I've always thought that PhD students should band together and refuse to run experiments for one week. The shock that might have on the current academic system, when administrators, managers, supervisors and project leaders start to realise that their careers depend on a constant supply of dependent serfs might shake things up.
Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
11–20 of 97 posts
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#12Earlier 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.
I think the same incentive is present in the "real world." As a manager, it was in my short term self interest to inflate performance reviews. The company was aware of this, and imposed quotas, which only amplified the incentive but made the reviews less effective and more political.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#13Grad 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.
That's not exactly how it works. Professors can use grant money to buy out of teaching; they are not forfeiting their base salary. That money will be (indirectly) used to fund other instructors, which may be grad students. It's not like the department head forces an unsuspecting grad student to teach; if they choose to teach, they will be paid for their teaching (tuition + stipend) so that they do not need to be funded by their advisor's grants. The money has to come from somewhere.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#14I've always thought that PhD students should band together and refuse to run experiments for one week. The shock that might have on the current academic system, when administrators, managers, supervisors and project leaders start to realise that their careers depend on a constant supply of dependent serfs might shake things up.
There's always more willing serfs where they came from, especially after the NSF started overfilling the pipeline in the mid-late '80s insisting there was a terrible shortage of them. Of course, they just wanted to spend less money on scientific labor, and things like bringing in many foreigners helped that, while making the job even less attractive to natives.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#15Grad 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.
Fun fact: buying out usually means "use grant money to cover hiring an adjunct for a term," not forgoing salary. Adjuncts are cheap (they cost less than a grad student, since they don't get benefits), and a successful research semester tends to make that money back with interest in overhead from the next grant submitted.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#16From 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,…
As you said 'good professor'. It seems prestigious != good these days, even though prestigious does bring in money and can simplify a number of problems. From what I have seen in STEM at 'top' research institutions the true delineating factor is the professor/group you work in, money/grants is a second and project is 3rd.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#17From 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,…
As you said 'good professor'. It seems prestigious != good these days, even though prestigious does bring in money and can simplify a number of problems. From what I have seen in STEM at 'top' research institutions the true delineating factor is the professor/group you work in, money/grants is a second and project is 3rd.
I agree, although I think that's always been true to some extent, so I don't know if I'd add "these days". There are stories going back centuries of famous professors who were also famously jerks and horrible mentors. Some people are great at advancing math or chemistry (or [insert subject]) but really bad at mentoring new students. Other people are great at teaching the current knowledge and mentoring but not particularly amazing at advancing it. Others are great at one-on-one mentoring and research but kind of meh at teaching in a big lecture-hall setting. Still others can give great, engaging lectures to large audiences but are not so good at one-on-one mentorship. Top universities of course want to claim they're full of the unicorns, professors who are top-5% in all of: disciplinary research and interpersonal kindness and large-classroom teaching and 1-on-1 mentorship. But the odds are any individual will not be equally good at all of those tasks.
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#18[deleted]
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#19Grad 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.
That's not exactly how it works. Professors can use grant money to buy out of teaching; they are not forfeiting their base salary. That money will be (indirectly) used to fund other instructors, which may be grad students. It's not like the department head forces an unsuspecting grad student to teach; if they choose to teach, they will be paid for their teaching (tuition + stipend) so that they do not need to be fund…
So, the student gets the class at a discount?
Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
As you said 'good professor'. It seems prestigious != good these days, even though prestigious does bring in money and can simplify a number of problems. From what I have seen in STEM at 'top' research institutions the true delineating factor is the professor/group you work in, money/grants is a second and project is 3rd.
I agree, although I think that's always been true to some extent, so I don't know if I'd add "these days". There are stories going back centuries of famous professors who were also famously jerks and horrible mentors. Some people are great at advancing math or chemistry (or [insert subject]) but really bad at mentoring new students. Other people are great at teaching the current knowledge and mentoring but not partic…
Totally agreed. I have long been trying to figure out how an incoming graduate student may assess the quality of a professor beyond his academic publications and asking people who work with him. I have come to the conclusion that the best predictor is reputation amongst peers. I may be wrong here, but from what I have seen it usually is the most accurate. The issue is that there is no review site for professors outside of their teaching inside of classrooms. Would be very helpful in selecting mentors, imo.
Maybe even a matching market, much like medical residency in the US.