Having a side job when you are not supposed to...

[StrangeLight]

this is a strange topic. i know a couple graduate students that took summer jobs in retail every single year of our program. they were generally not considered to be among the stronger students, but i don't know which came first, the job or those impressions. i do know that the summer is THE time for most of us to get moving on our own research, especially if those require research trips and fieldwork. it's also the best time to hit conferences and network with people outside of our programs. the students that spend their summers doing this work have, in my experience, set themselves up well for the job market. someone on their hiring committee met them at a conference. someone that nominated them for a postdoc position remembered them from the archives. i don't think working in the summer technically violates the fellowship or TAship contracts that most of us sign, but... this isn't undergrad. if you need extra money, start researching smaller grants and awards you can apply for. it'll put cash in your pocket and look great on your CV.

BUT... if you're going to get a job... get them to pay you under the table. you want as much deniability as possible. if one of your profs walks in while you're waiting tables, hide.

[robot_hamster]

this is a strange topic. i know a couple graduate students that took summer jobs in retail every single year of our program. they were generally not considered to be among the stronger students, but i don't know which came first, the job or those impressions. i do know that the summer is THE time for most of us to get moving on our own research, especially if those require research trips and fieldwork. it's also the best time to hit conferences and network with people outside of our programs. the students that spend their summers doing this work have, in my experience, set themselves up well for the job market. someone on their hiring committee met them at a conference. someone that nominated them for a postdoc position remembered them from the archives. i don't think working in the summer technically violates the fellowship or TAship contracts that most of us sign, but... this isn't undergrad. if you need extra money, start researching smaller grants and awards you can apply for. it'll put cash in your pocket and look great on your CV.

BUT... if you're going to get a job... get them to pay you under the table. you want as much deniability as possible. if one of your profs walks in while you're waiting tables, hide.

I have no choice but to work. My stipend isn't (wasn't) enough money to live off of and it doesn't cover the summer months. I have probably missed out on some opportunities because of it, but I don't believe I'm a bad student. My program just doesn't have a lot of funding opportunities. I can't count on getting some sort of outside grant. I can't have all my eggs in one basket, otherwise I might end up high and dry.

Edited March 30, 2012 by robot_hamster

[TakeruK]

TakeruK:

You seem to be mixing two issues consistently. One is having a life while in a PhD program- most places, this is perfectly acceptable, and quite often encouraged. The other is working a side job while in a PhD program.

The issue isn't how much time you work vs. what you do in your free time, but rather how you split up your "working" time. And it's often based on the understanding that you really only have so many productive hours of energy in a day. If you're going to be expending energy working, then it should be on your PhD. In other words, working a second job isn't considered a "free-time" activity.

There's also the idea that you should be working primarily to build up your CV. Most advisors really care that you go on to do pretty well in the field, because it shows them in a good light, and is kind of the point of getting a PhD. Volunteering, teaching, and even "service" (committees, etc) are all part of that. It's not the most important part of your CV (your publications and research are), but it's definitely a plus.

Working waiting tables, on the other hand, isn't downtime, and doesn't contribute to your CV. Basically, even raising a family or spending time with your spouse, is an activity that is seen as being beneficial to your life long term, while a side-job really isn't.

Ah okay, I think understand your point now! So we can think of our "time/energy budget" as being split into a "free time account" and "work time account", and that the hours in one "account" cannot be used in the other. So if we now only talk about use of time out of the "work time account", we can avoid mixing up having a life vs. working a second job.

So I still see no reason to say that 100% of the "work time account" has to be spent on PhD work. This is probably necessary for students who want to be a leader in their field and it's definitely in the best interests of the student's career (and their supervisors/departments). But why does the student have to strive to be the best they can be? There isn't room for every grad student to become leaders in their field -- some grad students I know don't want tenured positions at all. They would prefer something with less responsibility, for example.

