Eigen

I figured it was something like that. Each school is different- my school pays biweekly, which means I don't get paid some month out of the year. I know other schools pay the stipend monthly, and some even pay it in lump sums per semester.

Exactly how everyone gets paid depends on their school. Sounds like you're missing one monthly payment to me. I'm also guessing the $654 might be from a non-GRFP source.

Technically, we don't have a full 4 years required of high school. I know I didn't do them. There are lots of early admission colleges, and you can always GED out. I think looking at Latin as a true elective (i.e., not fulfilling a foreign language requirement) is interesting. I hesitate, personally, to say anything is categorically inappropriate- there are always tradeoffs. My main worry would be that I think the benefits are minor relative to the costs- i.e., the diversion of funds (and instructors) from another language to Latin. Even if those teachers/funds are just used to reduce class sizes. I think that most students who benefit from advanced work will benefit just as much if it's delayed a few years (from high school to college) especially given that the vast, vast majority of high school education (esp. public) is a vague shadow of the same coursework at a collegiate level. For example, AP Chemistry covers in a full year less (and in less depth) than a semester of college chemistry. I can't speak to your situation (as I don't know it), but most public universities will accept people early admissions with eligibility for fellowships. My state, in fact, encourages it. You can start replacing your high school courses with either CC or local university courses assuming your scores would be enough to gain you entrance to the college. I can't speak for all states, but most that I'm aware of offer similar programs starting as early as the 10th grade. So while I wouldn't say it's categorically inappropriate, I would say that high schools, by and large, are not equipped to offer the level of advanced instruction that the students who need advanced instruction deserve, and trying to offer a weak facsimile takes away from resources needed by the average student. The vast majority of high school teachers are simply not appropriately prepared (and many lack the background entirely) to teach the advanced material you're suggesting. In STEM at least, I'd say most math teachers do enough of a disservice in public schools through misteaching basic algebra, and to carry that on to calculus is a really bad thing. I'll be the first to admit I'm an anomaly- I actually skipped the entirety of a normal middle school or high school for home-based unschooling, and taught myself languages & science/math via library books. I also ended up starting college a couple of years early. Most of my formative experiences with the public school system from from substitute teaching and working in the local schools for science enrichment & science teacher training. Thanks for linking the paper on the rationale for foreign language study- definitely more interesting than my simplistic utilitarian approach.

Absolutely evolved. As TakeruK points out, we went to public requirements (i.e., the ones I linked from states requiring languages to be from a specific subset for accreditation) and then to public schools. Always interesting how threads jump. Going back to the point at hand, I think the requirement (and course transfer) at a school depends on *why* the course is in the curriculum. If the course(s) are there to promote communication with non-native speakers of a language, Latin is only so useful. If it's there for a general knowledge of another language (or as the foundation for future language studies) then it's much more relevant. All of the discussions I've seen surrounding high-school language requirements come under the former argument, and as such, I can see the reluctance of a school to let Latin (although Greek is still spoken) pass as a foreign language. Personally, I'm of the opinion that Latin should be required (at least a semester) for every entering college student as part of general requirements, but I don't think it's appropriate at the high school level, especially if it replaces (rather than being in addition to) a more commonly spoken language.

Yeah, that's what I meant when I shorthanded "realm of something that necessitated reporting". Graduate students get almost no training, but I somehow was identified as one of the mandatory reporters, and have had to go through the trainings in accordance with Title IX. At least at my institution, we have a very defined list of items that fall under Title IX (definitely sexual assault or sexual harassment, but also a long list of other related offenses) then we are required to (a) inform the student and (b ) file a report with all of the information we do know. We also thankfully have very well defined confidential, non-confidential, and "semi-confidential" offices identified on campus that we can refer students to with or without an accompanying Title IX report. As I said, I don't know the contents of the original post here, so I'm sure your read on the applicability to title IX is more accurate than mine.

