Poverty stipends

Graduate students at the University of South Carolina report that they make only $9,590 per year, on average. Worse, many of them are required to pay tuition.

Confronted with the these complaints, the university has promised to form a committee. Great. Maybe the grad students can eat their report.

Shame, shame, shame.

Graduation (not yours)

Commencement season has mostly wrapped up for the year, with a few remaining stragglers holding their graduation ceremonies this weekend. As June turns to July, ABD grad students can finally stop fielding questions about whether "this will be the year" as their families resign themselves to another 12 months of "dissertation"... or whatever the fuck you do all day.

Meanwhile, first year Ph.D. students, having survived the "adjustment" and wrapped up exams, are left to ponder the big questions: Why did only two people from my program graduate when entering cohorts have 10-20 people in them? What the hell did I sign up for? Will I ever see a dentist again?

Second years know the answer, but having survived two years of work and stress and misery (with employment prospects declining by the day) -- you may as well stay. Third year might be better, right?

Right. Happy summer everyone.

Douche, Ph.D.

The Atlantic's Megan McArdle believes Ph.D. students are unbearable pricks:

The new graduate student's lack of humility is a stunning thing, perfect, seamless, and unbreakable. They begin issuing their opinions to anyone who will hold still on the assumption that the benighted masses have just been waiting patiently for a clever graduate student to explain How Things Really Work.

Why are grad students so arrogant? According to her "friend" with a Ph.D., the problem is that professors make them feel special... and so taking courses as a first year makes these students feel like hot shit:

For the first time in their lives, the students are treated like adults. They are in the outer circle of an intellectual elite, treated slightly more like members of the club than time-consuming nuisances. Their classes are smaller, and offer actual conversation with some big name professors. . . They start to feel like members of a special elite, privy to secret knowledge, cleverer than the normal run of people.

 The new graduate student, bolstered by the opinions of their professors, tends to become extraordinarily indignant at the notion that anyone would challenge them.

I don't know where McArdle's friend went to grad school, but I want to transfer.   In my experience, most Ph.D. programs are a little less "Welcome to our elite club, oh brilliant first year," and a little more "Make my copies, bitch."