The amount of hours in the "work time account" depends on the person, so maybe for some people, making "satisfactory progress" means spending 100% of their working hours on their PhD. But if one already meets the "satisfactory progress" condition, and still have "work hours" left, they should be free to choose to spend it on whatever work they wish to do.

[Behavioral]

I have no choice but to work. My stipend isn't (wasn't) enough money to live off of and it doesn't cover the summer months. I have probably missed out on some opportunities because of it, but I don't believe I'm a bad student. My program just doesn't have a lot of funding opportunities. I can't count on getting some sort of outside grant. I can't have all my eggs in one basket, otherwise I might end up high and dry.

Like I mentioned earlier, I think the underlying assumption in these posts is we're talking about students in research-intensive PhD programs whom are fully-funded. Masters students should and are usually expected to work since working doesn't have such a direct impinging effect on your career (as opposed to doing more research and securing more grants/publications).

[robot_hamster]

Like I mentioned earlier, I think the underlying assumption in these posts is we're talking about students in research-intensive PhD programs whom are fully-funded. Masters students should and are usually expected to work since working doesn't have such a direct impinging effect on your career (as opposed to doing more research and securing more grants/publications).

I know we're talking about research-intensive PhD programs. I was just responding to the part about not being a good student and missing out on things. It just seemed from the post that this applied to all graduate students. I'm sorry if my response wasn't appropriate.

[Sigaba]

MOO, any graduate student who decides to step outside the boundaries of an agreement he or she signed should think the risks through thrice.

In addition to taking the risk of getting on the wrong side of one's program and/or professors, there's another risk.

If you work as a T.A., at some point you're going to need to hold a student accountable. If you've colored outside of the lines, will you still have the moral authority to tell that student "You must color inside the lines"?

To be clear, in America, people cut each other slack all the time. The Ivory Tower is no different. And it is sometimes more convenient to ask for forgiveness than for permission. However, it is my view that this is an instant where the risk is not worth the reward.

My $0.02.

[joejoe]

Well, i am doing free lancing myself. Doing jobs on internet is safe and i do not think it will cause any problem at all.

[stell4]

I have a couple friends doing online tutoring at http://www.tutor.com/apply . They usually always have math and science tutoring openings, other areas open up now and then too

[rising_star]

NOTHING wrong with a side job. In fact, I think it is good for your wallet *and* your mind. I really want a part-time job (even though I am fully funded) to bring in some extra cash and help me manage my time. There is nothing wrong with a waitress, retail, library, coffee shop, whatever job as long as it doesn't take over your study time.

Yea, this is my feeling about this too. When I was a 2nd year MA student, I took on a part-time job. It was easy work, basically sitting at a desk for 12 hours a week, sometimes answering the phone or responding to emails. I had a lot of free time while I was there, some of which I actually used to work on my MA thesis. And yes, I was fully funded. People knew I had a job and didn't care and it didn't affect my funding. The money I got from that job was what I used to pay for my cross-country move for my PhD program (plus to cover expenses on program visits that otherwise wouldn't have been covered). If I hadn't had the job, honestly, I might not have finished my thesis on time. I had WAY too much unstructured time before that and having the job (plus taking on two foster dogs) provided the structure I needed to be productive. For example, I'd work 8:45am-2pm, taking some time to browse through articles or data relevant to the chapter I was working on or edit something I'd written the day before. Then, once I got home, I'd sit down and write the section that I'd been brainstorming while I was at work.

The point is that you could be making *more* progress on any of your other work if you aren't working an outside job, since that time can be devoted to work instead. This doesn't apply in the same way to other "free-time" activitites, that are required for a healthy, happy and holistic life. No one begrudges you for having a life outside the lab, but if you're going to be working anywhere, it should be on your research.

