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Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

theguardian.com

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Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#211

Post by cortesoft »

losteric wrote: post #180
cortesoft wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just how large organizations are run? How else would you run a large organization except with layers of hierarchy and meetings?

Competent self-managing sub-organizations. Big corporations do require bureaucracy, but smaller entities use bureaucracy as a substitute for competency and autonomy.

A 'sub-organization' is just an alternative description of a heirarchy. Those sub-organizations will have to come together to make macro decisions, like which departments need more funding, how to handle building expansion and shared facility use, etc.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#212

Post by s73ver_ »

Retric wrote: post #199
cortesoft wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just how large organizations are run? How else would you run a large organization except with layers of hierarchy and meetings?

Our largest organizations don't have pervasive hierarchy and meetings which break down at extreme sizes. Markets for example are self organizing around price. Countries may or may not be even larger scale organizations. You can find smaller scale versions that operate on similar principles. https://hbr.org/2013/11/hierarchy-is-overrated

Markets aren't organizations.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#213

Post by phkahler »

rayiner wrote: post #202

If someone had written an article about struggling actors turning to sex work and sleeping in cars, nobody would blink an eye. Acting pays little for the same reason being an academic pays little. Lots of people want to do it, but there is limited demand, hence only the really exceptional folks make any money doing it. Obviously, people shouldn't need to sleep in cars. But the answer to that is a basic income. It's n…

>> Obviously, people shouldn't need to sleep in cars. But the answer to that is a basic income.

Here we go again. Please show evidence that it works. Oh right, there isn't any. Please point to a reasonably complete economic model that shows it will work.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#214

Post by bachmeier »

petra wrote: post #93

One thing i didn't understand from the story: those are smart people, motivated people, with good people's skills. All the things our economy loves. Why don't they say "fuck it" and change profession, to something more decent ? it would be hard, but is it possible ? And i say this without judgement, just out of curiosity.

As an academic (but not in those fields), let me offer the following:

Some of them believe that the only way to avoid being a failure is to work at a university.

Some of them believe non-academic work is worse than what they are doing already.

Some of them only want to live in their current town and this lets them do it.

Some of them have difficulty changing fields. Having a graduate degree, especially a PhD, in a humanities field can make it hard to get a job in another field.

A few of them are just not suited to doing other work. Most employers simply wouldn't want to hire them.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#215

Post by cortesoft »

btilly wrote: post #204
cortesoft wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just how large organizations are run? How else would you run a large organization except with layers of hierarchy and meetings?

That is how large INCOMPETENT organizations are run. And yes, large organizations have a trend towards incompetency. Walk into a meeting, look around. Add up everyone's per hour salary. That is what having that meeting costs. Now look around and consider what each talking about the relevant bits to everyone else would take until a decision was made without the meeting. That's potentially how much more not having the…

I don't see how your point is anything against a 'corporate structure' with multiple layers of heirarchy. You are just describing how to run a good one.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#216

Post by criddell »

gipp wrote: post #61
empath75 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there should be a market for low overhead small schools with high paid teaching staff.

For the university "market", the only game in town is prestige, which teaching quality plays into very little, if at all.

That's especially true for some professions (like law) but less true for most others.

For other fields, school prestige can help you get that first job, but the value of being able to say you were educated at X drops quickly once you start working. Once you've been working for a while, your portfolio, social skills, professional network, and track record are far more important than the issuer of your degree.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#217

Post by larsiusprime »

vidarh wrote: post #113
3pt14159 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In parts of Europe there the expression: "That's Texas." It roughly means "That's crazy." but with a 'Murica flavor to it. Lately, I've been finding myself frequently thinking: "That's Texas." Let me get this straight. Take a course load of 4 double semester courses per year with 200 hours of class time total in the given year. Let's double it to 400 hours just to be safe to include exam marking and office hours. A s…

> In parts of Europe there the expression: "That's Texas." It roughly means "That's crazy." but with a 'Murica flavor to it. According to this article [1] in Washington Post, the first occurrence of Texas as "crazy" in Norwegian dates to 1957. Makes me wonder if it's used this way in other European countries too, and whether or not the etymology is independent. It's worth noting that unlike the term "Amerikanske tils…

Norwegian who lives in Texas here. Can confirm -- in Norway this term is ancient and has its origins in fascination with "Wild west", "cowboys and indians" and all that rather than some fixation with e.g. George W. Bush.

Exact use of the term could have certainly evolved over time, of course.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#218

Post by mljoe »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #182
cortesoft wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just how large organizations are run? How else would you run a large organization except with layers of hierarchy and meetings?

There’s a notion that much of the hierarchy that exists in the world is unnecessary, and perpetuated only because it’s the status quo. A university for example doesn’t strictly need to manage the professors - you could have a very large university where the professors primarily manage themselves, with only a small administrative group. An organization arranged in this way wouldn’t need many meetings.

I think it's worth trying. A 100% faculty based university, with student employees and contractors doing the more low level administrative work. The faculty would take on the high level admin work, e.g. the IT or CS departments managing computer systems in partnership with the students.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#219

Post by dragonwriter »

vijayr wrote: post #139
dave_sullivan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is the market so broken? Student debt. Look at the housing market: in the 70s you could buy a house for much less because houses cost less because people didn't have more money to overpay. With a thirty year explosion of the mortgage industry and the idea that anyone should qualify to own a home, suddenly consumers had extra money to outbid people on buying houses. This broadly increased property prices with no…

I think "Don't go to college" is the best advice today. That only works in industries like software etc. If one wants to be a lawyer, doctor etc they have no choice but to go to college, right? Some American students are going abroad (Germany etc), that could be a short term option.

> That only works in industries like software etc. If one wants to be a lawyer, doctor etc they have no choice but to go to college, right?

For lawyers in some US jurisdictions, including California, no; California, for instance, requires general education of two years of college or “demonstrated equivalent intellectual achievement” prior to study of law, and several options for the study of law, including what amounts to apprenticeship in law office or judge's chambers. So traditional college or law school is not strictly required.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#220

Post by dvvc »

falcolas wrote: post #120

Six courses, $40,000 in pay; about $7,000 per course. If we make a few rough assumptions based on the $1500 rent figure, and 3 credits average, the college is probably charging around $1,000 per credit, with a 30-40 person attendance per class. So for one of those courses, the college is pulling in an estimated $90,000, and paying $7,000. Huh.

That's way too much for an adjunct. The article refers to 6 courses per semester, so she's probably pulling 12 per year at around $3k per course (assuming she's not teaching in summer).

Just so you have an idea, 4 courses per semester amount to what would be a full time job (if done right). In my experience most adjuncts / instructors have to teach up to 6 courses per semester, which results in them either being overworked, or doing a shitty job at teaching.

Not that this invalidates your conclusion, I find the difference between what the school charges versus what goes into the teachers' salary mind boggling.

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