Fun list, quilter, and indeed somewhat recognizable.
I wasn’t aware that Graduate life is so difficult in the U.S. Since in Europe we mostly only see the famous professors who have been succesfull, it is easy to forget the squalor beneath the academic glory. I never considered European universities to be well-paying, but at least a graduate student who has received a grant does not have to live in extreme poverty. It still is hard work, however.
Oh my goodness. That list… I could have written half of it and I’m not even in grad school yet. I think it indicates that it could indeed be the right place for me. Reading that was just so creepy.
I’m going to go back to designing my summer curriculum now.
I’m in the fourth year of a PhD program in history. I got the MA after the first two years, and it will probably take me about another two years to finish. I also have plenty of frineds in the same situation, and other friends who have finished their PhDs and are now working as academics.
Much of the OP’s quoted piece rings very true, and i certainly worry about my chances of getting a decent job and having a fulfilling career, but so far i’m also really enjoying myself.
On the money issue
When i entered my program, i was promised four years of full funding, that is, all tuition fees paid, plus a stipend to live on. In my program, that stipend was $12,000 a year when i started, and has since risen to $14,000. I was lucky enough to get an extra fellowship, which paid me an extra $5,000 a year for the first three years.
This isn’t a whole lot of money, but in a cheap city like Baltimore (esp. regarding rent) it is actually possible to live on this sort of income. I have also managed to supplement my income by doing some research work for professors on the side.
Two years ago (i.e., two years after i arrived), my department increased its standard fellowship to five years of funding, because they were having trouble competing financially with some other schools. Unfortunately, this was not made retroactive, so my own funding is just about over. I did, however, manage to score an outside fellowship for next year, so i should be able to scrape by for at least another year without having to rely on any loans.
The problem is that, now that i am no longer getting departmental funding, i am considered by the university to be a “non-resident” student. This means that i am liable for paying my own tuition. Now, this is not a whole lot of money, but it’s still enough to put a hole in the bank account. Because non-resident grad students are not meant to really be on campus at all, and are not considered much of a drain on university resources, they only have to pay 10% of the full tuition rate. Full tuition at my school, however, is around $29,000 a year, so i’m still going to have to find almost three grand in fees next year.
On the “cheap source of labor” issue
Because i attend a university with a relatively low undergraduate:grad student ratio, my teaching duties are rather light. In exchange for four years of funding, i am expected to provide four semesters (i.e., two years) of teaching assitance to the department. In each of semester of teaching, i have never had more than two sections, and never more than a total of 30 students (~15 per section). I know grad students at big state universities who sometimes have to TA for upwards of 60-80 students per semester. Needless to say, all the class attendance and grading that this involves makes it much harder to complete your own work.
One thing that makes it harder for me to supplement my income is the fact that i’m an international student. My F1 student visa places quite stringent restrictions on the type of work that i am allowed to do in the US. Essentially, i can only take on-campus jobs, and cannot just apply to work as a clerk in a bookstore or as a bartender in order to make extra cash.
Knowing that so many students cannot look elsewhere for work, the university takes advantage of this captive labor market by paying ridiculously low wages to students workers. Work in the library can pay as low as $7.50 an hour, and never goes above $10. And the pay for some of the other positions on campus is even more unbelievable, given the job requirements. Here’s a job currently listed on our university’s jog page:
Now, i may be out of touch with the real world, and i know that the recent dot-com problems means that supply of computer people is outstripping demand, but this seems like pretty low pay for a job of this type.
Anyway, i was lucky enough i my second summer to get a job doing historical research for some doctors who had a grant, and they paid me $18 an hour. And i’ve been maintaining a course website for a professor at the rate of $12 an hour this year, with another similar contract on the horizon, so i’ve been pretty lucky.
Getting a job after the PhD
This is probably the most stressful situation that a grad student has to face, at least in my field. The supply of new PhDs far outstrips the demand for their services. Most of my friends who have finished have gone on to pretty good jobs, some to outstanding jobs, but there are many others who end up working as adjuncts for year after year, never having benefits or a secure job. Still others just give up and move on to a different field altogether.
It’s even harder for people like me and my girlfriend (soon to be wife). We are both in grad school studying history, and we realize that the chance of both of us getting decent jobs in the same city is very, very small. We may end up in a situation where we have to live apart for a while, or where one of us gets a good academic job and the other one follows and tried to get a job of any sort in the same city.