That is an assumption on your part. This varies widely from one individual to the next. Just because I'm not working an outside job doesn't mean that I'm going to be devoting that time to work. There are only so many hours one person can reasonably work in a day/week/month. Assuming that working 10-15 hours a week as a waiter means that the person is losing 10-15 hours of productive work just isn't the case. It's far more likely that the person will prioritize their life and free-time activities and only lose a few hours. In my case, working 12-16 hours part-time resulted in losing maybe 10 hours of time I would've spent watching TV or surfing the web, not in losing 12-16 hours that I could've spent on research or coursework or whatever. (Actually, since I could surf the web at work, it made my random web surfing financially advantageous in a way it would not have been if I'd been doing it in either my home or campus office.)

And maybe I'm one of the crazy ones, but I TA for free every semester, because it's a great source of teaching experience for my resume.

That's definitely crazy. It also wouldn't be allowed in either of the graduate departments I've been a part of. The reason being that when people work for free, they take away actual/future positions from those who would need to be paid for that same work.

The whole forbidden job thing is a bit like, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" but with a little don't be dumb and get caught mixed in with it.

Yea, I agree with this. People understand that many students, even fully-funded PhD students, need to make extra money for various reasons (family, medical, etc.). Or, that some people like me, need the structure provided by having to be at a place at a particular time for a few hours.

[TakeruK]

That's definitely crazy. It also wouldn't be allowed in either of the graduate departments I've been a part of. The reason being that when people work for free, they take away actual/future positions from those who would need to be paid for that same work.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks this! Coming from Canada where TAs at all major university are part of a labour union, I was really shocked at some of the ways grad students are actually treated as free labour in some places. One school said that students can take extra TA jobs and I would "get to" keep half of the money I'm paid (wow what a perk!) because the other half goes back to the department (they will reduce my funding in some other place). Another school's TA handbook said that my contract would specify some number of hours, but my supervisor won't care and will expect me to keep working until they are satisfied.

I feel that graduate students are vulnerable to exploitation because for most of our education career, we've always known that hard work = reward. If we put extra hours in that paper, lab report, assignment, etc. we would get a better grade. That still applies for our courses and our thesis, but we're no longer students when we work as TAs.

[Dal PhDer]

I think this is an interesting topic, and there is certainly two different sides.

I have had this debate with my professor- looking back I don't think I handled it as properly as I should! - and I stuck to my grounds.

I see my PhD process as a time for me to learn and gain experience- I don't want this to be a rushed process where I am just there to do my courses, comps and dissertation. To me, it is important to build valuable skills and networks. I sought out a 5hr/wk RA position (on top of what my supervisor was giving me) so that I could experience qualitative work. To me, it's important to have experience outside of my traditional quant background- especially if I want to work outside of academics. Additionally, I took on a TA'ship, as this is extremely crucial experience if you want to teach at an institution.

Also, my supervisor could only fund me until this March. For me, I wanted to secure additional work so that if I couldn't receive funding, I would have a source of income. I am not sure all supervisors realize the financial side of pursuing this degree.

The other point I see in this thread is the fact that many students get taken advantage of. I know during my masters I was expected to work 10hr/wk unpaid for my advisor. I have also experienced during my PhD having to take on extra projects and duties, just because I am getting a stipend. This work often took me above the 15hr/wk that I was getting paid for. And even though I am no longer receiving a stipend, I still have to give free time to my lab- I call it "voluntold". I struggle with thinking it's just part of the process and 'paying your dues' and thinking - wow, this is really not right.

In the end, it's important for you to do what you need to do. The PhD is YOUR journey and you need to make it fit into what you want out of it and still maintain a livelihood.

[far_to_go]

At my university, I believe the policy is that we're not supposed to work side jobs. I know a few people who do (tutoring, restaurant service), but the admins don't seem to mind.

I was thinking about taking a side job as an adjunct instructor in another city for next year. I talked with my DGS about it, and she recommended that I not do it because of the heavy time commitment of commuting and teaching my own courses on top of all the stuff I have to do for my home university. I decided to take her advice and skip the adjunct job. Interestingly, she never brought up the issue of "you're not supposed to work a side job as per your contract"- before I read through this thread, it hadn't crossed my mind either. Apparently my department is really laid-back about this.

