I'm in a pretty good position. But there have been quite a few people in my lab and others, mostly international students, who are shut out completely and have to take the base stipend as it is.
posted by btfreek at 10:13 AM on August 29, 2016
posted by btfreek at 10:13 AM on August 29, 2016
I keep thinking about this thread and the Tumblr. I think if I could wish for something, it would be to give other students more faith in their ideas. For me, coming from years of pro design, I have had a lot of experience in working really hard on something and then getting a lot of "feedback" — some of it useful, some of it wildly informed, all of it hard to take on a few hours sleep. But eventually you get used to it; you learn how to take and leave things, how to cry because your feelings are hurt and go back to working; how to tell the difference between your work and your self.
Being poor sucks, and I get those complaints, but the thing that drives me nuts is all the whining about soul crushing. Believe in yourselves buddies, because sometimes you'll be the only one who can, and you need it! You have to believe that your self is already worthy to get your work to the place it belongs.
posted by dame at 10:45 AM on August 29, 2016
Being poor sucks, and I get those complaints, but the thing that drives me nuts is all the whining about soul crushing. Believe in yourselves buddies, because sometimes you'll be the only one who can, and you need it! You have to believe that your self is already worthy to get your work to the place it belongs.
posted by dame at 10:45 AM on August 29, 2016
Being poor sucks, and I get those complaints, but the thing that drives me nuts is all the whining about soul crushing. Believe in yourselves buddies, because sometimes you'll be the only one who can, and you need it!
I appreciate what you’re saying, but the reality is that for a huge number of grad students, believing in themselves doesn’t actually mean much, because the jobs aren’t there, and the real burden of graduate school is not merely temporary poverty, but temporary poverty combined with institutional and educational dysfunction.
I think a lot of current grad student malaise is not just about the work, but is also about the environment of the work. I made $12,500 a year for seven years. I specifically chose a school where that was almost doable, if I had summer jobs and no expenses. But it isn’t just the money, and it isn’t just the work.
It’s the most prominent faculty telling you that spending any time on teaching is a waste of your time, while the people farming out teaching assignments tell you it should be your most important priority, while the jobs you want to apply for want 40 page dossiers to prove your teaching excellence.
It’s people who got tenure in 1979 telling you that applying to a regional state school is “throwing yourself away”, in a year where there are three other jobs in your field in the entire country.
It’s weekly emails from the University president, who is bringing business principles to education! This means that graduate students are being asked to teach three more credits a semester, with no increased pay, their parking passes will no longer be charged at the student rate, their health care is being downgraded again, the business school is now being sponsored by the Koch brothers which means certain topics are literally banned from being taught, and the classrooms have leaking ceilings but the University is building a 90 million dollar luxury dorm for the school’s athletes.
It’s being told that it would look a lot better for your CV if you attended some international conferences, while knowing that the maximum amount you will be reimbursed for the required airfare/hotel is $300 per year.
It’s my friend, who was literally told by her committee that she might want to reconsider running a food blog that she did for fun with a friend, because it make her look like she didn’t take her career seriously, because having hobbies "looks bad" if you're an academic.
I feel like you are implying that people who feel dehumanized by a fundamentally dehumanizing system are the ones who need to pick themselves up, somehow. But believe me, the low pay was far and away the easiest part of academia in my experience.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:59 PM on August 29, 2016 [8 favorites]
I appreciate what you’re saying, but the reality is that for a huge number of grad students, believing in themselves doesn’t actually mean much, because the jobs aren’t there, and the real burden of graduate school is not merely temporary poverty, but temporary poverty combined with institutional and educational dysfunction.
I think a lot of current grad student malaise is not just about the work, but is also about the environment of the work. I made $12,500 a year for seven years. I specifically chose a school where that was almost doable, if I had summer jobs and no expenses. But it isn’t just the money, and it isn’t just the work.
It’s the most prominent faculty telling you that spending any time on teaching is a waste of your time, while the people farming out teaching assignments tell you it should be your most important priority, while the jobs you want to apply for want 40 page dossiers to prove your teaching excellence.
It’s people who got tenure in 1979 telling you that applying to a regional state school is “throwing yourself away”, in a year where there are three other jobs in your field in the entire country.
It’s weekly emails from the University president, who is bringing business principles to education! This means that graduate students are being asked to teach three more credits a semester, with no increased pay, their parking passes will no longer be charged at the student rate, their health care is being downgraded again, the business school is now being sponsored by the Koch brothers which means certain topics are literally banned from being taught, and the classrooms have leaking ceilings but the University is building a 90 million dollar luxury dorm for the school’s athletes.
It’s being told that it would look a lot better for your CV if you attended some international conferences, while knowing that the maximum amount you will be reimbursed for the required airfare/hotel is $300 per year.
It’s my friend, who was literally told by her committee that she might want to reconsider running a food blog that she did for fun with a friend, because it make her look like she didn’t take her career seriously, because having hobbies "looks bad" if you're an academic.
I feel like you are implying that people who feel dehumanized by a fundamentally dehumanizing system are the ones who need to pick themselves up, somehow. But believe me, the low pay was far and away the easiest part of academia in my experience.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:59 PM on August 29, 2016 [8 favorites]
You realize that everyone has dysfunctional things about their jobs, right? And people who tell them what they are doing is dumb and they should do something else and a boss that wants to get more work for less money? That we are all dehumanized in that sense? As a non-miserable grad student, I just want to say — learn who to ignore. (And agitate and unionize because it is fucked up! And you should be mad!) But it's really not that much worse than anyone else has it and you have the chance to do what you want and you should try to enjoy that part, because that is what you miss when you have a different job.
Obviously if someone is clinically depressed, they should get appropriate help and I am not saying "Bootstrap yourself, wuss!" — I most emphatically am not. But I do think grad student culture and the narrative around it sometimes makes it easier to be crushed than to stand up for yourself. And that makes me sad.
posted by dame at 2:06 PM on August 29, 2016
Obviously if someone is clinically depressed, they should get appropriate help and I am not saying "Bootstrap yourself, wuss!" — I most emphatically am not. But I do think grad student culture and the narrative around it sometimes makes it easier to be crushed than to stand up for yourself. And that makes me sad.
posted by dame at 2:06 PM on August 29, 2016
So if people aren't up for bootstrapping, they must be clinically depressed?
You seem to have this belief that if graduate students are struggling, then that is on them, or their mental health, rather than their conditions, because your own conditions are good. That's...not a very reasonable position to take.
Also, I have worked in multiple industries, and I work outside of academia now. The lack of professionalism and workplace support in academia is unmatched, in my experience. That doesn't mean my experience is universal. But based on 90% of the academics I know, it is systemic, and it is cultural.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:50 AM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
You seem to have this belief that if graduate students are struggling, then that is on them, or their mental health, rather than their conditions, because your own conditions are good. That's...not a very reasonable position to take.
Also, I have worked in multiple industries, and I work outside of academia now. The lack of professionalism and workplace support in academia is unmatched, in my experience. That doesn't mean my experience is universal. But based on 90% of the academics I know, it is systemic, and it is cultural.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:50 AM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
For anyone interested, we just received notification that the minimum stipend has increased to $15,000!
posted by ChuraChura at 10:53 AM on August 30, 2016
posted by ChuraChura at 10:53 AM on August 30, 2016
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posted by ennui.bz at 4:12 PM on August 28, 2016 [25 favorites]