Grad schools themselves don’t help the situation. They tend to take far more students than there will ever me a market for, and generally make no effort to apprise potential students of the terrible state of the job market. The experiences of a few of my friends also suggests that history departments are no better than any other employers when it comes to treating job applicants like human beings. Applications often aren’t even acknowledged, and even if you’re one of the final three candidates (out of a field of 100-200), this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get a straight answer.
One friend of mine went for a job at a run-of-the-mill, relatively unknown state university. He made the final cut, and they flew him up to their campus for an on-campus interview and job talk. Despite the fact that he was one of the final three candidates, they didn’t even have the courtesy to inform him that he missed out on the job. He got his revenge, however: he’s spending next year at an Ivy League school on a prestigious post-doctoral fellowship, and is then moving on to a tenure-track position at an excellent private university in the south best known for its basketball team.
Anyway, despite all this, i still don’t regret starting grad school. I know i’ll never be rich, but if i can get a decent job at a decent school on a reasonably nice city, then i’ll be very happy, because i’ll be doing what i want to do.
Interestingly, someone i was speaking to yesterday took a jab at me, implying that the last thing that America needs is just another “liberal history teacher.”
Well, you show me a conservative who gets straight A’s in college, who scores in the top 1% on the GRE, and who is happy to spend at least six years studying for a job that starts at under $50,000 and will probably never provide an income of over $120,000 a year. The reason so many humanities teachers are liberals is not because conservatives can’t get into the academy; in most cases, they don’t want to because it doesn’t pay enough.
I read this article a while back and thought it was pretty good.
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/CollegeForAll/intro.html
Its about how many college degrees have no direct value in the labor market, how about half of people in college drop out because its too hard and how vocational and trade schools are not given enough of a serious look anymore.
Right now im doing a BS in chemistry but if that screws up i will probably just get a 1 year certificate in HVAC or medical technology. A good HVAC with some experience makes about 31k a year which is enough for me. plus i could start my own business.
Being an adjunct professor isn’t much better than being a grad student/T.A.
Just ask this guy.
Or this woman.
I don’t know these two personally, but there are tens of thousands of us out there.
I’m graduating in May! Yay for me!
I can’t complain about money. Sure, my first two years were spent living on the edge of poverty ($12,000) BUT I did not have to teach. I was paid to be in school, basically. It was kinda fun living off crackers and riding my bicycle everywhere.
I got a different fellowship my third year and since then I’ve been quite comfortable (relatively speaking…$16,000). I don’t live an excessive lifestyle, so I can afford occassional splurges. And since I still don’t have to teach, I cannot complain. I view the money as a blessing, not an entitlement. Especially since my veternarian sister has a debt and I don’t.
Because I’m a field biologist, most of my long hours were confined during the summer and fall. Come November, I could slump into a lazier lifestyle. You know…come into the lab around 11:00, check email, play an hour of Puzzle Inlay, chitchat with other grad students, eat lunch for two hours, check email…THEN maybe get around to doing a bit of literature searching/ manuscript writing. Leave for home around 4:00. I’m exaggerating, but not much. I did do a few all-nighters, usually in preparation for a conference or while I was writing my thesis, but I can’t say I was a slave.
My experience as a grad student has been fun, overall. There have been some on-the-verge-of-insanity moments (like right before my qualifying exams or like the time a 20-page term paper permantly disappeared on my floppy disk and I had to rewrite it from memory). There have been some dark days when I was depressed and hated my grad student experience (and seriously thought about running away/suicide). BUT…it’s been a life of freedom. I pick my own hours, pick my own workload, pick who I want to associate with, pick what I want to study. I like interacting with professors on an equal level and serving as an authority figure for undergrads. I like being able to dress like a bum. I enjoy the comradie of graduate students.
The job search thing has been stressful. There’s pressure to do a postdoc right away, but I’m psychological unwilling to do research right now. Maybe a few months from now, I will be ready. But right now I just want a job, even if it’s temporary hourly work. I’m confident that I will eventually find a career and lifestyle that makes me happy. I find this time stressful, but also exciting.
It took me 5 years to finish, so it doesn’t have to take forever.
As a 10th year grad student here (I think I’m in 24th grade), I’ve got to say that it really depends on both the field and the University. I’m in a field where we still need PhDs. Good for me, I can get a job. In fact, I’ve got one waiting. But, paying for the whole thing has not been fun. In exchange for 20 hours of work per week, I’ve had my tuition covered and had a stipend of very little money. I’ve had to take out loans to cover rent since I’m just too damn old and cranky to live with a roommate, but that was my choice. Then I got married and the roommate issue settled itself.
People in my field at other Universities have different funding experiences, and govenmentally-determined funding levels (if one is payed via grant funding) don’t take cost of living into account. It can be a trade-off between who you want to work with and how much you can afford to live without. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.