FWIW, I'm glad I decided not to take a side job, at least for now. I'm fully funded through the next year, so it was never about the money for me; I just wanted to get more teaching experience. But since I'm already getting the opportunity to TA at my home institution, it makes a lot more sense for me to focus on coursework, exams, and just having some semblance of a life.

[Snygard]

*This comment applies to Masters, not PhD.

I do not receive financial aid from either my university or my family. I am taking out federal student loans to pay for my tuition and school expenses. I am HIGHLY against using federal student loan money for expenses that are NOT related to school (buying a bottle of wine, going out to dinner, or even paying my rent). Therefore, yes, I do work about 15 hours a week bartending. It is quick and easy money (averages about 30 dollars and hour) There was a poster who said that the people in their program who hold side jobs are the not-so-great-students and that is usually not the case (at least for me). I do just as well as the students who do not work. It makes me manage my time a lot better.

[juilletmercredi]

And maybe I'm one of the crazy ones, but I TA for free every semester, because it's a great source of teaching experience for my resume.

I personally would not TA for free. It is far too much work, and I am not free labor. TAing is a service with value and I believe I should be paid fairly for providing this service.

Of course, this is an individual decision that has to be weighed against paid TA opportunities at your school, the benefit it would give to your resume and whether you already live comfortably.

I'm going to go with the "depends on the culture of your department" answer. Some departments explicitly forbid outside work but really look the other way as long as you are meeting the requirements of the program and doing what you are supposed to be doing. Some are more strict.

Personally, I think it is unreasonable for programs to demand that you do not work if they are not paying you a living wage. And personally, I agree with rising_star in that having a reasonable amount of other commitments (including, potentially, a part-time job that I enjoy) helps me balance some of my unstructured time to get more done.

If you work as a T.A., at some point you're going to need to hold a student accountable. If you've colored outside of the lines, will you still have the moral authority to tell that student "You must color inside the lines"?

Of course you will. Working for extra pay as a doctoral student is completely different from plagiarizing a paper or cheating on an exam.

[Eigen]

See, in our program, if you're already on a full stipend, you can't get paid extra for TAing, since it goes to people who actually need a TAship.

That said, the chances of landing a decent job on graduation at any school that has a strong teaching fous is nearly nill if you don't have teaching experience.

TAing for free allows me the choice over what classes I want to teach, as well as how many and at what times. I don't get paid, but I'm already on a full stipend anyway.

[StrangeLight]

eigen,

i totally see the value of teaching experience. but on principle, i don't think taking on free labour is a good idea. would it be possible to adjunct at another nearby college? maybe you'd only make $3000 for the semester, but at least you'd get paid to do it.

[Eigen]

I might adjunct my last year, but I know my advisor would not be thrilled with me doing it now.

I think a lot of this thread also captures discipline specific differences- In the sciences, since we're predominately paid a very fair living wage that kind-of encapsulates all of the work we do, it's not as big of a deal to take on something like this "for free".

Since in reality, what it means is that I'll be taking time away from my research to teach, while I'm not getting paid more to teach, I'm still getting the same stipend for the research, even though I'm in effect doing less of it. Hence, it balances out.

But then, especially in the lab sciences, assistantships are way more all encompassing, since an RAship is basically you getting paid for whatever work you're doing towards your dissertation, rather than the more restrictive RAships some other disciplines might have.

In addition to the more general points above, in my specific case I've got an NSF fellowship, which pretty explicitly forbids taking external work while you're being funded. Although I'm sure my program officer would approve me adjuncting during my last year to really get that extra bit of teaching experience.

