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

[Eigen]

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.

......

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!).

I didn't get to post this weekend, I just wanted to say I very much appreciated this post, and the discussion in general. It's very interesting to hear different perspectives.

I think you hit the nail on the head with students being paid like faculty members. Here, it's considered basically a "salaried" position- you do what you have to do to get the work done, and you aren't paid on an hourly basis. Along with that come both pro's and con's- more freedom and flexibility, but less set hours/time committments. At least here, however, we're not paid that much less than (some) faculty positions. Pay rises by about 10k from a PhD to a Post-Doc, and then *maybe* another 10k going to an assistant professor gig, depending on where you're going.

My undergrad, the salary for a full time TT "instructor" was about 35k. The starting salary for an assistant professor was between 45k and 55k. Compare that to stipends in the same area that are between 25k (low end, TAships) and 35k (high end, RA and Fellowships), depending on school. Similarly, most post-docs I know are salaried about 40-50k, depending (again) on school. I consider the relative pay-grades to be quite respectable for full time, non-hourly work, especially considering health benefits tacked on, not to mention free tuition.

With that in mind, I think it's not a bad thing to look at the position as a full time, salaried job. At least at my university, pay-scales are generally adjusted to provide a reasonable standard of living in the city, since the program doesn't want grad students to have to "worry" about finances. The same was true at all of the other places I visited.

I think this is one of the places that field does play a very strong role, as I know this is not true everywhere, and not even in every field at my institution.

[juilletmercredi]

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.

Then you make font size and margins standardized for everyone and take off points if they do not follow those rules.

A student can be habitually late and/or under-prepared to section.

That will show in their participation grades, and likely in exams as well if they are underprepared.

A student can be late to appointments.

Then you can refuse to make appointments with them any longer, if it happens frequently enough.

A student can horde library books.

That's what recall is for. And library fines. At my university it is possible for undergrads to renew a book enough times to borrow it for the entire semester (course textbooks are usually placed on reserves and you cannot borrow them outside of the library, but we have interlibrary loan agreements that would allow students to do that. I've done it for a textbook I wouldn't otherwise buy and couldn't afford.)

how is cheating by an undergraduate "completely" different than a graduate student going against an executed agreement to not take on additional work?

Because the undergraduate is doing it because they, on some level, have an entitlement complex: they believe deserve a high grade for less work. The graduate student is working to make enough money to eat and pay their rent.

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.

And? Seven times out of ten, this is a BS argument anyway. And in none of the other examples you gave can an undergrad say "I didn't know I was supposed to be on time for class" or "I didn't know I couldn't play with my margins to make a 4 page paper a 6 page paper" (assuming that you have set reasonable guidelines ahead of time, which you should.

I still don't see how working outside of school, even if my contract technically forbids it, suddenly strips me of my ability to grade my undergrads down for shoddy work or cutting corners.

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?

Is there anything in my comment that makes you think that? What I said was "Personally, I think it is unreasonable for programs to demand that you do not work if they are not paying you a living wage." I said nothing to say that graduate student should not expect consequences if they did get caught violating their contract, although I have seen few schools that actually hold graduate students to that (especially when they know they do not pay a living wage).

Personally, I don't think it's any of the department's business what I am doing outside of my work time so long as I am getting my work done.

[TakeruK]

At least here, however, we're not paid that much less than (some) faculty positions. Pay rises by about 10k from a PhD to a Post-Doc, and then *maybe* another 10k going to an assistant professor gig, depending on where you're going. My undergrad, the salary for a full time TT "instructor" was about 35k. The starting salary for an assistant professor was between 45k and 55k. Compare that to stipends in the same area that are between 25k (low end, TAships) and 35k (high end, RA and Fellowships), depending on school. Similarly, most post-docs I know are salaried about 40-50k, depending (again) on school. I consider the relative pay-grades to be quite respectable for full time, non-hourly work, especially considering health benefits tacked on, not to mention free tuition. With that in mind, I think it's not a bad thing to look at the position as a full time, salaried job. At least at my university, pay-scales are generally adjusted to provide a reasonable standard of living in the city, since the program doesn't want grad students to have to "worry" about finances. The same was true at all of the other places I visited. I think this is one of the places that field does play a very strong role, as I know this is not true everywhere, and not even in every field at my institution.

I also appreciate hearing about your/a different point of view and it is interesting and useful for me to realise/know how graduate schools work outside of Canada!

