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Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

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Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#51

Post by xapata »

Cyph0n wrote: post #31
avani wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who said a grad student gets benefits? At my college at least, grad students are basically students with - if they're lucky - a stipend and a tuition waiver.

A student can buy into a group insurance plan, whereas a contract worker cannot.

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#52

Post by argonaut »

ben_jones wrote: post #39
nickfrostatx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always drop out if you feel the tuition is too high. We can talk all day about how much it ought to cost, but clearly you feel it's worth it to stay enrolled.

You can always avoid hospitals if you feel the cost is too high. We can talk all day about how much it ought to cost, but clearly you feel your health is worth it for continued check-ups.

Your analogy doesn't work, because of the existence of Medicaid. And the fact that emergency rooms must treat you no matter what.

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#53

Post by flowereaterz »

twblalock wrote: post #21
cup wrote: post #11

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.

There is no shortage of delusional people eager to sign up for this kind of serfdom.

Probably not too dissimilar to the delusional early employees who sign up for a startup hoping to make millions from their shares...

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#54

Post by hibikir »

dbcurtis wrote: post #24
danielmorozoff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outsi…

Yeah. I think getting plugged into the current grad students' social network and hearing about their profs is going to be good information. Of course, that is hard to do if you are coming across the country to grad school. Another thing to watch out for is to make a cold and cynical calculation about whether or not the PI will still be there when you are done with your thesis. My brother-in-law had his PI and another…

It's not an uncommon story: My wife's PI got cancer. 3 years in. In her case, she just abandoned the whole thing. A friend of mine's PI instead moved to UCLA from San Antonio, and didn't raise pay a cent, or provide relocation assistance, so people had to follow him. Given the fun rental agreements in Texas, leaving a lease mid way still makes you have to pay for it unless someone else occupies the apartment. This made my friend end up in a nice, multi thousand dollar hole. She did get her Ph.D, but seeing the life of the postdoc, she gave up on that route herself, and now teaches English in Japan, crushed by student debt.

Between all the stories like that I have, and the relatively low improvement in outcomes when things really work out, I am so very happy I ignored academia and went straight to industry.

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#55

Post by letitgo12345 »

btdiehr wrote: post #32
auxym wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you were downvoted because of the cynical tone, but that sounds pretty accurate in my experience. It's why I quit after a master's.

Academics spend a lot of time on the internet defending their poor decision of going into academia, as well as anyone who points out how obviously fruitless academia is. For most people it's nearly impossible to admit something they just dedicated a large portion of their life too was completely worthless. (standard disclaimer statement that of course there are exceptions to the trend.)

Sure if your only goal is to make money...I am a CS PhD and at least in this area, believe it or not, I really haven't met many academics who regretted their choices.

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#56

Post by ikeyany »

harryh wrote: post #34
makecheck wrote: post #30

A couple of anecdotes that really drive me crazy. One, the amount of money universities can shovel at athletics is insane . It cannot be justified, I don’t care how many reasons you come up with. They pay millions to build stadiums, pay coaches, etc. while throwing chump change at people doing academic work. I have also seen hundreds of thousands of dollars thrown at things like ugly artwork and statues. Two, the “ch…

At least for schools with successful football or men's basketball teams athletics are generally run as basically break even programs. The money brought in by those two sports funds everything else. And that doesn't even take into account the large alumni donations that big time sports programs can bring to a school. Here, for example, is the University of Michigan 2015 budget (the first one I found googling): https:/…

Schools like Michigan are the exception. Try Oregon State, or UNLV, or a school not known for resounding success in several sports.

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#57

Post by twblalock »

flowereaterz wrote: post #53
twblalock wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no shortage of delusional people eager to sign up for this kind of serfdom.

Probably not too dissimilar to the delusional early employees who sign up for a startup hoping to make millions from their shares...

That depends. Are the grad students making six-figure incomes while they suffer through the experience, as the startup employees do?

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#58

Post by flowereaterz »

twblalock wrote: post #57
flowereaterz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not too dissimilar to the delusional early employees who sign up for a startup hoping to make millions from their shares...

That depends. Are the grad students making six-figure incomes while they suffer through the experience, as the startup employees do?

They are not. But are startup employees doing something meaningful, or building their own reputations and expertise?

And since you're talking about software startup employees, probably the closest comparison is CS phd students, who are nowhere near suffering. The vast majority of graduate students are at least as satisfied as a developer, otherwise whole programs would have disappeared decades ago from inability to recruit. New admits always ask current graduate students what it's like. There seems to be this dissonance between people here on Hacker News believing that everything is like the horror stories of grad students being abused by psychopathic advisors and at best will get poorly paid adjunct positions before burning out, and what's really happening.

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#59

Post by microtonal »

howandwhy wrote: post #22

it should be written as "Cheap Labor". I can vouch this as I went to graduate school where I worked for 5 years at 8-10 hours/day including Saturday and Sunday for $12,000/year to get a PhD in Biological Science. And it was in one of the most expensive state in US. So could not afford to start a family because of perpetual state of sharing apartment and not enough money and time to go out and find a partner. And at t…

I can vouch this as I went to graduate school where I worked for 5 years at 8-10 hours/day including Saturday and Sunday for $12,000/year to get a PhD

Well, then don't do your PhD in the US. I did my PhD in the Netherlands, had a reasonable salary and a good work-life balance. I now work as a habilitant in Germany (roughly the equivalent of an assistant professor), it's the same: good salary, good balance.

The primary problem in the Western/Northern European academic environment is getting a permanent position. So, I might end up in industry in the end ;).

Re: Graduate Students, the Laborers of Academia

#60

Post by porkloin »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #50
makecheck wrote: post #30

A couple of anecdotes that really drive me crazy. One, the amount of money universities can shovel at athletics is insane . It cannot be justified, I don’t care how many reasons you come up with. They pay millions to build stadiums, pay coaches, etc. while throwing chump change at people doing academic work. I have also seen hundreds of thousands of dollars thrown at things like ugly artwork and statues. Two, the “ch…

A lot of the time, a university will raise money for the stadium via private money and revenue bonds. So none of your tuition goes to funding the stadium, although the university likely doesn't profit. Real estate and businesses have a vibrant financial market, so you don't necessarily need large figures to participate. You're not going to raise $100 million in revenue bonds for a professor to study sea slugs, becaus…

Exactly.

And to piggyback on your comment, modern academic science is the way it is because their "investors" (i.e. granting institutions like NSF) have certain stipulations for grant funds or at the very least prefer certain applications over others. Applications that have some aspect dealing with STEM education, for example, are incredibly popular with NSF and other institutions at the moment.

When you talk to research academics in the sciences, they often complain about what a burden education and outreach are on their time. Most of them would rather spend 100% of the time on their research. However, their public sector "investors" have an agenda for how their money is spent. They want to see certain results - it's not just enough to see more sea slug research, they want to have grantees also encourage STEM education growth.

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