I also should add, that while not generalizable, my department's (and my) experience has been that people who have been working extra jobs really, really cut down on their hours in the lab. I'm sure not everyone is like this, but the handful of people who have been waiting tables, teaching gymnastics, etc. have done so by cutting 20+ hours out of their "productive" work week, and it really shows. There are people who work smaller jobs under the table, but the majority of those who are working other jobs have severely altered career trajectories.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Eigen

[TakeruK]

Even in the sciences (I have been in Physics and Astronomy departments so far), TAing for free still means you are working for free, which means you are taking away a paid spot for a non fully funded student. In Canada, it would be against our collective agreements for the department/University to even offer students a "chance" to work for free, for this same reason.

I guess this thread also captures a lot of different ideas on what it means to be a graduate student. In Canada, our stipends are clearly differentiated between RA work, TA work, and just stipend. My current funding is about 1/3 from my supervisor in form of an RAship (my contract states I shall work 20 hours per week to fulfill this contract), 1/3 from the department in form of a TAship (my contract is for 4.5 hours per week), and 1/3 from scholarships and awards (this is just free money). So, I am expected to work on my thesis research a minimum of 20 hours per week, and spend 9 hours per week TAing. The rest of the time (~20 additional working hours per week) I use it to attend courses, do homework, and work even more on my thesis research because I want to do a good job. That is, I should be making "minimum satisfactory progress" if I work 20 hours per week on my research because that's what they paid/expect me to do. I want to do better than this so I choose to spend more hours.

So, since we have contract hours for everything, then it's not like we can spend less time on research to do more TAing. Also, how does your supervisor feel about paying you to do research but you spend some of that time doing TA work instead? When I TA, I don't spend less time on research, so it doesn't really balance out.

Finally, I think some national fellowships are now allowing a small number of paid work while you're funding, because they want grantees to have teaching experience too? This is what Caltech told me even though I don't qualify for any of the awards, as a non-American.

The bottom line is that just because the experience is good for us doesn't mean we should do it for free. In fact, precisely because the Universities know that we want this experience, they can exploit it and get free labour from us. When I am working as a TA, I am not a "graduate student that is learning how to teach", I am a "qualified person employed by the University to do the job set out in my job description/contract". I learn (to teach) by gaining experience, not because I am a student of the university.

I feel that as undergrads, we should "work as hard as we can" in order to get good grades, impress our profs etc. As graduate students, I feel that I'm an employee more than a student, so I basically "work as much as I am paid to" for RA and TA work. For my own coursework, obviously I'm a student and not an employee, so I "work as much as I want to" to get the results (grades, impressing profs, whatever) that I want. Universities are able to exploit students when they place student-like expectations on paid work or otherwise confuse/blur our roles as students and employees.

PS: Just a clarification -- the Canadian version of the NSF (NSERC) also does a graduate award/fellowship that limits a student's paid work to be 450 hours per year. In addition, when I held one of these, I was NOT paid an RAship because NSERC graduate award holders cannot be paid from any other NSERC source. So, the idea was that the fellowship will support me although I won't have RA support. But, the fellowship doesn't require me to work any set amount of hours -- I would still receive and keep the money if I didn't work at all.

[rising_star]

See, in our program, if you're already on a full stipend, you can't get paid extra for TAing, since it goes to people who actually need a TAship.

So, you work for free and take away a position that would otherwise go to someone that needs a TAship. This is precisely why we are not allowed to TA for free in my department, regardless of your funding situation. As an example, I have am fully funded in the fall so I don't need a TA or RA position. Consequently, my name was removed from the list of available TAs/RAs.

[Eigen]

Why do you keep assuming I'm taking a position away from someone by TAing?

None of the classes I TA for are normally on the list of available positions, anyway. And there's no one in my department that isn't fully funded on a TA or an RA. A TAship is something that you get given when you're taken on, and you are garunteed that position (or a better RA/fellowship position) for the rest of your PhD program. There's no way for it to get re-shuffled and given to someone else, leaving you without funding. You might get a semester with a really light load, but that's more a benefit than a loss.