Being paid as a salaried researcher is pretty good if you do get all of the benefits that the faculty get (but just less money) such as health benefits, vacation time, pay adjusted to cost of living, and so on. Some of the schools that offered salaried type funding packages do not offer health benefits at all (or they just offered a minimal coverage student health plan that is different than their other salaried positions), and some provides a tiny subsidy. Salaried positions tend to have benefits that cover dependents as well, but few schools have that. I would also be worried about how secure these benefits are -- usually funding is guaranteed for so many years, but I rarely see a guarantee in maintain the same standard of working conditions and benefits. If salaried graduate students were really treated like (very) junior faculty members with all the same benefits but scaled-down finances, that would be great! But it seems like some places scaled down the salary and forgot to include the other benefits that make a salaried position desirable (especially when with some lab work or in certain groups, hours aren't all that flexible). So sometimes, it could be more beneficial work as a contractor basically for your stipend. In fact, some schools in Canada now allow students who work as RAs to declare themselves as "self-employed" for tax reasons (i.e. you are a skilled person that the school contracts to do research work).

I wouldn't want to count tuition as part of my salary even though the school pays it for me. This is because it's some arbitrary number. If tuition goes up but the school still covers it, it's not really a raise. Instead, I would consider the entire grad school experience (the mentorship, coursework, research experience) as a non-financial part of my benefits package or something. We do definitely get some equivalent monetary value (if we want to think about it that way) from our education as well, but I wouldn't say it's worth how much tuition really is (i.e. the international rate, since the difference is supposedly paid for by taxes for domestic students).

It's good to keep in mind that our salary is only a little bit below a post-doc's -- I think your numbers are what I'd expect in my field too, unless you have one of those fancy fellowships. However, I'm surprised at the rate you quoted for assistant professors. In Canada, with a MSc, a lecturer at a non-research college can make at least $50k a year, with pay grades ranging up to $80k if you have a PhD and after working there for awhile. So I guess it's a bigger opportunity cost for me to go to school in the US where a Canadian MSc is pretty much worthless. There's no guarantee that I can get such a nice job in Canada though (but then again, no guarantee on post-doc or tenure track positions either). Sessional lecturers in Canada are generally paid by the course, at a rate of about $5000-$7000 per course, depending on the school (this is from people I know who did this). Assistant professors make at least $70-80k at UBC, though, with tenured professors having starting salaries close to 100k or more. Canadian public entities (e.g. universities) have to publish the names and salaries of all their employees who make over some threshold ($75k in some places, $100k in others) so this is how we know this information!

Overall, yes, most places, at least in the physical sciences, do treat their salaried graduate students well and pay a reasonable rate. I am just worried about how secure this is due to the lack of detailed contracts etc. Some places do not have fair compensation packages at all, in my opinion, and would expect their salaried students to spend all their time working for the department.

Finally I just want to note that although it may look like I'm complaining about the stipend package at the school(s) I'm currently at / will be attending in Fall 2012, the problems I mention are mostly from policies at other institutions. I mention this because signatures and profile information will change over time but these post contents will not! Of course, there are issues with every job/stipend package, and despite all my whining about the way things work in the US, I'm still pretty excited to be attending this Fall!! =)

[Eigen]

I think you make a great point with "how will things change"- it's definitely something to keep in mind. And I think it's a problem with academia as a whole. If you peruse the Chronicle of Higher Education forums, you see similar issues experienced by post-docs and TT faculty hires alike, where the contracts are exceptionally open. Here, at least, salary is garunteed at a minimum amount for the time you're here. But as you mentioned, benefits can change. Luckily for us, benefits have been getting better rather than worse, but it could easily be the other way around.

It's interesting you mentioned the "contractor" idea. In the US, that's basically what anyone on an external fellowship is considered for tax purposes. You're a self-employed researcher doing work for/at the school.

The pay-scales you mentioned are what I'd expect for "better" tier schools in the US. However, with around 4500 universities total, there are a lot of better paying schools, and a whole lot of worse paying ones. The salaries you mention are about what I'd expect at my current RU/VH private institution, but at my previous public RU/H university, the pay scales were what I gave, for the same discipline.

To put it in perspective, you mentioned per-course pay, and I think the general pay for adjuncts that I've seen ranges from $1200ish per course per semester, up to *maybe* $4500ish at some of the really good schools, in the "competitive" fields (usually business and finance). My old school payed right at around $400-500 per credit hour per semester, so about $1200-$1500 for a normal 3 credit course. So scaling down both adjunct and full time pay scales, I think the differences line up quite well.

