Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
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Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
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Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#2I'd never heard of the 2-week grade strike at Yale. That's bold.
My experience at a state-school, tier 1 research university was that the grad student TA workload varied greatly by department. I calculated I was making just under $25/hr while there with the time I put into TA responsibilities. It wasn't too bad.
Some friends in humanities were swamped though. Most because they cared a lot and spent a ton of time grading carefully.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#3Glad the NLRB gave decision in favor of the student unions. Though it is true that unionization in universities "would threaten to undermine the primary relationship, that of student to professor, advisee to mentor" , the grad students wouldn't have had to do this if the private universities with billions of dollars in endowments refused to provide basic and reasonable incentives.
NYU, for example only recently increased min pay to $15 per hour up from $10 after the union fought for like 2 years. It's a double edged sword to allow unions in universities, but given the state now, perhaps it's wise that they allowed them.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#4I'd never heard of the 2-week grade strike at Yale. That's bold. My experience at a state-school, tier 1 research university was that the grad student TA workload varied greatly by department. I calculated I was making just under $25/hr while there with the time I put into TA responsibilities. It wasn't too bad. Some friends in humanities were swamped though. Most because they cared a lot and spent a ton of time grad…
> Some friends in humanities were swamped though. Most because they cared a lot and spent a ton of time grading carefully.
huh, strange. for undergrad i went to a "good" UC and this is the opposite of what i saw in my humanities TAs. they either didn't give a shit and handed out A's like candy or graded on a rubric (i.e. did student posit counter-argument in paragraph N and support with primary sources in p. N+1) while paying little attention to content.
either way they certainly didn't seem stressed... unlike the STEM ta's... who were literally going gray in their mid 20s and clearly drank a lot.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#5Glad the NLRB gave decision in favor of the student unions. Though it is true that unionization in universities "would threaten to undermine the primary relationship, that of student to professor, advisee to mentor" , the grad students wouldn't have had to do this if the private universities with billions of dollars in endowments refused to provide basic and reasonable incentives. NYU, for example only recently incre…
>but given the state now
exactly. With number and salaries of administrators (and various non-education positions like sport coaches, etc.) swelling, i don't see why the grads performing the actual labor of education, serving direct business purpose of universities/colleges, shouldn't be let in on their share of the pie.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#6Grad students are absolutely that.
During my grad student days in a STEM program at a large state university, professors were occasionally able to "buy-out" of their regular course load and forfeit a percentage of their salary. The department head would then hunt for the next best thing - usually an unsuspecting grad research assistant to cover the offering.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#7I'd never heard of the 2-week grade strike at Yale. That's bold. My experience at a state-school, tier 1 research university was that the grad student TA workload varied greatly by department. I calculated I was making just under $25/hr while there with the time I put into TA responsibilities. It wasn't too bad. Some friends in humanities were swamped though. Most because they cared a lot and spent a ton of time grad…
> Some friends in humanities were swamped though. Most because they cared a lot and spent a ton of time grading carefully. huh, strange. for undergrad i went to a "good" UC and this is the opposite of what i saw in my humanities TAs. they either didn't give a shit and handed out A's like candy or graded on a rubric (i.e. did student posit counter-argument in paragraph N and support with primary sources in p. N+1) whi…
At least these days, most grad students and adjuncts depend heavily on student feedback for their continued jobs. It creates a perverse incentive for sure.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some friends in humanities were swamped though. Most because they cared a lot and spent a ton of time grading carefully. huh, strange. for undergrad i went to a "good" UC and this is the opposite of what i saw in my humanities TAs. they either didn't give a shit and handed out A's like candy or graded on a rubric (i.e. did student posit counter-argument in paragraph N and support with primary sources in p. N+1) whi…
At least these days, most grad students and adjuncts depend heavily on student feedback for their continued jobs. It creates a perverse incentive for sure.
A very perverse incentive: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/13/what-incentivizes-profess.... It also creates an incentive to avoid anything that could be considered remotely controversial, as I discovered the hard way a while ago. I was fine, but I didn't have to be.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#9At the University of Oregon it seems almost a yearly occurrence that grad students strike, usually a week or two before finals need to be graded. I'm apathetic to the ordeal because whether its administrators, professors, or grad students, getting payed, I'm still stuck paying an egregious tuition.
That said in every department except for the Math department both professors and GTFs (graduate-teaching-fellows) have been top notch and gone above and beyond their duties to educate.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#10From various anecdotal evidence and talking to other graduate students (and going to Graduate School myself), it seems like the experiences vary a lot, and they seem to depend a lot on the amount of funding a field or a professor can attract.
For me personally, I had to teach one semester as a TA, but the Prof. I worked with was extremely helpful, and would pitch in to help when the workload was too much. After that, all my semesters were spent as an RA, which is a pretty awesome job if you work in the lab of a good professor and on an interesting project, which I did. And many of my friends pursuing graduate degrees in engineering seem to be in a similar position.