#underpaid grad student

[rollercoasterwords]

hihi i was wondering what you’re studying in grad school? i’m debating going LOL

i’m currently in a master’s program 4 a gender studies degree! my experience has been. pretty good so far but if ur located in the u.s. my honest advice is don’t go 2 grad school unless u can get it fully funded…or unless ur rich enough 2 just eat the cost of paying 4 a program in which case u can probably do whatever u want lol

[kristakittyfish]

"enjoy grad school!! you'll never have more free time than you do now!! your life will only get busier so make sure you do stuff you like now since you won't have time later!! this is the most fun time of your life!!"

don't you fucking DARE come at me with that nostalgic rose-colored glasses bullshit when all I have is hope that it will get better. if it only gets worse from here what is even the point, it must get better, it must, it MUST, and it WILL

[eggdrawsthings]

Hi! I wanted to ask a question and I wasn’t sure if it was too personal or not so just ignore this is you’d rather not answer, but I was wondering if you went to art school or got a degree in it? I really want to start learning and maybe one day start a career in animation and wasn’t sure whether I should spend time and resources getting a degree. I know it’s going to be different for everybody and nothings a guarantee for this field but since I love your style and technical skill I was curious whether you had done that and what were your thoughts on it or if you are self-taught.

Hey anon! No worries it's all good!

Ig I should quickly go through my art journey so you can have an overall look of why I went to art school lol.

So I'm from Vietnam. I think back in 2013 I went to a small art school in Singapore (they were the only one that gave me a scholarship). My major was 3D modeling actually, but during my final year, I realized I only wanted to draw characters for animation. I could already draw decently, so I just read The Silver Way book and built a character design portfolio on my own during this time. I was lucky I got a job as a concept artist at a small animation studio there so I learned a lot from the job. I also did a lot of self-learning and took Woulter Tulp's Expressive Character class on Schoolism.

Then after 3-ish years of working, I got sick of the tiny and dying animation industry in Singapore. I wanna do sth more than just preschool shows and I was severely underpaid lmao. So I quit my job and took the MA VisDev program at AAU. It's a little more affordable cuz u can do 1 year online and the second year on-site. The reason I went to this school even tho i could just take a VisDev class online was cuz i need the visa so i can try to break into the industry in the US.

Now back to your question. Is art school a must? No. Should you still take it? Maybe, depends on your situation. If you can afford it then hell yeah by all means. Art school is great cuz you have professors and peers to help guide you along the way so you won't get lost while trying to figure out your shit. And to have a few years just experimenting and focusing on art is a great experience. Plus you can make a lot of meaningful connections in school and it will help you a long way after you grad. But if you have to go into debt to go to art school, then don't. There are places like Schoolism, CGMA, and Warrior Art Camp where you can pick what class and from whom you wanna learn. If you are not from the US and wanna break into the industry here like me however, then yeah getting a degree is a better bet cuz you can use the student visa and OPT to hopefully get a job here (it's still very very hard tho ngl im struggling rn as we speak lmao). Also, you need a BA to work overseas so there's that too. The hard truth is studios prefer to hire locally than some rando from somewhere else and have to wait for them to relocate and shit, (unless you are exceptionally good and they'd do anything to have you, but that is super rare lol).

Even though I did go to art school, I have to say most of my skills are from self-study. It requires a lot of self-discipline but I'm pretty much obsessed with drawing and I draw everyday so it's not a problem for me. But my friend is not good at that, so she found art school/classes helped her better cuz there are deadlines and instructors to help guide her to reach her goal. So it depends on your learning style tbh.

There is this chart that can help you consider your options. Im sorry it's a very long answer, cuz yes everyone's experience is different. Feel free to drop me another ask if you still have anymore questions tho ^^

Edit: I must also add, though there are online classes and ways to self-learn animation,I do think it only truly benefit you if you know exactly what you wanna do in this industry (for example I already knew i wanna become a character designer for 2d/3D animation specifically so any books/classes i took I tailored it to fit my goal). If you are unsure what you wanna do, then maybe even a cheap animation course will do better, and then you can take extra online classes on the side.

[marsreds]

my most honest impression of ichi the witch (so far) is this:

imagine you are a (underpaid, overworked) grad student. now imagine that your... eccentric supervisor (who can also see the future) pairs you up with a professor (equally eccentric and twice as arrogant) from a different department and now the two of you have to babysit an unknown eldritch horror (who is also the babiest of baby boys).

and then they go on adventures!

so yeah, if you're not already, read ichi the witch! it slaps!