If we have fewer classes that need to be TA'd in a given semester, all TAs just get the number of courses they have to teach lowered and their funding stays the same, so it's never the case that someone TAing for free would "take away" a position from someone that needs it.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Eigen

[TakeruK]

However, let's say that next year, enrollment increases so that all class sizes increase by some small percentage. To use some concrete numbers, there used to be 500 students taking Basketweaving (BW) 101 and 10 TAs are assigned to grade assignments and run tutorials for BW101. Next year, for some reason, there is a 10% overall increase in freshman student population (perhaps the University is expanding), so now there are 550 students in BW 101.

To keep the same TA:student ratio, BW 101 now needs 11 TAs. The BW department can't just move a TA from another course to BW101 because enrollment has increased across the board. So, without free TAs, the department has two choices:

1) Spend the same budget on TAs so now each of the 10 TAs for BW101 has a higher workload. This means they either have to work more hours for the same pay (i.e. a pay cut), or spend less time on each student, which results in decreased education quality for BW101 students.

or

2) Plan for these increases by increasing their budget accordingly, which may include increasing graduate student class size etc. so that they have 11 TAs available for BW101, or paying the current 10 TAs more to cover the additional hours of work. Basically, in order to teach more students at the same quality of education, they have to spend more.

But with free TAs, the department can just get someone to work as the 11th TA for free. So now the school/department gets the best of both worlds: they increase their income and "production" (more students = more tuition collected = more graduates etc.) without having to pay for it. They don't have to pay for it because TAs are willing to work for free and absorb the cost for the school. Even though the need for TAs are growing, they don't have to grow their employees -- their current grad students can just work harder.

This is a serious issue and some of the financial offers I had this year had many strange clauses because of things related to this. For example, one place said that I would be expected to TA for X amount of courses because that is where my stipend money is coming from. That's fine. But then it says, if I choose to TA further courses, I would "get to" keep half of the extra money paid to me for that TAship (they would decrease some other part of stipend equal to the other half of my TAship). Another school said that although I will have TA contracts with X hours to work per term, my course supervisor will ignore those numbers and I'd be expected to work as much as the supervisor expects.

It might even one day become the expectation that "good" students will always volunteer to TA for free (or work more hours than they are paid for). If you don't, then you aren't considered a student who is serious about education. If you don't, then you won't get a good LOR for your post-docs. If you don't, your relationship with the department or your PhD committee could be strained.

I feel that by working for free, you are lowering the working conditions for both yourself and your peers and devaluing your skills. You may contribute to preventing future graduate student positions from opening up. You are allowing the department/University to get the benefits of additional graduate student labour without paying for it (or to spend it on something else instead). But, this free labour may not even benefit your department -- if the University sees that fewer paid TA positions are needed for your department, instead of spending money in your department to deal with larger class sizes, the University can spend that money elsewhere.

[Eigen]

You seem to be making a large number of assumptions with your post relative to my situation, as do several others.

But then, there's one thing that's repeated quite often on these fora, and that's that in the end you have to do what's best for you. Whether that's burning bridges in choosing a school, or something else.

Similarly, my ability to get teaching experience to make myself a viable candidate is my first priority. If down the road conditions degrade for TAs, then I will do the same thing I do for other bad conditions for grad students on campus, and push back. I'm the president of our graduate student association, I'm already the one that is our liason to the administration and pushes for changes for graduate students.

That said, TA positions at my university aren't nearly as codified as positions seem to be at yours. One semester you might have to oversee 3 labs per week, the next you might just be grading for one 20 student course. Similarly, there's no written contract for number of hours per week for any of our positions, RA or TA.

I can say with quite a bit of certainty that our department won't have any problems with too few TA positions in the near future. We're already having to hire grad students from other related departments and even senior undergrads to cover all of our courses, not to mention branching out to hiring adjuncts, something our school rarely does at all. Too many of our faculty have grant money to move grad students to RAships, and we're really lacking for TAs.

