Grad Students on Food Stamps

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 12:42:10 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

Don't most adjuncts work elsewhere full time (if they can find work, at least- I understand the job market is rough)?

I know a few people who are adjuncts at the local university (a big 10 school) and they do it as a side job. I can see it being something you have to do to "pay your dues" to break into academia, but I find it unlikely that most people consider that their main job. Am I way off there?

That's great if you can find full-time work.

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 9:55:11 GMT -5 @redbellpeppers said:

May 16, 2012 9:39:40 GMT -5 lolo said:

Well, let's say they can do four at a time 3x year (including summers). That's 30K, no? I know that's before taxes, but is that in the poverty range? Not easy and seriously annoying at entry-level pay with that sort of degree, but I don't think that's at the poverty line.

It is, of course, lower than entry-level teaching at HS, at least in my area.

Teaching four classes per semester is a heavy load but doable. (Most teaching positions I looked into have a load of three classes/semester.) But I don't think you can teach four classes during the summer, given that classes are accelerated and therefore take 2.5x as much work per week as classes during the semester. Plus, I don't know anywhere that adjuncts would be offered 12 classes/year. Adjuncts are at the bottom of the teaching barrel and are offered classes that full-time faculty can't cover.

And then there's the issue of building your career and having a future. dr.harpy isn't an adjunct, but he's not tenure-track, either. He gets yearly contracts. He teaches 4 classes every semester, and each semester has included a minimum of one course he's never taught before. Some of the courses he taught are subjects he's never even studied before! So there is a ton of prep.

With that schedule, it's hard to find time to do research and writing. Publications are how you get off the adjunct/contract path, but when you don't have time to do them, you wind up stuck on that hamster wheel, making $30-40k, with little job security and no upward mobility.

Even if you piece together a living as an adjunct, if you do that for 5 years, unless you happen to make a breakthrough discovery, you're pretty much toast when it comes to getting something tenure-track.

So sure, even if you think it's acceptable that those expected to be experts in their fields and educating the next generation are only starting out at $30,000/year, the upward mobility is, in many ways, more limited than the business world.

ETA: Adjuncts and lecturers also generally get NO research support, which also makes it harder to get out. dr.harpy has to pay his own conference fees and his own travel costs to conferences, but he no longer gets student rates on conference registration. Most tenured and tenure-track profs get that paid for by the school. He gets no funding for experiments, no research assistant, nothing.

[clickerish]

May 16, 2012 12:58:55 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

ETA: Adjuncts and lecturers also generally get NO research support, which also makes it harder to get out. dr.harpy has to pay his own conference fees and his own travel costs to conferences, but he no longer gets student rates on conference registration. Most tenured and tenure-track profs get that paid for by the school. He gets no funding for experiments, no research assistant, nothing.

This I knew about (and it's lousy, sorry), but I am now wondering...does Dr. Harpy even get library privileges as an adjunct? I know there is a spreadsheet about wages and what have you floating around in my discipline right now along with an adjunct movement, but those are questions that aren't even being considered.

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 12:58:55 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

And then there's the issue of building your career and having a future. dr.harpy isn't an adjunct, but he's not tenure-track, either. He gets yearly contracts. He teaches 4 classes every semester, and each semester has included a minimum of one course he's never taught before. Some of the courses he taught are subjects he's never even studied before! So there is a ton of prep.

With that schedule, it's hard to find time to do research and writing. Publications are how you get off the adjunct/contract path, but when you don't have time to do them, you wind up stuck on that hamster wheel, making $30-40k, with little job security and no upward mobility.

I'm sorry, AH. That really sucks.

[Deleted]

dr.harpy has library privileges, but for the most part, he really only needs a JSTOR subscription.

Thanks, rbp. We are still trying to figure out our future. As you're well aware, I'm in a situation that is majorly fucked up. What sucks for the dr. right now is that he's doing a lot of actual prof stuff (like trying to build up and market the department) but isn't getting real prof pay.

BUT the upside is that he has a fair amount of flexibility and great benefits. So if I can move up and start making more money, he might stay there long-term and basically daddy-track.

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 13:14:56 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

BUT the upside is that he has a fair amount of flexibility and great benefits. So if I can move up and start making more money, he might stay there long-term and basically daddy-track.

Yeah, those are the good things about working in an academic setting. And I know that the lecturers here are very happy with their jobs. I talked to them a ton when I was applying for jobs because my research adviser was of little help.

[lanyac]

I have no plans of going to get a postdoc. I'd rather go get another masters then spend two years as a lab slave working for barely any money.

I don't want to work in research, and so I'd like to get away from the university as soon as possible. I'd like to teach, but its really hard to teach classes as a phd student here, so I've got no experience.