[cpericardium]

To clarify some chatgpt in school thoughts: the reason I don't agree with the sentiment that students chatgpting their assignments means the assignments are poorly designed is that I think it's misidentifying what the issue is, at least at the university level. I have not encountered a colleague or other professor who was at all worried about not being able to tell when a student was using chatgpt or about accidentally giving an ai-written paper an A. In fact, in training, we were told explicitly not to be on the lookout for chatgpt, to just give the paper the grade it deserved and explain why using the rubric. Chatgpt assignments generally don't slip through the cracks at this level (though I'm sure you could find some overworked/inattentive/indifferent professor/grad TA to counter this). They just get a 0. Personally I allow students to resubmit for a reduced grade because sometimes once they find out they can't get away with it, they actually do the work and know to ask for additional support. I don't actually enjoy failing students!! I'd rather work with them so they understand their own thoughts are more valuable than a text generator's!

I DO think the argument makes sense at the high school (and before???) level because USAmerican high school teachers are often overworked and underpaid. There, the assignments may very well be badly scaffolded. That's precisely where the students learn they can get away with subpar work and unfortunately where they should be developing critical reading, writing and argumentative skills. Then when they get to college, they either don't know how or don't have the confidence to organize/articulate their thoughts in a way they think the professor wants to hear, so it becomes safer to 1. use chatgpt with a slim chance of passing or 2. use chatgpt and fail, but fail knowing it wasn't really their work so it wasn't them getting rejected

[13flowersandfoxes]

I mean grad students are paid like shit so

[transmutationisms]

could you elaborate more on your analysis on class in academia? especially the thing about TAs being capable of being class traitors. found your post very intriguing and would like to engage more in this topic

most grad students are not independently wealthy, which is why we pay for school by taking positions as teaching assistants (TAs) or research assistants (RAs). these positions are in turn the actual reason why the school admits grad students in the first place: it's cheaper to pay our stipends, which are often below poverty-line wages, than it would be to hire more faculty. grad students are increasingly responsible for teaching, grading, lab work, and research. depending on how nice our advisors and professors are, we might get co-authorship for some of these efforts, or some lines on our CVs. what we often do not get is legal designation as employees: generally we are classified as students or as ambiguous in-between categories, which means we don't get standard labour protections like sick days, and we can be fired expelled at will. in the us, this also results in ambiguity over basic questions like whether the school is allowed to simply stop paying our stipends if we go on strike: if we're not employees, we're not protected by labour law even in jurisdictions that do protect a worker's right to strike. the grad school experience is largely defined by the labour laws in your jurisdiction, by the culture in your department, and by your relationship with your advisor, who is either tenured or tenure-track and thus has far more job security than you do. advisors have tremendous power over their grad advisees, a situation that makes us easy to abuse or simply to economically exploit (this latter is a particular issue in stem fields where your advisor is also your PI, and being a grad student also entails being a lab employee).

despite all this, grad students frequently have absolutely horrendous class solidarity: for example, our unionisation efforts (when we can even get our shit together enough to push for a union at all!) often ignore non-academic staff, who form a critical part of the academy and are just as exploited as we are, if not often more. grad students also have a deeply nasty habit of trying to emulate our professors in the way we interact with undergrads: condescending to them, trying to make their lives harder, refusing to make allowances for students struggling with deadlines or workload for any reason. often grad students see ourselves as 'temporarily embarrassed professors' rather than as what we are: a very low rung on the academic ladder, most of whom will never land a professorship because statistically, there simply aren't enough of those positions. again, remember that the university is incentivised to hire more grad students and grant more phds than 'the market' needs, because the institution is relying on us as a source of cheap labour. in some fields, a phd can lead to a lucrative industry job (pharmaceutical companies, military contractors, &c); in others, it can lead to several years of underpaid post-docs followed by unemployment or 'under-employment'.