But again, I don't TA any courses normally in the pool. I either work out something to split lectures with one of our facutly members, or take some of the smaller courses off of their hands. It gives me actual lecture experience and control over an entire course, which is something that is quite rare in my discipline. And by doing so, there's no chance I'll take away current or future TA positions from other grad students, because they wheren't hiring TAs for these courses to begin with.

[TakeruK]

Yes you are right -- what I'm saying may not apply to you and your current situation. I was writing about the idea of TAing/working for free in general.

Everyone indeed should do what is best for them. I write my views on this thread because I think it's best for me (and in my opinion, graduate students in general) if other students do not work for free and cheapen/devalue my labour. Sure, we may not be at the same school (I don't know where you are) so your decisions may not directly impact me. But if more and more students decide to work for free, it will eventually directly or indirectly affect me.

I understand your reasons because graduate students do not generally get to teach very much in the physical sciences. I would really like that experience for myself as well. However, because students like us desire the opportunity to teach so much, we are liable to get exploited. Instead of paying us in actual money, the University can pay us with "teaching experience" instead, even though they normally do pay graduate students with both actual money and "teaching experience" for people funded with TAs.

I am glad that conditions are good for graduate students at your school right now. Generally, physical science graduate students are treated very well, much better than our peers in humanities or social sciences. However, things may not always stay this good. Doing things like working for free sets a precedent for the University to exploit students if things get worse and they start overworking graduate students. But at least in the short term, it sounds like everything is fine.

It's good that there is a graduate student association that can communicate well with the administration, and it's good that you would be able to push for change if things go bad. But that means things have to go bad first and when working rights are given up, they are generally much harder to get back. In Canada, all major universities have unionized their TAs (and for some places TFs and RAs as well). So almost everyone in Canada has structured contracts that define our "job description" as TAs, RAs, and TFs. This ensures that every graduate student gets the same working rights, no matter what discipline nor who their TA supervisor is. Everyone has the same sick leave policy, the same conference leave policy, the same parental/maternity leave, etc. At the beginning of each TA assignment, we sit down with the prof and draw up a rough outline of how I'm expected to spend my hours. For example, if I'm assigned 3 hours per week to grade, then I know how to pace myself and whether I can write detailed explanations in graded assignments or simply write down a mark. This also allows me to plan how many office hours I want to hold, and ensures that time for administrative things such as the meeting, training sessions, time spent reading the lab manual, time spent entering grades, etc. are all accounted for. This allows me to schedule my own responsibilities such as studying for exams, doing research -- I won't be surprised with a sudden expectation to spend 20 hours marking midterms one week. We are supposed to keep track of our hours and stop working when we run out (the prof then decides to either pay us more or do the work themself) -- however we aren't very rigorous about it and just aim to be within the contract by ~10% of the hours, and we reassess the time budget during the term to make sure the we aren't going to run out of hours in the middle of the contract (i.e. if hours are being used up too fast, maybe the number of office hours will be reduced, or the number of assignments, or the we would have to spend less time marking in the future, etc.)

So, for me, despite how much I really do want teaching experience, I'm not going to do it for free. The cost to my job security and those of my peers (present and future) is too high. Maybe right now, with the current situation in your department, you are getting what you want out of the situation without much harm (if any) to yourself or your peers. But in general, I am getting the feeling that graduate students in the US are paid like the faculty members. That is, we get some stipend and then we are expected to devote our time working in the department, whether it's research, teaching, etc. (similar to how profs don't get paid per course, they are paid a salary to compensate for all services such as teaching, admin, research, and so on). The only difference is that profs get paid a much more reasonable salary, work benefits, reasonable expectations on hours to work, and they have some kind of job security (that is, they actually have a job while we are training in hopes of getting one). (Although I can see untenured profs working their butts off but again, they are doing it for an actual tenured position while we are just doing this in hopes of eventually getting one!).