[NachoProblem]

As another disillusioned science PhD student who is tired of being poor, I'm not sure if it makes me feel better or worse to hear that there are so many others in crappy situations.... booo science. I want as far away from bench science as possible. Gah.

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 13:32:38 GMT -5 NachoProblem said:

As another disillusioned science PhD student who is tired of being poor, I'm not sure if it makes me feel better or worse to hear that there are so many others in crappy situations.... booo science. I want as far away from bench science as possible. Gah.

Maybe we need an MM Scientists subboard. LOL

[smock]

Another PhD signing in, but one lucky enough to find a TT job out of grad school. I have to say that a major part of the problem is a lack of actual living-wage jobs in academia, as TT hiring shrinks and the poorly-paid adjuncts fill in the gap. Plus, grad programs are probably admitting more people than the market can support, especially for those of us in the humanities where there are many fewer industry alternatives.

I also find it very discouraging that the general public perception is that PhDs make a ton of money--because not to bitch, but even TT PhDs start lower than almost any comparable job! I know you shouldn't read comments on articles, but recently I read one about a pre-tenure Humanities prof who was denied tenure, and the comments were complaining about "ivory tower PhDs with their $200k salaries." I wish!

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 14:02:54 GMT -5 smock said:

Another PhD signing in, but one lucky enough to find a TT job out of grad school. I have to say that a major part of the problem is a lack of actual living-wage jobs in academia, as TT hiring shrinks and the poorly-paid adjuncts fill in the gap. Plus, grad programs are probably admitting more people than the market can support, especially for those of us in the humanities where there are many fewer industry alternatives.

I also find it very discouraging that the general public perception is that PhDs make a ton of money--because not to bitch, but even TT PhDs start lower than almost any comparable job! I know you shouldn't read comments on articles, but recently I read one about a pre-tenure Humanities prof who was denied tenure, and the comments were complaining about "ivory tower PhDs with their $200k salaries." I wish!

1) All of this.

2)

[welshgirl]

This is all ringing so true over here as well, and makes me strangely relieved that I'm out, even though I feel like I wasted my 20s doing a PhD. I'm also figuring that I'm never going to be back in, am I? Sigh.

[5thofjuly]

May 16, 2012 14:02:54 GMT -5 smock said:

Another PhD signing in, but one lucky enough to find a TT job out of grad school. I have to say that a major part of the problem is a lack of actual living-wage jobs in academia, as TT hiring shrinks and the poorly-paid adjuncts fill in the gap. Plus, grad programs are probably admitting more people than the market can support, especially for those of us in the humanities where there are many fewer industry alternatives.

I also find it very discouraging that the general public perception is that PhDs make a ton of money--because not to bitch, but even TT PhDs start lower than almost any comparable job! I know you shouldn't read comments on articles, but recently I read one about a pre-tenure Humanities prof who was denied tenure, and the comments were complaining about "ivory tower PhDs with their $200k salaries." I wish!

This is my DH's coworkers. He's a nurse and I'm an asst. prof. He gets a lot of, "Must be nice to have a sugar momma!" type comments. If they only knew that he earns about $20k more/year than I do...

[nygalinpa]

May 16, 2012 11:36:14 GMT -5 clickerish said:

May 16, 2012 10:24:55 GMT -5 @redbellpeppers said:

Most aspiring academics would be thrilled with positions at Joe Schmoe Northeastern State University. We're not exactly banging down Harvard's door.

I should have clarified or added an addendum. It's not only the idea that if you graduate from Missoula you won't hit the Ivy. The Ivy's are graduating the students who are teaching at Joe Schmoe. So if you graduate from Joe Schmoe, you are screwed. It's a lousy system.

This.exactly. Years ago you could have a masters degree at teach at a CC, but now that has changed.

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 14:27:50 GMT -5 welshgirl said:

This is all ringing so true over here as well, and makes me strangely relieved that I'm out, even though I feel like I wasted my 20s doing a PhD. I'm also figuring that I'm never going to be back in, am I? Sigh.

So much this.

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 14:31:50 GMT -5 5thofjuly said:

This is my DH's coworkers. He's a nurse and I'm an asst. prof. He gets a lot of, "Must be nice to have a sugar momma!" type comments. If they only knew that he earns about $20k more/year than I do...

Nursing is another career I think I should have gone into!

[Deleted]

Holy shit, now I feel like a bad ass for the $4,000 salary I was paid by Bozeman State University (the in state sister to Missoula State) to teach 1 class as an adjunct in the humanities this spring! It was definitely a moonlighting gig; no way we could survive on that kind of money.

(I mean, we COULD, we just choose not to).