And if you are a superstar in your field, which very few of us are, none of this really matters anyway, because you’ll probably get a great offer, finish quickly, get a great job at a great University and wonder what all the whining was about.
Quilter, I love that list. The only thing I’ve seen on it before that you are missing is:
*
drat drat drat
You know you’re a grad student if:
*you’ve ever read a journal article in a bar
Just to clarify for those who might think otherwise: It’s not my list; it’s a living net document. I saw a much simpler version when I was in grad school lo! these many years ago. I’m pretty sure the first verision I saw didn’t mention “laptops”, fex – and in my field, we’re considerably more concerned about Chicago style than APA.
Different fields, different grasshoppers!
I’m just finishing up my MA in Political Science, and then I’m getting out of here! (As soon as I find a job . . .) We were paid around $12,000 a year, in return for either doing very detailed, extensive research for professors, or teaching three section, 30 students in each, each semester.
They say you’re supposed to spend around 20 hours a week on it, but 30 hours a week was not unheard of, and the professors paid lip service to the first while expecting the second. And, of course, being first and second year grad students, we sucked it up and went along, because that’s what everyone else was doing, right?
I’ve had to take out loans, but I was able to get through undergrad without needing them, so I’m not that far in debt.
There’s also the fact that you won’t graduate until your committee decides you’re ready to. I wanted to get out of here in 5 years, max. My committee almost laughed at me when I told them that. No way was I going to be able to write a Theory dissertation in two years. Two years for MA, one more year of classes, comps, then, at least four years to write the stupid dissertation. I just about ran away screaming when I heard that.
I don’t think I can handle another year of this. That’s why I’m applying for jobs right now. Of course, if I don’t hear anything soon, you’re going to see me at the side of the road, holding a sign that says “Will analyse political situations for food!” 
Lordy, does this thread hit close to home. I’m printing it out to show to the next bazillion folks who want an explanation as to why I, a Ph.D. from one of the leading biomedical research universities on the planet, decided to quit research and take up teaching high school.
I started grad school having only myself to worry about and wasn’t bothered by the sacrifices required. By the time I finished grad school, I was married and the father of a newborn. Family came first, and I was unwilling and unable to make the time and monetary sacrifices that a successful career in science demands.
I feel my talents are far more appreciated now and I’m getting paid better with more benefits than when I was a grad student & post-doc. I have not one regret for walking away, my only regret is having not done it sooner.
Notice I said that humanities studies were mostly useless to society (NOT because, for example, Shakespeare is unimportant, but because a disertation about the role of role of relative pronouns in Twelfth Night is perfectly useless). Science is important; even the minor details can be extremely important.
But whether it’s important or not, and whether it fulfills your dreams or not, it’s STILL a rackett! You are forced to write a dissertation whether that’s really the way to do research or not. You are forced to play the grad student role and put in the labor hours. The profs have their tickets punched and have a lifetime gig. Meanwhile, you go through the hoops. Is all this based on merit and what is fair? Hell no. It’s a rackett run for the profs and all the other vested interests in academe.
If you are going to be paid low and put through hoops anyway, why not just do physics research on your own–or why not start your own research institute? Nothing says that you have to play their game.
Graduated with my M.A. in English in 1995. Currently working on my MLS – so yes, I’m a glutton for punishment. :smack:
Yes, I think grad school really is that crappy. I’ve had an interesting contrast between my first master’s and my second. In the course of my first master’s, I T.A.'d in English 101 classes – I had two or three per semester, if I remember correctly. And I took several courses of my own. Got paid a stipend of $800 a month and could buy into my own health insurance relatively cheaply. No dental.
I remember practically dreaming about expensive cuts of meat, like steak, which I ate about once per year, and forget any kind of vacation or splurge spending whatsoever.
Still, it wasn’t a terrible deal, although I could have done better working any job in the"real world." The real rub was this: when I graduated, there were absolutely no jobs that used my degree. Whatsoever. I ended up a postal worker for two years (h*ll) and then a librarian, which at least uses my degree a bit.
My MLS has no financial assistance available, and I’ve never been offered any kind of on-campus job whatsoever. If I hadn’t scored a fellowship from the state, I’d be about $8000 in the hole right now. On the plus side, this is a very practical master’s, so I do have a prayer of getting a job.
The crappy thing about being a librarian (esp. an academic librarian) is that even with two master’s degrees, you’re looking at a starting salary of $35,000 a year if you’re lucky. Ridiculous. :mad:
Mrs. Furthur
quilter, that’s a great list, although scarily true to life.
