I've spent a lot of time thinking these past few days, and I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around how the people I attended school with for the past weeks can think the abuse from the University is acceptable.
For instance, having done gotten an BS in mathematics from my undergraduate institution and having a little bit of an obsession with numbers, I calculated the hours I spent on campus working, doing homework, etc, and how much I would have made hourly. On average, in order to do all the lab work, sieving, homework, and the paper that was required of me, I was working on something about 50 hours per week (often longer because I have no background in the subject and had to work twice as hard to catch up). I was originally given just over $5,000 to survive off of for the semester before I started raising a ruckus. So, basically, I was making just about $7 an hour. Which is lowering than federal minimum wage. Unbelievable.
Every part of me is screaming that this system graduate school is run on is clearly broken and needs to be fixed. But nothing can be fixed about it if the current graduate students who are in it accept the abuse and cult-ish attitudes as the norm and accept it. They'll scratch and claw their way through their programs, whatever their motivation is. If they truly are committed and enjoy the realm of academia and research, more power to them.
The really frustrating aspect of this though, is once this future batch of PhDs are awarded their degrees, there's bound to be a few who stay in academia, want to be professors. Unless this group has had some sort of revelation once they have the responsibility of teaching and advising future generations of students, it would seem to me that they would have the same inclinations as the professors of today: that graduate students should be overworked to the point of mental breakdown and payed so minimally that they can barely survive. Which, in essence, will only continue the cycle.
Another thing that just appalls me is how difficult it was for me to get anyone to help me or listen to what I had to say. I've come to the realization that unless you're really threatening to cause a scene, no one really seems interested in your problems.
When I was looking for answers to try to straighten out my financial situation after the department claimed "typo," I was baffled by the fact that no one would really actually answer my questions. Granted, I tried to do the most of it through email at first because I didn't have the time to go search out these people, and that resulted in most people either ignoring me, or giving a roundabout answer to avoid actually doing any work (however, I still highly recommend email, as it leaves a paper trail to prove what's been said to you, and that's definitely what saved my ass).
When email didn't work, I physically went to the locations looking for answers. When I get there to confront people, whether it be the department I'm in or some other office of the University, I receive another eye-opener. The majority of the people who work in these offices are undergraduate/graduate students, or grossly under qualified old women. And as such, for the most part, it seems as if they are given a script of what to tell you (ie "Not my job," "Can't help," "Don't know," "Go talk to so-and-so"), no matter what you say to them. They don't really want to be there, but the university is nothing if not a business here to suck up your money, so they need the job, but will do minimal effort.
Anyways, I was shuffled around for over three weeks, because the department knew they had made a humongous error, and no one else wanted to do their job. I just got lucky that I stumbled upon the guy I did yesterday, and only because I cried out of frustration in the middle of the registrar's office. As a side note, in a few weeks when everything is all said and done and I'm back in my hometown, I need to send him a thank you note.
I am so grateful I stumbled upon this man when I did, because if I hadn't, from what I'd gathered from his explanation, if I'd withdrawn on my own, without his help with all the petitions, I would've received a 50% tuition refund for the courses, and then because I'm on a scholarship, the university would've demanded all $15,000 back for the semester, even though they only gave me half the money that was used from the scholarship for tuition. Ridiculous.
I just find it so sad because I know there have to be other students like me out there, struggling with the same issue, and feeling like there's nothing they can do about it. This isn't the first time a university has tried to pussyfoot around issues with me (the first undergraduate university I attended did, but about class credits, not money), and I had to learn quickly and efficiently that the only way to deal with things like this is to cause a scene. Get in people's faces. Demand explanations. If you're polite and demure about it, afraid to cause that scene, the university will just walk all over you.
I need to find a way to reach out to and help these students. There has to be a way. A university can only abuse you if you let them.
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