And now... a tap dance

(a rant)

May I just say, just put it out there, that I happen to have some experience as a community college student, 4-year college undergrad, and graduate student.  I've been all three!  So don't you get all bitchy but smiley with me, pretending you know the first thing about conversations going on among the grad students on campus or grad life in general as you go about your undergrad education.

I explained how most grad students are working at least 20 hours a week (with many working full-time), while raising kids and attending class.  She said that undergrads do this too.  But the POINT is that grad work is like undergrad work on crack.  For every course paper, you are expected to research- and that don't mean just 3-5 articles that may or may not come from a peer-reviewed source.  That means BOOKS, chica. 

Plus, you are working with folks that are eventually going to be determining whether or not you graduate.  If you turn in a lame ass term paper, is it really going to lead to graduation?  Well, probably you could pull through even with crappy papers, but it sure as hell doesn't help your portfolio/thesis review.

Then there is that long-term grad project (portfolio, capstone, thesis) that you have to work on outside of class.  So you spent 8.5 hrs a week in class (most quarters- and this is if you DON'T overload, which I do) plus, assuming the whole 2 hours of work for every one hour of class, which sure seems to hold true, an addition 17 hrs on readings and homework, AND a bare minimum of 10 hrs a week on your final project.  And that don't include any conferences or other CV-related things you've got to get involved with, like TAing for an additional 15 hrs of work a week because it makes you more hireable in the end.  Then you got your job on top of it, and if you're lucky, that's only 20 hrs a week.  Which adds up to 87.5 hrs a week.  Let's assume you sleep 6 hrs a night-- that adds up to 42 hrs a week.  There are 168 hrs in a week- minus sleeping, working and school you have 38.5 hrs a week, divided by seven is 5.5 hours a day to work on conference proposals, publications, extra courses, applying to PhD programs, bathe, eat, commute, get ready in the morning and night, etc. etc.

Now, I've also got a disability, which takes up about 10 hours a week, just to give some idea.  I have to work out at least five days a week, or my pain is uncontrollable.  I go to acupuncture twice a week.

So when I say I want to work with other grad students to set up a grad student union of some kind so that I can count my TAships as TAships in name, because without union rights we've got to call them "reader/grader" or "peer facilitator" positions, which don't make sense to no one, understand why I find it important.  And why I think your work to plan movie nights on campus is idiotic.  Sure, important to kids who have the three hours to have fun or whatever, but that ain't me.  And it sure as hell isn't any grad student I know who is actually going to graduate.

So don't you go thinking you can represent, when you don't have any damn idea the cyclonic pressure that goes into being a grad student. 

Bitch.

...

I feel much better now.  Thank you for listening.