I guess it's strongly Title IX office dependent. I'd almost always send someone to one of the confidential resources unless what was communicated to me was in the realm of something that necessitated reporting- but that's mostly because I've seen so many nightmarish quagmires come out of Title IX reports that would have been much better for all parties involved if they'd gone somewhere else first or instead.

If we're talking about redesigning PhD programs, UC Irvines recent change is interesting, with the very structured 5+2 program.

It is indeed! But they're also exceptionally competitive positions. To be honest, I think that a lot of full-time faculty positions are significantly underpaid as well. And I think a large portion of the reason for this has to do with two factors: Large use of adjunct labor (that is exceptionally cheap) and a huge number of people relatively desperate for any full time position, no matter the pay. $80k is high, but at my institution that's a good deal lower than starting faculty pay- and I'd wager that's the case for most schools that routinely hire post-docs. At least in my experience, schools where faculty are making 40-50k aren't R1 schools that are hiring large numbers of post-doctoral researchers. That, of course, brings up the other issue- that we have a hugely dual class system even within TT faculty, separating research (R1, some R2) faculty from teaching faculty, with an immense difference in compensation. I've even seen starting faculty salaries that are less than my current graduate stipend, to be honest.

Ah, ok. Your office must be better than mine if it's well equipped- most of the ones I'm familiar with are floundering mightily, and adhere to the "single investigator, turn it over to the University Lawyers" standard very similar to Northwestern's approach, but without bringing in an outside law firm to handle it. That said, I can't imagine harassment from a non-university affiliated individual is something the Title IX office is suited to handle- perhaps the Dean of Students would be a better starting place for more general advice.

Just to throw this in here talking about post-doctoral salaries... National Lab/NRC post-docs are in the $80k range, and increase per year.That is what I would consider an appropriate STEM post-doctoral salary, personally.

Legally, they cannot refer you elsewhere if you make a title IX complaint without being in violation of the federal Title IX statutes. You may know your office, but if they're doing what you say, they're not following the federal guidelines. Similarly, I'm a bit confused- you say you feel justice was served (Kipnis was found to not be in any violation), but then you feel disgusted that Northwestern didn't make a statement against Kipnis. I don't know any academic that isn't completely dumbfounded by the complete attack on freedom of speech shown through the Title IX office on a professor publishing in a reputable journal. If we risk censure for discussing controversial issues, academia will die a fast death.

This sounds disturbingly like another Northwestern case brewing. The Title IX office is not "capable of figuring it out". They have no adjudicative authority. If you submit a complaint, you will initiate legal proceedings against the professor, and stand a chance of damaging or ending their career. If you don't really understand how the complaint process with Title IX works (and it seems you don't) you probably shouldn't submit a complaint there until you do. Additionally, they are supposed to only be responsible for gender-related incidents- sexual assault, sexual harassment, or gender discrimination. Since you've deleted your original post, I can't say whether what happened fell under this, but it doesn't seem to. If your professor blackmailed you into sleeping with them, or groped you in office hours, that would be a title IX complaint. Even physical assault with no sexual context would not be grounds for a title IX complaint. That shouldn't stop you from filing legitimate complaints, but it's worth thinking, quite hard, whether the Title IX office (which is simply charged with gender equality on campus) is the office to be adjudicating this dispute.

I think the argument is more that high school is not the place for elective or advanced courses. It's part of the "education creep" of the US system. We've consistently added years to required public education, rather than focusing on the basics and letting "university' take care of the rest of it as many EU countries do. If we only had 10 years of public education (which was common even in the US not so very long ago) and had university (i.e., the first two years of general higher education that followed into a "college" education (ala France and the UK) this would not be so much of an argument. The base public education focuses on educating people who will go no further- it fulfills the basic skills needed to be an educated contributor to society. University allows people to broaden and enrich their education, if they wish to- they can also go to a vocational school instead. As to your case, Unraed, you probably would have been one of those better off being "done" with highschool at 9th or 10th grade, and going to university early.