I'm expecting quite a bit of a work-culture shock when I start a US PhD program! It would be nice to be a part of a union so that we have legal recourse and protections (contracts, right to negotiate our working conditions) not available to graduate student associations. But I have not heard of any US schools with unions for their students (a lot of places don't even consider us as employees!).

[Sigaba]

If you work as a T.A., at some point you're going to need to hold a student accountable. If you've colored outside of the lines, will you still have the moral authority to tell that student "You must color inside the lines"?

Of course you will. Working for extra pay as a doctoral student is completely different from plagiarizing a paper or cheating on an exam.

As you well know, there are other ways that undergraduates can color outside the lines short acts of cheating or plagiarizing. A four page essay can become six pages. A student can be habitually late and/or under-prepared to section. A student can be late to appointments. A student can horde library books.

And, ultimately, how is cheating by an undergraduate "completely" different than a graduate student going against an executed agreement to not take on additional work? In both cases, a student is deliberately violating established standards of behavior for that student's personal gain. Indeed, at some institutions, an undergraduate could reasonably argue that he or she did not know she was plagiarizing because she was never given extended guidance as to what constitutes plagiarism. Are you saying that a graduate student also reasonably say "I did not know that I was expected to abide by the contract I signed when I was offered a fellowship/teaching assistant ship?"

[TakeruK]

A four page essay can become six pages. A student can be habitually late and/or under-prepared to section. A student can be late to appointments. A student can horde library books.

And, ultimately, how is cheating by an undergraduate "completely" different than a graduate student going against an executed agreement to not take on additional work? In both cases, a student is deliberately violating established standards of behavior for that student's personal gain.

I don't see how any of the above examples you listed counts as "cheating", or even "colouring outside the lines". A student that changes margins, uses extra whitespace, fluff words, whatever, to make a 4 page essay into a 6 page essay would end up with a lower quality essay than an essay written to fill 6 pages. If the student is able to write an excellent quality paper in only 4 pages, and then expands it to 6 pages -- well then I think that student deserves the marks (i.e. it is silly to mark an essay based on its length rather than its quality). A late/un-prepared student will suffer in their work. If they don't, sure they won't leave a good impression on their TA/instructor, but it's their prerogative to do so. Same thing with the late appointments -- it's a bad trait, but their prerogative, it's not "cheating". As for the library book thing, if the library doesn't have a rule against holding a book for the whole term, then it's okay too. It's common practice everywhere I've been for students to check out a course textbook to avoid paying high fees to buy it. Usually libraries have a rule where if another student requests it, then the current holder must return the book in 48 hours or whatever.

Indeed, at some institutions, an undergraduate could reasonably argue that he or she did not know she was plagiarizing because she was never given extended guidance as to what constitutes plagiarism. Are you saying that a graduate student also reasonably say "I did not know that I was expected to abide by the contract I signed when I was offered a fellowship/teaching assistant ship?"

A graduate student could reasonably say that the restriction on employment outside of school time is unreasonable/unjust. If I ever felt like I needed to take part time work, I would of course discuss it with the department first -- if they refuse, then I would explain how I spend my time is my business -- I am upholding my end of the contract as long as I make satisfactory progress in my PhD. In other words, I believe that any such contracts only have "jurisdiction" over the academic part of my life, not everything I do. If they still refused, then I would take the work anyways and accept the consequences of breaching the contract. It will probably end badly for me, but I would fight it. Obviously I would only go this route if it meant I ran out of money (and thus would quit school anyways), not just because I wanted extra spending money.

But it is my belief that just the fact that something is a rule (or law) does not make it justified. The way to change unreasonable/unjust rules is to go do something to challenge it. Again, to be clear, I think the unjust part is that these funding contracts want to control how you spend your time even outside of academia.

Edited April 29, 2012 by TakeruK