I think a lot of undergrads considering graduate school don’t even think about this factor. Part of the reason why I chose not to pursue a PhD is that I wasn’t willing to ask my husband to follow me around the country as I looked for a tenure-track job. The low pay and long hours are okay when you’re single, but they can put a real strain on a relationship. And I have no idea how parents who are also grad students pull it off.
I would say that yes, grad school really is this lousy.
I am just finishing up my third year in a Classics PhD program. I have an MA at this point and no longer have to take classes, both of which are very good things.
My general impression of grad school is that it is multi-year hazing. Long hours, impossible tasks to accomplish, all because that’s what the professors claim they had to do when they were in school. Funny, you’d think they’d have a bit more empathy if that were really the case. If you show weakness, they tell you “It’ll be worse when you’re a junior professor” and file you mentally under “likely to drop out”.
The funding is a joke, Boston is the 3rd or 4th most expensive housing market in America and I make $14,000 of the course of 8 months, with only 4 years of available funding and no summer funding. I have worries about my employability all the time, not just because of the applicant to job ratio (which in Classics is not nearly so bad as in some other humanities disciplines) but because this is definitely not one of the prestige PhD programs in the field.
I am dating someone else in the program here, which is good from a “spend time together” point of view but brings up the inevitable “we will never get jobs in the same place” issues.
It just really sucks that there are weeks when I feel guilty about going grocery shopping or doing my dishes because I should be working on schoolwork during that time instead. That’s not a healthy attitude to have.
I just defended my dissertation in March and am dealing with the reality of no teaching-related job prospects in my field. In the seven years I’ve spent total in graduate school (one year for the M.A., two years of PhD coursework and then the rest spent researching and writing my dissertation), I saw plenty of colleagues drop out or burn out and go on to other things. I was lucky in that I received a stipend and had tuition waived for the three years of coursework, which was an incredibly generous thing. I was also able to maintain a healthy social life during that period, which may explain why it took me so long to complete the dissertation.
At the moment, there are virtually no teaching jobs for which I’m qualified, and I’m starting to give up the idea of ever landing one. I don’t necessarily think I wasted my time in graduate school because I really enjoyed it–even the dissertation part–and greatly value the experience. It does, however, occur to me that I possibly could have spent those years pursuing some other career and establishing a professional life for myself in some other arena.
To add to herownself’s addition to the list, I have also corrected student papers in a bar, a pint of Guinness close at hand.
Best time of my life, grad school.
I got paid to do physics!
I got enough money to live on. Not a lot, but enough. Certainly not “Dickensian” by a long stretch.
I got paid to do physics!!
My time was my own. If I wanted to go rock climbing several times a week, I could (and did).
I got paid to do physics!!!
I worked with colleagues and wrote and published journal articles like real researchers do. When I had enough I pasted them together and had a dissertation.
I got paid to do physics!!!
Yes, jobs are few and far between in academia. You need to be flexible about where you live, or else be flexible about what you want to do. I landed somewhere in between: stayed in one place, but now I’m teaching rather than doing research. But
I got paid to do physics!!!
Useless? Well, I certainly couldn’t teach physics if I hadn’t learned physics, though what I teach I mostly learned as an undergraduate. But even if I had gotten a non-physics related job (as many of my colleagues did), I still would have been using the problem-solving skills I learned as a physicist. I think this must also be true of other areas. If you write a disstertation on China in the 3rd century BC, you most likely will not ever use those facts again, unless you become a professor of Chinese history. But you will have learned to dig up information, organize it into a coherent configuration, and present your ideas in writing. Those are useful skills in many fields.
So, if you’re doing it for money, fame, and glory, don’t do it. Only do it if you love it.
And those free summers are really nice.
Where can I sign up for one of those? Never had one while in grad school; The Dissertation wouldn’t allow it. Never had one while adjuncting; Personal Finances wouldn’t allow it.
As for the OP: Yes. Yes, it is.
Yeah, no free summer here either. Due to the no summer funding issue, I must simultaneously earn enough to keep a roof over my head (see above comment about Boston rents) and Make Progress Towards My Degree[sup]TM[/sup], which the faculty all interpret as meaning “spend at least 40 hours a week all summer reading, researching, etc”: no word on where they think my rent is coming from…
I wish I hadn’t opened this thread, it’s put me in a really shitty mood about my life. Usually I’m ok with being a grad student, but with final papers and finals and comprehensive exams and the summer with all its woes approaching, I’m really not too happy right now.
I’m going to request that a mod close this thread as it seems to be depressing a lot of highly educated people.