Since the entire premise of this thread was on whether Latin was an appropriate substitute for other more commonly spoken languages in public schools in the US... I'd say we're talking about the foundering ship that is US Public education.

I don't disagree that becoming a well-rounded culturally literate person is important... But we're talking about an education system in which a large portion of graduates are barely literate in their primary language, and lack basic math and science skills. In that education system, I'd argue that you're putting the cart before the horse. Your ideal situation is very much the liberal arts education ideal, but the idea behind a public education system was to impart a basic level of education to everyone. You're focusing on preparation for careers, rather than things people will need to be basally educated citizens, and make decisions about their life from that standpoint. People need to know how to calculate interest, how to balance a checkbook. What the difference between viruses and bacteria is, how to stay healthy. They need to know how to read, and how to write properly. Once those basic things are met, then we try to enrich their understanding of other more nuanced parts of life, but when you focus on those nuances when the basics aren't met? For those of you posting in this thread, how much work have you done recently with inner city/disadvantaged middle and high school students? I do a lot of secondary school outreach in my spare time, and work with taking undergrads from my (privileged private) university out to work with them. Most of them are unable to cope with the differences between the average in public education and what they received- it's night and day. As to the benefits of learning language early- the same benefits are there for learning calculus early. The most pronounced benefit to learning languages young is actually pronunciation- and you don't actually need to teach the language for that, just have the children exposed to hearing it.

It's not that Latin or Greek aren't generally helpful or applicable to learning languages in general.... But that's not something the average person does much of. Learning, say, spanish in the US will allow an individual to communicate with a much greater range of people that they may encounter every day. Both useful, the second is likely to be more useful in the average person's daily, non-academic, non-learning centered life. You're assuming that it's not specialized because it let you learn other languages... but learning other languages is in itself specialized (i.e., non-typical for the average person).

I would argue that the limit should be the number that we can train appropriately and fund appropriately, and we're very much past that point now. Faculty advisors are overworked and don't have the time to appropriately train their graduate students. Similarly, there isn't enough funding to (a) fund graduate students research properly or ( fund the graduate students themselves to an appropriate, non-poverty level. We end up then with people finishing graduate school with a lot of debt, many of them without having had adequate guidance, conference travel or academic socialization. In STEM, many aren't even being broadly enough trained to go on to an industry or faculty position because of low research budgets. Fewer graduate students ultimately ends up meaning better training for those that are left, and that's in everyone's best interest. You can say that this is just my position because I've "gotten in", but I had this opinion while I was an undergrad back in the dark ages as well. I'd argue that this is even reaching the opposite extreme, where we're diluting academia as a whole by trying to open it up to more and more people who aren't the absolute top of their cohorts. You can still study a field and take graduate courses as a non-degree seeking student, but that's different from fully funding people and paying them to become the backbone of research and development for their generation, and faculty that will train future generations.

Yup, two semesters of college latin as my college language electives. I think it's highly valuable at the collegiate level, but not at the high school level.

I'm actually opposed to the teaching of calculus in public high schools, as are most of the college math teachers and science faculty I know. I find it often comes at the detriment of basic math skills, and ends up with a poor (at best) knowledge of calculus for most of the students. My university stopped accepting any high school credits towards calculus for this reason. High school is supposed to train and prepare people for nonacademic and non-specialized careers- it's general knowledge. Turning high school into "pre-college" or "college prep" is quite detrimental to the education of the average students, and we usually teach watered down "advanced" topics in place of more broadly relevant subjects. It would be far better to teach economics or statistics than calculus- they have far broader societal use, and generally result in a more educated public. Calculus is specific, and the average person will probably never find a use for it. In short, I completely agree with what TakeruK has said. The US has an overly long educational system that doesn't end up preparing anyone for anything. It's 12 years that have so very much wasted space rather than focusing on the basics, and then letting people specialize post-public high school.