[imonedaful]

I presume that if you have a 9 month assistantship you would be allowed to work fulltime over the summer wherever you chose, correct? If you they are not paying you, they cannot hold you to anything I would think. What else would you do with your summer?

[Hillary Emick]

I got permission through my department for an exemption to hold outside employment. These policies two purposes: one so that the university retains intellectual property rights to any work produced during this period (assuming the side job would also be in academia) and two because there is a long history showing that in general grad students with side jobs tend to perform less well as students and university employees. I was able to demonstrate that there would be no conflict of interest as far as intellectual property rights go, and that it would involve a very small number of hours that I could manage in addition to my workload as a grad student.

I would not hold a side job without permission if it is specifically forbidden by your contract. You would be jeopardizing your position as well as your credibility as an employee by violating your contract.

[QuirkyGrad64]

So it's been a while since I started this thread, and I wanted to post my update. I just took a job tutoring with a local tutoring company. At least for this summer, I think I can manage working the 30 hours in my lab that I am working, plus this side tutoring job here and there. Starting in the fall, I might have to scale back my hours. This company let's me tutor on the side, on my own, as well... so I am hoping to squeeze out some advertisements and get some students at a slightly higher rate. Ideally one to two students at a time would give me a nice boost to my income without me spending more than 10 hours a week tutoring.

From the perspective of older students, is 10 hours a week too much on top of classes and my own research? I am just beginning this journey, so I respect the opinions of others.

ALSO I did some asking around, and found out that in our program, apparently 20 hours of work a week is allowed outside, and 30 hours is allowed during the summers. I have this email on record if I am ever asked "what were you thinking?!"

[TakeruK]

That's good that there won't be any conflict for your outside job

10 hours a week of TAing + classes + research is pretty daunting for me -- so personally, 10 hours of tutoring + classes + research would really be my limit. I would probably be more comfortable with around 4-6 hours of tutoring a week. Tutoring is a great source of side income though, but I would prefer to do private tutoring over a "tutoring job" since the tutoring agency is really just a middleman that will take a cut, increasing costs for your student and decreasing your income. However, if they pay you to work at a "help desk" and not many people show up, then I guess that could be okay. Also, if you are having problems finding your own students, they are a great way to make these contacts -- word of mouth is really good for getting tutoring clients.

I did work at a tutoring "company" during my undergrad, but it was a student organization that provides tutoring services for free and pays the tutors a small salary, so I thought that was a good thing to do. They did have a policy that while we could tutor on the side, we couldn't use our affiliation with this organization to get clients (i.e. no advertising while "on duty" and you can't say things like "approved by Tutoring Organization X" or whatever. Some of my friends wrote something like "worked for Organization X for Y years" and they were asked to removed it -- although I don't think that is really fair, it was easier for everyone to just comply.

At our current department, the department helps their grad students find private tutoring clients by maintaining a tutor list of interested grad students on the department webpage along with a list of courses that we can tutor. At my undergrad, working at Organization X also gives you an entry in the Organization X's Private Tutor database. With adverts like that and word of mouth, I quickly reached the maximum number of hours I could feasibly tutor! It's also good money -- I charged $25/hr as an undergrad and $30/hr now as a graduate student. Others in the department have been successful charging a rate equal to our TA hourly rate ($38/hr) but I would feel a little guilty charging that much. I found that even the best tutoring companies only pay around $15-20/hr (and charge the students the same as we would charge or more!).

[Eigen]

I have some friends at larger schools that charge up to $75/hour for pre-med required classes. It can be an amazing source of side income.

One thing I will put out there to remember, especially if you're tutoring undergrads at your university, is that things you tell the students can get back to their professors. So make sure you teach as if they were watching over your shoulders.

Our employment contract specifically forbids outside employment, but specifically allows tutoring. It's considered a good use of our skills, and we're also allowed to use "university and departmental resources" to tutor, meaning we can use labs/classrooms etc. for tutoring appointments. Our faculty refer struggling undergrads to grad students for tutoring, as do our department administrators.

[QuirkyGrad64]

Thanks for the recent responses. I have been approached by faculty here to tutor already, so it makes me feel even more comfortable about doing this. I think it will work out well for me.