NLRB: Grad students in private universities lose the right to unionize!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
No.

The primary purpose of graduate research is to do the professor's dirty work for him. IOW, get whipped into shape to be a lab technician when you graduate.

I meant the student's purpose, or reason, not the professors.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I meant the student's purpose, or reason, not the professors.

My purpose for going to grad school was to get a graduate degree. My purpose for getting an assistantship was to earn enough money to eat.

[Ramo]

Oh great, I'm agreeing with a communist and an anarchist.

Come to the dark side.

[Shi Huangdi]

I don't think it would be a good idea to have TAs unionized. That would push up the cost of hiring them(since if they are unionized they will be able to negotiate better wages), making them hire less TAs, thus giving less students the opportunity.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by loinburger
My purpose for going to grad school was to get a graduate degree. My purpose for getting an assistantship was to earn enough money to eat.

Couldn't you just tutor undergrads? That pays more. Granted, it's not a steady job. But even I got $20 an hour tutoring frosh physics.

[DinoDoc]

I hate grad TAs anyway.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
making them hire less TAs, thus giving less students the opportunity.

Professors might actually have to teach a class! The horror!

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Couldn't you just tutor undergrads? That pays more. Granted, it's not a steady job. But even I got $20 an hour tutoring frosh physics.

That's how I made money in undergrad, but it didn't work in grad school -- for undergrad I went to a school where less than 1% of the student body were Math/CS majors, and so my skills were in high demand, but in grad school the school was composed of about 30-40% engineers (I dunno how many were Math/CS, but any of the upperclass engineering students could have easily taught a freshman math class for the non-engineers), plus they had a tutoring center run through the university that was free to students (and a job there paid less than an assistantship).

Besides, I made out pretty decently as a research assistant. The minimum salary allowed by the university was $8,000 a year, but my advisor started me out at $12,000 (I was an American citizen, unlike a lot of the RA's, and so I could work on some of the DARPA and aerospace contracts that the other RA's couldn't), and bumped me up to $16,000 after six months as a sort of "hey, I haven't fired you yet!" reward (in the 18 months that I worked for the guy, my advisor hired and fired 5 different RA's). I had a grand old time of my research assistantship (I don't mind living in an efficiency, and I quite enjoy macaroni and cheese), but I saw the absolute **** that most of the other RA's had to slog through -- f'rinstance, my racquetball partner was a Ph.D student from India who had the same advisor as me (he signed on at the same time as me, and by the time I graduated 18 months later we were both at least 12 months senior to all of the other RA's under our advisor's tutelage, since so many had been fired in the meantime), and he said that if he lost his assistantship there was a good chance that he'd be sent packing back to India, which essentially made him our advisor's slave-for-hire.

[Urban Ranger]

Ouch. That's bad.

Though, IIRC, the US immigration laws allow foreign students to get off campus jobs if there is some kind of drastic and unforeseen change in the financial situation. Of course, you will need to convince the INS to give you permission first.

[loinburger]

He's looking into it presently, since our advisor (well, my former advisor, thankfully) has just been rejected for tenure. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Fortunately, Vikram (the Indian guy) has had good marks for the last 18 months, so it looks like another professor (one that's already tenured and is less prone to firing people) is picking him up. Here's to keeping our fingers crossed.

[Urban Ranger]

That would be a good reason to bring to the INS.

[loinburger]

Last I spoke to him, he didn't seem too worried about things -- he was basically saying, "well, now I've got a good excuse for dumping this guy and getting a better advisor." Besides, I've gathered that it's not too uncommon for international students to take a few quarters/semesters off to spend time back home -- a Bengali student under my former advisor's tutelage took six months off to go back home, got fired in the meantime, and came back once he found a new advisor.

[Urban Ranger]

Don't they need to get a new student visa when they take time off from school and go back home?

[Ramo]

I have a (noncitizen) cousin who after finishing his undergrad bio degree was unsure about what to do (whether to go to grad school or med school), and so tried to continue working for the same guy he was working for while enrolled there. It took like four months for the INS to ok it.

[Zkribbler]

You do something + you get paid for doing it = work.

This is so simple a concept, I'd have thought even a Republican could have understood it.