whereas a tenured or TT professor often has a group of employees grad students working under them (typically this is grant-funded), contingent or adjunct faculty work on a semesterly or yearly basis and are paid much less, protected much less, and subject to being let go any time the university reviews their contract. adjuncts are another popular way to reduce labour costs, and, like grad students, are becoming increasingly used to replace tenured roles. some departments have been gutted to the point where they run almost entirely on adjunct and grad student labour at this point. you might think adjuncts and grad students would therefore make natural allies in struggles for better work conditions and compensation. however, adjuncts are still more than capable of being abusive or just assholeish to grad students, and both grad students and adjuncts are difficult to organise because of overwork, fear of losing what professional status they do have, and the fact that adjuncts are often forced to work at multiple institutions at the same time, or to hop between institutions frequently. in cases where serious labour coalitions do start to arise, a university will often offer superficial concessions to adjuncts and/or grad students, like a one-time pay increase (which is not something most grad students receive on a yearly basis, which means in real terms our stipends are usually actually decreasing over time).

anyway, to return to undergrads: in the academy's propaganda self-perception, it is a force for cultural enlightenment and individual self-betterment. undergrads are, then, paying for the privilege of receiving education, here configured as a gift bestowed upon the masses to create an uplifted citizenry and an enlightened society. this is, of course, horseshit. the university is conservative in both structure (resembling a medieval guild, eg the tenure system and the entire structure of grad school-as-apprenticeship) and mission (serving as a class barrier system that enforces and ideologically justifies social stratification through the granting of limited and expensive professional credentials). most undergrads are not wealthy, and many are going into debt for their degrees, which are presented as tickets to future jobs and economic security. it's a system that promises a select few the opportunity to become part of the ruling class rather than the exploited one, and that itself generates massive profits for its upper-level administrators (presidents, deans, and so forth). so yea when grad TAs try to act like tenured profs by treating undergrad students like shit i will call them class traitors lmao

[movietonight]

Galileo (2007) is so funny because this physics professor gets the people in his lab to build an entire test range outside for a murder investigation. These grad students must be so overworked and underpaid

[splendidemendax]

i took a class abt museum ethics with a guy who had been working at [redacted respected university museum] and when we were arguing abt the ethics of selling/trading/exporting/etc. artefacts, one of the devil's advocate talking points he would bring up when we'd basically come to a consensus was "well if we're all agreed it's so bad then how come the only thing stopping me from walking across the street, going into the basement, and walking out with a cardboard box full of artefacts in my backpack is that i don't want to?"

nobody there (my prof included) had a particularly good answer for that.

this stuff w the senior british museum curator they've just caught selling antiquities + the whole obbink thing Really makes you think about how frequently this stuff is probably happening all the time & isn't caught (<- shredding things. violence & killing & biting)

[fledgling-fvck]

can't you see it? I’ve discovered the beauty of entropy on a whole new level. The universe isn't just a set of equations anymore—it's a dance of shadows and light.

Parker Brennan is an underpaid grad student who frankly didn't sign up for this masquerade bullshit, they're just trying to survive their thesis defense.

[jawllines]

Alright madame Jawws, as a current graduate student, I’m begging you to make them PhD students. There’s no one more awkward yet passionate than an overworked, underpaid graduate student. Classes and grades aren’t super competitive in grad school but research and publishing IS, it’s crazy. Ofc you have creative freedom but PhD student Harry gets me 😛

oooooOOOOH OKAY!!! I LIKE THAT ITLL GIVE YALL THE UNI VIBE YOU WANT TOO

[cookiecrumbconundrum]

new idea for a dnd character. she was forced to go to wizard school. absolutely shit at being a wizard but her parents are forcing her to finish out the year there. however! she has the outlook of a girlboss and decides to use this to her advantage. her very tired grad student wizard tutor is very tired and very underpaid so she takes them out to lunch as gets them to talk about their experimental research into potions. gets how they look, how they would taste, how they would. then she sells that info to people who make fake potions and profits. and of course she always buys lunch.

[georganas]

Doing grad school, without a computer.

Let's start off with this is a privileged ass blog post. When I graduated from high school, I bought my first laptop. a Macbook Pro with insanely amount of power & memory.

That bad boy lasted me a whole 9 whole years, can you believe that? A Macbook Pro lasting almost a decade. Community college, bachelor's degree, and almost my master's. old reliable, forreal.

Well, a couple of Mondays ago, while I was playing the role of an executive assistant, my screen lit up....... but instead of displaying my screen it was a dark, faint, blue. It was as if I had to turn on my brightness, but nothing worked.

I am a second year grad student, a professional, a coach at times, and for 20 hours a week, I'm a personal assistant (unknowingly). I am stressed because people depend on me to get emails sent, documents handed in, and manage things. I live in a world that you cannot do school without a computer.

