Faculty on Food Stamps 2

[sergioapuzzo]

PhD = pretty horrible deal

I got a PhD in Biochemistry and published 6 papers during my PhD and still no decent job, so guess what, I went to med school and had to postpone my life another 10 years.

Please tell the world to avoid higher education in the form of PhDs or Master's - it is actually dangerous for your future - for example I have to consider staying childless since I have no time with med school and being older I get tired more easily. Again please do not do a PhD

[TheChromelover]

I pity you my friend. I was accepted into a graduate program as a phd student. But once I got a taste of what a phd is, I walked out with a masters degree.

[MultiSmartass1]

The posters here are clearly not informed. Professors are not really teachers. They are scholars. Universities and colleges even if they are not research oriented are based on a research model. That is why adjuncts and TA's do all the teaching which is Frosh and soph level anyway.

[actione99]

All work should be valued and no one should be exploited...in teaching, industry, or in any other field. We have reached a real low in our history when the services of teachers are no longer valued, and when education is no longer considered an essential resource in society. Shame on universities and colleges for allowing this gross exploitation of the teachers who are teaching my children. I wish that more parents and citizens understood the extent of the problem!

[Wcoltd]

Acadamia should be a civic duty, people shouldn't teach because they want money, they should teach classes because they actually love what they are doing.

It's not an injustice that teachers are working normal jobs for their pay. You seem to have this concept that because you teach, you should be subject to some higher class treatment, if you don't like the deal, don't take it.

[pdecarlo]

That was covered at 5:06

[Wcoltd]

No it wasn't

He never really addressed the question he was "responding to" The question was "Nobody's forcing you to work there, why not leave teaching to those who can afford the luxury?"

his reply was

It's important to not feel we are oppressed but we ARE oppressed and I don't think that we should accept that. "get active" blah blah join a union blah blah.

but you have to FEEL oppressed in order to stand up against oppression otherwise why would you stand up against it in the first place?

[engineerjatt]

To Wcoltd:

dude, why should working as cashier at burger king or an engineer or a doctor not be a Civic duty. scu*mbag.......

[Wcoltd]

Education should be a civic duty regardless of the profession. If, for example, a doctor or an engineer or a cashier were to discover some new method that makes their profession easier, it is their duty to communicate it. But I think academia deserves special emphasis because the profession is entirely based upon education.

[altha2008]

teachers get paid also they do not work full time like regualr people do

they get all the holidays off

all the weekends off

months off during the summer

[actione99]

Teachers work all year round...They just aren't in front of a classroom every minute of the day. As the school year starts, my father (a teacher) will be working 7 days a week, often until the wee hours of the morning just to keep up. And this summer, becuse of low teacher wages, he got a part-time job at minimium wages. Teachers work long and hard. I do not understand where people who make comments like your are coming from....

[altha2008]

teacers do not work 7 days a week

again / would love to have the summer months off

in florida average teachers makes around

30,000 dollars. most people do not make that in Floirda working all year.

When I lost my job 2 years agao that paid $72,000 I lost everything. now after 2 years of woking 2 jobs, I own my home free and clear, I have not had a holiday off in 2 years there are a lot of peolpe who would love to have teachers job

[altha2008]

they get paid, if they do not like the income go to another place and teach.

I made $30,000 teaching overseas, they provided me a place to stay 2 meals a day

stayed there 3 years saved all my money

paid for my house when I got back I'm 23

own it free and clear,

I'm going back next year and going to teach again

[Wcoltd]

Supply and Demand dude, if you're not making money, look for another job, maybe their are not enough students that want your service, what about tutoring? I make more money then you did, and I'm a student, I just put an ad in the paper and started tutoring geometry. Think outside the box. The school system we have sucks, most of my teachers weren't worth the low wages they were receiving. Some were very good, but most sucked.

[StatisticsQuest]

As a graduate student I read the book "Ghosts in the Classroom" about adjuncts and the outlandish system they have to work in. I vowed to myself that if I did not find a tenure track position I would not work as an adjunct period. I worked one year as an Asst prof at a rural college and I promised myself if I did not end up at a location I deemed suitable for me I would leave the profession. Luckily, I got the job I wanted in the city I wanted. But, I was ready to jump ship and recoup my losses.

[zip1tube]

I've never really understood why people get drawn into the adjuncting circuit in such unproductive ways. Anyone with the skills to do grad work would be much better served by finding some better paid consulting work related to their field, rather than adjuncting "full-time," especially at multiple schools, or doing office temp work or taking a low-wage service-economy "McJob." Adjuncting is a complete waste of everyone's time, so why get sucked into it in the first place? You don't have to.

[YaneViborita]

I understand your comment was made a year ago, when the economy was not in as much danger of collapse as it is now, but I think you overestimate the availability of work for M.A.s and Ph.D.s outside of academia. Finding consulting work is not as easy as you seem to think; a reputation in the field is often a must before getting the job contract. Moreover, "consulting" is as lacking in job security as adjuncting; that's the nature of the beast, unfortunately.

[Aneum123]

As a professor in TN, I will say that it isn't always this bad. I spent a semester two years as contingent faculty at a Tennessee community college, and there are loopholes to the wage rule. I made about $30,000 for those two years, and then was hired on full time tenure track. Several of my colleagues had similar experiences. Here is the scary side of it. I have noticed that is those of us (myself included) who are in our late 20s/early 30s who are getting hired. I

[zhara42]

You forgot to mention how the administration system in higher ed is structured in a way that deliberately discourages collaboration and instead encourages petty squabbling, jealously, vicious territoriality, and hostile competitiveness.

Coming together won't be easy.

[Arcane587]

As said in my post on the part 1, I am a student in TN. It's really sad that adjunct professors get treated so bad :(. They work sooo hard to get their degree only to get no pay.

[jhayesboh]

This video is a sequel. The main improvement on Part 1 is that the professor explains why college students should care about the treatment of contingent faculty members.

I am, by the way, a tenured professor and department chair in Massachusetts. Our part-time faculty have the same problems; our full-time faculty and librarians are not paid as well as they should be, either.

[katyonok]

the wtf the humanities and socio=sci departments

admit so many graduate students and train them for the academic career they will never have a chance to embark on?

[jhayesboh]

Great question - I have no idea. It's one reason I am glad to be in an undergraduate-only department, with a few graduate courses for in-service teachers. I would not want to be minting new PhDs in this environment.

[mopsius]

"Ask not what your country can to to you. Ask what you can do to your country."

[EAC Mopsius]

[jhayesboh]

I agree -- we professors do A LOT for our country!