In article
<Pine.A32.3.92a.960907125111.120390A-100000 at homer07.u.washington.edu>,
Sarah Boomer <sarai at u.washington.edu> wrote:
>> My partner has several brothers who went through U WI/Madison and had to
> teach virtually their whole careers to make ends meet, often because of
> funding problems. To our "spoiled" eyes, this seemed outrageous. Most of
> John's brothers took 8-9 years to finish, having to teach so often. Our
> average is about 6 years.
>
I think this makes a point that this issue is something that all incoming
grad students should look into before they accept an offer for a teaching
assistantship. When I was in grad school (Univ. of RI) almost all the
grad students taught, through their entire time there. This was a
Microbiology department, so there were lots and lots of labs to cover.
There were only a couple of people fortunate enough to be supported by
their major professor's grants, but some profs with grants still had
students TAing, because the department needed the teachers. In addition
to that, summer money was hard to come by. I took slightly over six years
to get my PhD, TA'd for five of those, won a Fellowship one year, and
spent several summers stacking fruit in a produce market (which, actually
was a fun job, but didn't do much to advance my scientific career). I
think the ideal situation would be teaching for 1-2 years, with an
assistantship after that, but the reality of the situation is that some
departments need more TA's than others, and grant or departmental
financial support for assistantships isn't always there.
--
Deborah Britt, Ph.D.
Department of Medical Oncology
Rhode Island Hospital