This was a known fact but the experience of not having a laptop, using an outdated pc in a library that's on campus, and having endless deadlines regardless of circumstance, was undeniably one of the hardest and humbling experiences of my professional career.

A new Macbook would cost twice my rent plus more. It would take take a month and a half to make what a new laptop costs (that's including my very underpaid school job).

Isn't that fucked?

And yet, the world keeps turning. The deadlines keep piling. Not having a laptop only makes my life harder. In fact, doing graduate school without a laptop is nearly impossible.

[thecatamaranlad]

OC dump

These are just Some Guys (and gals and nonbinary pals) from a story I wrote in 2017 after taking a road trip across the US post-Trump election, tentatively titled "Raptors".

Setting: (linked to more in depth post) near-future sci-fi, United States. Lots of climate-linked natural disasters and social breakdowns.

Story vibe: Queer buddy/road trip comedy with some drama, friendship, found and birth families. And shitty biodiesel campervans!!

OK, here are the dudes and other folks: (below the cut)

Tai (they/them): Main character. Biracial (black mom, redneck white dad), nonbinary, queer, from South Carolina. Really into cars and mechanics. Autistic, reserved, fiercely loyal to those they let into their world. Has unprocessed childhood trauma LOL but who doesn't amirite. 19 years old at the beginning of The Trip.

Kat (she/her but dgaf, she's literally a cat): Tai's cat. Small black adventure meow who will ride on your shoulder if you're Tai or Carla, and tolerates harnesses and road trips -- if she can look out the window. A year old at the beginning of the story/trip. Her name is either short for Katrina or Category 6, depending on who you ask.

Sam/Sammy (he/him): excessively tattooed meteorology grad student. Tai's childhood friend/babysitter. White, redheaded trans man. Kind Of A Mess. Not over his ex. Full Of Feelings. Eventually acquires a motorcycle. 24 at the start of The Trip, but doesn't join. Will answer calls and monitor the weather where you're at even if he's mad at you. (Three guesses who's my self-insert character.)

Carla (she/they): Asexual biromantic Hispanic girl with blue hair (at the start of the story anyways). From New Jersey. Sammy's ex and also roommate (it's complicated). 26 at the start of The Trip, which she joins because she's tired of Sam's angsty BS. Can't get a job in her field (mechanical engineering). Way too impulsive.

Lou (they/them): Nonbinary Asian American kid from Boston. Tai's... ex? It's complicated! Emotionally constipated, but well-meaning. 20 years old when Tai ditches them to fuck off to California in a shitty van LOL.

Marisa (she/her... she/they really): Tai's mom. A black woman in her 50s. Overeducated and underpaid (doctorate in English Literature). Might be involved in fomenting a revolution but who knows. Has certainly been illegally fired for union organizing before. Lost custody in the divorce. Lives in California now and communicates with Tai sporadically but supportively.

Holly (she/her): Tai's aunt's ex-lesbian lover from college. (Still definitely a lesbian. Probably white? I haven't decided yet.) Manages a queer farming/ranching co-operative in Montana. Bit of a prepper and not a little paranoid, but welcoming and caring nonetheless.

Anyways these are my lil comfort OC blorbos (aka the ones I DON'T make do a shit ton of emotional processing on my behalf). I just stick them into the world my brain is convinced is starting to exist anyhow (gotta use that degree for something!!), and see what they do.

[jynersq]

really pisses me the fuck OFF when STEM faculty turn up their noses at industry and act like they’re somehow practicing a purer and more altruistic form of science because they’re not in it for the money. no, it’s not just a job for these holy professors like it is for those 9-5 industry shmucks — for academics, science is a passion, it’s a calling, and if you’re not working far more hours than what you’re paid for (aka, grad students working 50+ hours a week despite only being paid for a 50% appointment) well, you just don’t care enough. you just don’t have enough passion. how sad.

meanwhile the entire academic research system only functions because of underpaid and often completely unpaid graduate student and postdoc labor!!!!! and to say this is not a defense of industry: corporations have their big fucking evil problems. but academia is not less exploitative and not better and i want people to stop fucking acting like it is. or that it’s good to participate in your own exploitation!

[jamsandsuch]

really need someone to come out and tell me this academia shit is worth it cus all i see are burned out and underpaid professors and grad students. i’m giving up 10 years of my life for this degree that theoretically is the peak of the education mountain to be paid less than my friends in corporate out of undergrad. life is bleak