Responding to several different points I've seen raised: First, to the original question. In STEM, I think we could easily half, it not lower, the number of PhDs without seeing a significant decrease in the quantity of work being produced. I'd also think we might see an increase in the quality of the work. It would also bring us back to a much more steady-state system in terms of the available jobs (both academic and non-academic) vs temporary positions (adjuncts and post-docs). It would also result in a significant increase in the availability of funding for graduate students as well as non-graduate researchers, and a likely increase in the salaries of permanent positions. We would be better off funding our best students at higher amounts than trying to take in more students and not funding them as well. Trying to weed it out in applications is hard, but we could easily move to a more stringent cutoff system like some of the higher ranked state schools use. Take in twice the number of graduate students you want to keep, decide at the end of the first year (qualifying exams, research proposals) which students will be kept on. Give the rest a non-thesis masters. Then you're not deciding based on arbitrary cutoffs, but giving everyone time in the same environment to prove themselves. The downside of this is a huge increase in the likelihood of backstabbing and competition in the first year cohort. To post-doctoral minimums: Those are only for post-docs on NiH funded grants. You can still be payed well below that in the same field if you're not in an NIH funded lab. In general, post-doctoral salaries are far, far too low. I'd say by 50% relative to non-academic post-doctoral positions in STEM. If you reduce the number of PhD students, you end up reducing the number of post-doctoral researchers, which leaves additional funds available for them. Additionally, in most settings, graduate students and post-doctoral researchers cost approximately the same amount per year to fund- fewer graduate students leaves more room for well funded post-doctoral positions. That said, I do agree that a post-doctoral position as a requirement has become too prevalent- it's a newer thing, and not always good. For shorter PhDs, it's beneficial to broaden the field of research and talents with a short-term position in a different lab (postdoc), but as I see them becoming broadly required and stretching for multiple years, I think it's bad for the field as a whole. On the later raised question of TT vs Adjunct positions: I think moving to permanent positions is good, but people forget how many adjuncts that will "put out of business". It's good long term, but the likelihood is only about 1 out of every 3 adjuncts will wind up with a permanent TT or Professor of Practice/Instructor position, while the rest will likely need to find employment outside of academia. I think it needs to happen, but the interim will not be pretty. It will have the upside of transient teaching positions being in the VAP type role, which are meant to be transient (and usually time limited) as opposed to the adjunct position that is part-time, but not capped. At our school, any VAP kept past the 3rd year is automatically rolled into a professor of practice position. This is very field specific, but I completely disagree with the need for more graduate students in STEM- I think we could use the cut just as much as the other fields.

I can't really see the point in taking a course on it. Just spend some time with the program and google. And you can figure out how to do what you need.

Just to add, I'm american but about half of the articles I've published have been in UK based journals. Accordingly, all of those manuscripts have had to be written in british english as would be appropriate.

Are you not fundable via an RA/TA? I don't know if I'd do an unfunded MS, and I know a lot of the programs in CBE/BME to tend to fund research (thesis) based MS degrees.

To elaborate, usually assistantships are higher than you'd normally be making as an "hourly" salary- they're made to support your education. Accordingly, there's an unspoken expectation that you're taking the time not spent on the assistantship and putting it into your dissertation research. Some schools have some leeway in this area- might be OK with you working part time. They can't determine whether you're working on "personal time". That said, I don't know any that would be OK with a full time job on top of an assistantship- it won't leave you much time to focus on your dissertation.

I know you don't want to give too many details, but some information is kinda crucial to answering your question. First off, this is going to be highly field dependent (STEM bench science, STEM non-bench science, Social Science, Humanities). It's also going to be quite dependent on what exactly the "funded for 20 hours" means. A lot of assistantships are only 20 hours, but are intended to fund you for more than that- others aren't. So- is it an RAship with your professor? Are you teaching? Is the professor paying you from a grant, or is it coming from the department? How did your professor originally respond to you saying you were applying for jobs? Is working this other job slowing down progress on your dissertation, or your RAship?